How to get windows to leave a disk alone

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Guest

I'm trying to recover data off a disk. The drive is almost completely
non-functional, but of course Windows refuses to leave it alone and so is
destroying the data while I try to recover it.

Can anyone give me some tips on services to disable etc. that will stop
Windows automatically trying to read and write to a disk all the time?

Thanks in advance,
Aaron.
 
Aaron said:
I'm trying to recover data off a disk. The drive is almost completely
non-functional, but of course Windows refuses to leave it alone and so is
destroying the data while I try to recover it.

Can anyone give me some tips on services to disable etc. that will stop
Windows automatically trying to read and write to a disk all the time?

Thanks in advance,
Aaron.
Click to expand...

Consider removing the hard drive from the computer, put it
into an external USB/Firewire HD enclosure and try to recover
the data via that route.
 
Thanks, but this isn't really what I'm looking for (and it also doesn't
include the numerous boot services started by Windows).

Aaron.
 
Aaron Oxford said:
I'm trying to recover data off a disk. The drive is almost completely
non-functional, but of course Windows refuses to leave it alone and so
is
destroying the data while I try to recover it.

Can anyone give me some tips on services to disable etc. that will
stop
Windows automatically trying to read and write to a disk all the time?
Click to expand...


So you want to use Windows to access the drive to retrieve files from it
yet you don't want Windows to "touch" that drive. You do but you don't.

You don't mention HOW you intend to recover files from the bad drive.
If the partitions are FAT32, why not use a bootable DOS floppy? If
NTFS, you can get NTFS-DOS for free which lets you read (and only read)
from NTFS partitions when booting using DOS. UltimateBootCD has an ISO
image to create a bootable CD and it includes NTFS4DOS (I haven't used
it in a long time so I'm not sure how you boot with it and then get to a
DOS prompt that also loads NTFS4DOS but their site or CD should explain
it).

If you insist on booting into Windows (to do other stuff other than
recovery), you could in the meantime use Disk Management to NOT assign a
drive letter to that device which makes it hidden.
 
If your booting onto it, then you will not be able to stop windows from
messing with the disk.

-Randy
 
Randella said:
If your booting onto it, then you will not be able to stop windows
from
messing with the disk.
Click to expand...


I had assumed the OP was trying to access this as a second physical hard
drive and was not booting from it. It would be so obvious that Windows
would need to access that drive if it was booting from it that I figured
even a boob would understand that the drive would get accessed. When
recovering data off a disk, as the OP said, you don't use that disk for
booting the OS. Would be like the idiot standing on the tree branch
that they cut from the tree.
 
Well when we assume it makes an a$$ out of U and me.

No offense intended I am just covering all the bases, you never know
who will post stuff on here and what their skills really are...

Some people shine like the sun and others just kind of glow a little...

-Randy
 
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