HD no longer recognizable by XP pro once used in XP Home

Rod Speed · Jul 4, 2006

Rod Speed wrote

try reading it again-

No need, it was wrong then and still is now.

i made no such "original"

Says he after carefully deleting where he said just that from the quoting.

Its now back again right at the top.

there is nothing wrong with imaging the drive;

The exact opposite of what you said originally.

there are few simpler, quicker and cheaper
steps to take before that. that's all.

Nothing like you originally said.

uh... 132MB limit mean anything to you?

Irrelevant to whether sector imaging still works fine.

or "dynamic disk"?

You didnt say it was useless with dynamic disks and
you would have been just plain wrong even if you did.

there's a few things that can and do prevent imaging a drive-

Bugger all in fact in practice.

it's not cut and dried. it's a complex process with a lot of variables,

Bullshit it is with sector level imaging.

and suggesting it to someone on USENET with limited
amounts of verifiable information is not terribly responsible.

More mindlessly silly stuff. Wont do any harm over not doing one at all.

it's like telling someone with one squeaky brake that
they need to replace all their rotors and pads and
change out the brake fluid out "to be on the safe side"

Nope, nothing like.

neither you, nor me, nor "john doe" knows anything more
about this person's problems than what's been posted here-

Which is another damned good reason for imaging the drive for
safety before doing anything to attempt to make it usable again.

that's why i'm suggesting the quickest, safest, and easiest way out.

You did the exact opposite in fact.

and lo! it worked- everything is fine now, no need to
spend the better part of day yanking PCs apart and
fiddling with live CDs, spare hard drives, and gobs of time.

And as far as you ever knew, the result could have been completely different.

that's a load of mule muffins. partition information recovery is
harmless to your drive. TestDisk, which i recomended, and may i remind
you, *solved the problem*, is pathetically easy to use and very reliable.

Irrelevant to your stupid pig ignorant
claim TO JOE, that imaging is useless.

now, if someone had suggested fdisk, or chkdsk /r, that
would be wrong. restoring an MBR is safe as houses.

Irrelevant to your stupid pig ignorant
claim TO JOE, that imaging is useless.

OK- assume it's an 80GB consumer drive- she needs
another of the same maker or a bigger drive- that's $85.

Not if you have one available to use.

add in True Image, which is an excellent product, and that's $30-

Not if you choose to not pay for it. There are free imagers too.

now she's $115 in the hole and needs a PC that can handle
all the drives and do 2 - 6 hours worth of crunch time, AND
there's about a 1:4 chance of getting a corrupt image

Pig ignorant silly stuff.

AND doing sector by sector imaging on anything above the 132GB limit

Pig ignorant silly stuff when its done with a linux based imager.

is guaranteed to have a higher fail rate AND
might screw up a giant drive permanently.

More utterly mindless pig ignorant silly stuff.

so.... the quick, free, and safe option still
seems like the right one to me. go figure.

Yep, you're a fool that lives dangerously.

Nothing to 'figure' about that.

it's working out so far- i'll chalk this up in my "Win" column, and
you and John Doe can chalk it up in your "Sour Grapes" column.

Never ever could bullshit its way out of a wet paper bag.

MY way was the safe way.

Bare faced pig ignorant lie.

YOUR way was the long, expensive, complicated way.

Bare faced pig ignorant lie.

Spinrite is *not* the "10-minute diagnosis/recovery". duh.

Pity it was what JOE was suggesting might be worth
trying if more basic recovery approaches didnt work.

caterbro · Jul 4, 2006

Rod said:
No need, it was wrong then and still is now.

Says he after carefully deleting where he said just that from the quoting.

Its now back again right at the top.

oh, for the love of mike. here's a LINK to the orginal post i made,
that now seems to be getting such a LOT of sand in your vagina:

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt/msg/043ab348409be31b?dmode=source

you know, a LINK? click on it with your MOUSE, where all the funny
LETTERS and NUMBERS are? with your MOUSE? you know?

now what exactly are you trying to tell me i wrote? exactly, please?

Irrelevant to whether sector imaging still works fine.

no it's ****ing not, duh. the sectors aren't really there, you know?
they're like, virtual n stuff, and if your motherboard doesn't play
nice with it, YOU CAN"T GET A GOOD IMAGE.

You didnt say it was useless with dynamic disks and
you would have been just plain wrong even if you did.

Bugger all in fact in practice.

gee, seeing as how i do this at least a few time a week in a
professional capacity, i think i'll rely on my informed opinion and not
yours. imaging a drive is not more reliable than 1:4 and always a pain
in the ass.

Bullshit it is with sector level imaging.

dude, do you have a tiny clue? maker, model, of drive, of motherboard,
the software you are using, the way you are connecting the drives to
the board, the ****ing way you are booting the goddamned live cd or net
image- did you know about the PATA/SATA dual mode compatibility issues
on many motherboards not more than 2 years old? there's a ****ing
million things that could go wrong! what if its a 440BX she's using
with dynamic disks on SCSI and no BIOS level USB support? or anyone one
of a number of silly situations i could rattle off, most of which i've
seen- for christ's sake, I've seen BRAND NEW motherboards simply refuse
to function with certain models and brands of hard drives also BRAND
NEW let alone the MILLIONS of different combinations available in the
last 6 years.

Irrelevant to your stupid pig ignorant
claim TO JOE, that imaging is useless.
cite.

Irrelevant to your stupid pig ignorant
claim TO JOE, that imaging is useless.
cite

Never ever could bullshit its way out of a wet paper bag.

funny how my suggestion, very much akin to one several others made
before you poked your beak in, FIXED THE PROBLEM.

Pity it was what JOE was suggesting might be worth
trying if more basic recovery approaches didnt work.

no dimwit, Spinrite is what i suggested, as a far-distant hypothetical
if the quick safe, and easy way didn't work. at which point, the OP
could have imaged their goddamned drive and heaved to for the next
****ing week, because that's how long it would take to make an image or
two and run spinrite on anything bigger than 9.1 GB IBM Ultra.

carl

Rod Speed · Jul 4, 2006

(e-mail address removed) wrote

Rod Speed wrote

oh, for the love of mike. here's a LINK to the orginal post i made,
that now seems to be getting such a LOT of sand in your vagina:

you know, a LINK? click on it with your MOUSE, where all the funny
LETTERS and NUMBERS are? with your MOUSE? you know?

now what exactly are you trying to tell me i wrote? exactly, please?

Never ever could bullshit your way out of a wet paper bag.

YOU made this stupid pig ignorant claim

no it's ****ing not, duh. the sectors aren't really there, you know?
they're like, virtual n stuff, and if your motherboard doesn't play
nice with it, YOU CAN"T GET A GOOD IMAGE.

How odd that I can image my drives that are WAY over 132GB fine.

gee, seeing as how i do this at least a few time a week
in a professional capacity, i think i'll rely on my informed
opinion and not yours. imaging a drive is not more
reliable than 1:4 and always a pain in the ass.

You can keep repeating that pathetic little pig ignorant mantra
till the cows come home if you like, changes absolutely nothing.
Plenty of us manage to image drives EVERY TIME.

You cant manage something as basic as that ? YOUR problem.

dude, do you have a tiny clue?

Fraid so, dud.

maker, model, of drive, of motherboard, the software you are using,
the way you are connecting the drives to the board, the ****ing way
you are booting the goddamned live cd or net image-

Never ever could bullshit its way out of a wet paper bag.

Any decent imager handles that stuff fine. You're
stuck with a dud ? Makes a good match for you.

did you know about the PATA/SATA dual mode compatibility
issues on many motherboards not more than 2 years old?

You cant manage even the simplest stuff ? YOUR problem, as always.

there's a ****ing million things that could go wrong!

Cant even manage to count to 10.

what if its a 440BX she's using with dynamic
disks on SCSI and no BIOS level USB support?

Sure, there are a few situations where imaging isnt as easy.
But it make a hell of a lot more sense to image the drive when
its easy, as it is the absolute vast bulk of the time than to be
making a VERY spectacular fool with that stupid pig ignorant
claim you keep carefully deleting from the quoting.

or anyone one of a number of silly situations i could rattle off,
most of which i've seen- for christ's sake, I've seen BRAND NEW
motherboards simply refuse to function with certain models and
brands of hard drives also BRAND NEW let alone the MILLIONS
of different combinations available in the last 6 years.

You cant even manage the simplest stuff ? YOUR problem.

cite.

That stupid pig ignorant claim that you keep deleting from the
quoting and I keep restoring, you pathetic excuse for a bullshit artist.

cite

That stupid pig ignorant claim that you keep deleting from the
quoting and I keep restoring, you pathetic excuse for a bullshit artist.

funny how my suggestion, very much akin to one several others
made before you poked your beak in, FIXED THE PROBLEM.

Pure fluke when you had **** all info to go on.

And only a fool would use something a blow hard
like you suggests without imaging it first ANYWAY.

John Doe · Jul 4, 2006

there is nothing wrong with imaging the drive; there are few
simpler, quicker and cheaper steps to take before that. that's
all.

Quicker and cheaper, Yes. To take before that, No.

[Cloning is] a complex process with a lot of variables, and
suggesting it to someone on USENET with limited amounts of
verifiable information is not terribly responsible.

It's not that complex. Whether it's responsible depends on how
important their files are.

it's like telling someone with one squeaky brake that they need to
replace all their rotors and pads and change out the brake fluid
out "to be on the safe side"

No it's not. It's like telling them to duplicate that wheel in a
Star Trek replicator before they attempt to repair the brake. In the
hardware realm you cannot do that, but you can in the software
realm.

And the value of that wheel can be nearly nothing or extremely
high.

neither you, nor me, nor "john doe" knows anything more about this
person's problems than what's been posted here- that's why i'm
suggesting the quickest, safest, and easiest way out.

You are plainly wrong. Apparently you do not understand the basic
concept of software, that you can make a copy before you begin
messing with things.

and lo! it worked- everything is fine now,

That was a decision the original poster had to make. It would be
fine unless others might someday read your uncorrected advice.

no need to spend the
better part of day yanking PCs apart and fiddling with live CDs,
spare hard drives, and gobs of time.

You are a troll.

OK- assume it's an 80GB consumer drive- she needs another of the
same maker or a bigger drive- that's $85.

You mean $50 unless a friend has one. Or you could use DVDs.

In fact, you don't know if the original poster has access to someone
she did not want to ask for help at first. Posting to USENET is easy
and is sometimes a first step.

so.... the quick, free, and safe option still seems like the right
one to me. go figure.

Cloning a drive before you mess with it is the safe option.

It's just like copying a file before you edit it. Everybody in the
world knows that one.

it's working out so far- i'll chalk this up in my "Win" column,
and you and John Doe can chalk it up in your "Sour Grapes" column.

That was a decision the original poster had to make. It would be
fine unless others might someday read your uncorrected advice.

MY way was the safe way.

Either you are ignorant or you are lying.

John Doe · Jul 4, 2006

caterbro said:
Rod Speed wrote:

funny how my suggestion, very much akin to one several others made
before you poked your beak in, FIXED THE PROBLEM.

It was you who poked your beak in. The others replied to the
original post.

This is what you said.

"your drive no longer remembers what kind of partitions are on it.
cloning it would simply clone the "empty" disk. you need to restore
that memory in order to access the information in there"

If it were cloning an empty disk, recovery tools would not work. Of
course you know it's not empty.

Apparently there you are also suggesting that accessing the
information is all that's important. That is plainly wrong. Having a
copy of files is as important as accessing them. You need to
reinforce that concept to people who don't know better, unless maybe
you enjoy your job too much.

Others suggested what you did. I did not complain about their
suggestions. The original poster had to decide whether her files
were important enough to clone the drive before manipulating data on
the drive.

caterbro · Jul 4, 2006

Rod said:
Never ever could bullshit your way out of a wet paper bag.

how.... moronic of you.

That stupid pig ignorant claim that you keep deleting from the
quoting and I keep restoring, you pathetic excuse for a bullshit artist.

when *I* ask for a cite, that is, a "citation", that is YOUR cue to
provide ME with the original text, preferably in quotations, that you
are referring to.

that way, I could easily see whether or not you are under some
misapprehension about what i wrote originally. this is known as
"arguement".

in fact here's the link AGAIN:

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt/msg/043ab348409be31b?dmode=source

so lets try this agian: you quote me, make an objection to it, and i
will respond.

otherwise, you are full of shit. ripe, stinking shit, like a dead
coyote on the road with a cork up its ass and 8 pounds of rotting
armadillo in its bowels.

carl

caterbro · Jul 4, 2006

John said:
It was you who poked your beak in. The others replied to the
original post.

actually, made the first reply to the original post, suggesting the use
of TestDisk.

for brevity, here is a link to that first post i made, unrelated to the
discussion we are now having:

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt/msg/043ab348409be31b?dmode=source

the OP then replied and said that that had solved her problem:

http://groups.google.com/group/alt....built/msg/235f4a1709e3bc64?dmode=source&hl=en

This is what you said.

"your drive no longer remembers what kind of partitions are on it.
cloning it would simply clone the "empty" disk. you need to restore
that memory in order to access the information in there"

If it were cloning an empty disk, recovery tools would not work. Of
course you know it's not empty.

yes, that was a secondary reply i made to one of the OP's follow up
questions, and to some extent, i accept your criticism i could have
been more detailed.

however, i put the word "empty" in quotes as seen above, to indicate
that the drive was NOT actually empty- just that image would appear
exactly as the drive had- unformatted

Apparently there you are also suggesting that accessing the
information is all that's important. That is plainly wrong. Having a
copy of files is as important as accessing them. You need to
reinforce that concept to people who don't know better, unless maybe
you enjoy your job too much.

well, we will have to agree to disagree here- there is lots of
troubleshooting one can do before imaging a drive, and recovering the
MBR is one of them in this particular situation.

at the next level, i certainly would reccomend an image; i just don't
agree that it's the right first step here.

somewhere down the list, someone posting with a clicking hard drive- in
that case i would reccomend making an image ASAP- in fact, if the drive
were in operation, i would back up important files off the drive FIRST,
then attempt an on-the-fly image to an external drive, then a reboot
and image, since a drive with damaged heads may never work again once
it's powered down.

in that case, the fix could something obscenely simple, like an
overvolting PSU, but i would still reccomend backing up before all
else.

in this case, no. I don't think i'm being unreasonable, nor am i
offering poor advice to try a program like TestDisk before going
through the trouble of imaging a drive.

Others suggested what you did. I did not complain about their
suggestions. The original poster had to decide whether her files
were important enough to clone the drive before manipulating data on
the drive.

that's the trick of it- scanning the drive and/or attempting to restore
the MBR does not in any way manipulate the data on the drive, with the
obvious exception of the first sector of the drive.

carl

caterbro · Jul 4, 2006

John said:
Quicker and cheaper, Yes. To take before that, No.

we will simply have to move on in separate spheres on this subject.

i do appreciate the reasonable response.

You mean $50 unless a friend has one. Or you could use DVDs.

if you have a DVD burner and enough blank DVDs, and they are known for
the occasional bad burn too; you are stacking variable on variable,
here- as well as uneeded expense; that is my major objection, when, in
a case like this, the likely solution is essentially free. the
overwhelming benefit lies in taking the quickest, easiest way out,
since the risk is vanishingly small.

in other situations i would reccomend other practices.

Either you are ignorant or you are lying.

no, scanning a drive and looking for and/or recovering MBR information
is perfectly safe, provided you have the right tools

i submit that you are the one who is ignorant, unless you can tell me
in technical detail, why such a practice is unsafe. assume the original
situation (a drive that operates perfectly but shows up as
unformatted), and the use of reliable software, such as TestDisk.

carl

JAD · Jul 4, 2006

you are in the middle of what we call here the 'Troll Wars' Revenge of the
Shits.
You are at the proverbial dueling troll bridge. Each troll tries to out do
themselves for as long as they can keep it going. Bottom line...the thread
is over and after reading what fixed it I imagine this whole thing could
have been fixed with a 'FDISK /MBR' . The only tool needed was a dos utility
disk.

caterbro · Jul 4, 2006

JAD said:
you are in the middle of what we call here the 'Troll Wars' Revenge of the
Shits.
You are at the proverbial dueling troll bridge. Each troll tries to out do
themselves for as long as they can keep it going. Bottom line...the thread
is over and after reading what fixed it I imagine this whole thing could
have been fixed with a 'FDISK /MBR' . The only tool needed was a dos utility
disk.

oh, well, in that case, i retire from the field. i thought iwas one guy
with a obsession about drive imaging and a ding-a-ling from outer space
i was arguing with.

ta,

carl

John Doe · Jul 4, 2006

caterbro said:
actually, made the first reply to the original post, suggesting
the use of TestDisk.

If you know everything, that should have been enough for you.

... attempting to restore the MBR does not in any way manipulate
the data on the drive,

That's false.

with the obvious exception of the first sector of the drive.

You learn something new every nanosecond.

Not to mention what a low level utility can do in the hands of
someone who doesn't even know enough to keep a copy of important
files.

I probably would not have told the original poster how to clone the
drive because it was over her head (you butted in and provided that
information). My intention was mainly to scold her for not having
copies of important files.

People come here crying about potential/actual loss of files from a
failing or dead hard drive. Now that there are USB flash drives, we
can prevent that problem for many of them. Saving data to CDs/DVDs
is an era that won't be missed. I could go up and jump on your post
giving bad advice about that. Apparently you just had to chime in
on the subject. But instead I'll let the user decide for herself
whether she wants to screw around with CDs/DVDs (could be part of
the reason she currently doesn't have backups) or to do it the easy
way by simply dragging My Documents (and maybe others) to a USB
flash drive from within Windows Explorer.

John Doe · Jul 4, 2006

caterbro said:
Elora_Grace yahooo.com wrote:

hooray!!! now, make some backup CDs right away!

The era of messing with CD burners and awkward Windows
copying is at its end.

If all the original poster needs to do is backup My Documents,
backup CDs are obsolete. Instead, a USB flash drive might be
user-friendly enough to encourage her into making backups.

caterbro · Jul 4, 2006

John said:
The era of messing with CD burners and awkward Windows
copying is at its end.

the XP CD Burner is dead simple to use and bombproof. drag files to the
drive, click, "write these files to CD" and presto. hell, you can even
tell NTbackup to burn cds on a schedule- it'll automagically open the
tray for you, and spit it back out when finished. it ain't that hard,
it's cheap, and it's sturdy.

If all the original poster needs to do is backup My Documents,
backup CDs are obsolete. Instead, a USB flash drive might be
user-friendly enough to encourage her into making backups.

USB flash drives are not %100 reliable, nor are they permanent storage.
they have a life span, they are of radically mixed quality, they are
sensitive to electromagnetic interference, and recovering data from
them is exponentially harder than a HDD if they fail. don't rely on
them for a backup. use them for what they are intended for - file
transfers and general utility.

make a CD once a month, stick on the shelf, carry on as before. or
whatever, there's lots of answers.

carl

Rod Speed · Jul 4, 2006

(e-mail address removed) wrote

Rod Speed wrote

when *I* ask for a cite, that is, a "citation", that is YOUR cue to provide
ME with the original text, preferably in quotations, that you are referring to.

I quoted your pig ignorant shit in the usual way, only to have you repeatedly
delete it from the quoting, you pathetic excuse for a bullshit artist.

Rod Speed · Jul 4, 2006

actually, made the first reply to the original post, suggesting the
use of TestDisk.

for brevity, here is a link to that first post i made, unrelated to
the discussion we are now having:

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt/msg/043ab348409be31b?dmode=source

the OP then replied and said that that had solved her problem:

http://groups.google.com/group/alt....built/msg/235f4a1709e3bc64?dmode=source&hl=en

yes, that was a secondary reply i made to one of the OP's follow up
questions, and to some extent, i accept your criticism i could have
been more detailed.

however, i put the word "empty" in quotes as seen above, to indicate
that the drive was NOT actually empty- just that image would appear
exactly as the drive had- unformatted

well, we will have to agree to disagree here- there is lots of
troubleshooting one can do before imaging a drive, and recovering the
MBR is one of them in this particular situation.

at the next level, i certainly would reccomend an image; i just don't
agree that it's the right first step here.

somewhere down the list, someone posting with a clicking hard drive-
in that case i would reccomend making an image ASAP- in fact, if the
drive were in operation, i would back up important files off the
drive FIRST, then attempt an on-the-fly image to an external drive,
then a reboot and image, since a drive with damaged heads may never
work again once it's powered down.

in that case, the fix could something obscenely simple, like an
overvolting PSU, but i would still reccomend backing up before all
else.

in this case, no. I don't think i'm being unreasonable, nor am i
offering poor advice to try a program like TestDisk before going
through the trouble of imaging a drive.

that's the trick of it- scanning the drive and/or attempting to
restore the MBR does not in any way manipulate the data on the drive,
with the obvious exception of the first sector of the drive.

Only a fool or someone in a situation where imaging the drive
isnt feasible would be stupid enough to run something that a
blow hard like you suggests without imaging the drive first.

John Doe · Jul 4, 2006

A conceited troll attempting to "baffle 'em with bullshit".

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Newsgroups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
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Xref: prodigy.net alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt:470276

John said:
The era of messing with CD burners and awkward Windows
copying is at its end.

the XP CD Burner is dead simple to use and bombproof. drag files to the
drive, click, "write these files to CD" and presto. hell, you can even
tell NTbackup to burn cds on a schedule- it'll automagically open the
tray for you, and spit it back out when finished. it ain't that hard,
it's cheap, and it's sturdy.

If all the original poster needs to do is backup My Documents,
backup CDs are obsolete. Instead, a USB flash drive might be
user-friendly enough to encourage her into making backups.

USB flash drives are not %100 reliable, nor are they permanent storage.
they have a life span, they are of radically mixed quality, they are
sensitive to electromagnetic interference, and recovering data from
them is exponentially harder than a HDD if they fail. don't rely on
them for a backup. use them for what they are intended for - file
transfers and general utility.

make a CD once a month, stick on the shelf, carry on as before. or
whatever, there's lots of answers.

carl