non-windows 2000 disk

  • Thread starter Thread starter Derek
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D

Derek

hi there,

I have been out of town for a holiday and when yesterday
finally back home, I found out my d-drive cannot be read.
there is a disk checking screen comes up and saying that
my d-drive is a "non-windows 2000 disk". I cannot access
that drive in anyways, does anybody know what to do?

my d-drive is a Western digital 80GB hdd and have a lot of
valuable information, I really appreciate any helps.

thx

Derek
 
Hi, Derek.

It sounds like a hardware problem and it may be as simple as dust or
corrosion.

First, we can't see your computer, so we don't know if your "d-drive" is a
second partition on your first hard drive, or a second hard drive, or a
CD/DVD drive - or WHAT? We don't know if it is internal or external; IDE or
SCSI or USB or ???

Can you just unplug and replug the cables and connectors to that drive?
Quite often, mild corrosion builds up on the connectors. We used to use a
plain pencil eraser to wipe off edge connectors. Most drive cables these
days use connectors full of little pins. Simply unplugging the connector,
then plugging it right back in, removes the faint film that has built up.
Usually the biggest problem is opening the case, then getting our fingers
into position to pull the plug and THEN putting it back aligned correctly.
:>(

If that doesn't work, post back with more details and we might be able to
help.

In the meantime, be careful with any disk repair program. If it
misunderstands what it sees on the drive, it could "fix" something that
ain't broke - and that might break it for sure! :>( In fact, try not to
let anything write to the drive until you are confident that it is being
read correctly. Take it out and put it into a different computer if
necessary to diagnose it properly. It may be a simple dust or corrosion
problem, as I said, but it also could be something more serious.

RC
 
thx a lot for helping me out n i am sorry for the lack of
information.

I have 2 IDE hdd in my computer, both 80gb western digital
hdd. the first 80gb hdd is partitioned into 2 pieces (c:
and e:) and the second 80gb is used as a whole piece (d:,
which is the one with trouble). i connected this two hdd
with the same cable, with the second one (d:) being a
slave.

Only one OS is installed in c:, which is win2000 SP4. d:
and e: is not bootable.

I have tried to plug/unplug the cable, remove all other
IDE hardwares (dvd-rom/cd-rw), make the faulty hdd as
master, tried read the hdd with my fd's computer, but all
without success.

Also i have tried to use a diagnosing tools (provided by
Western Digital) to check my hdd, but it reported that the
hdd is totally fine (surprise you rite? it surprises me
too).

the bios can see the hdd, just that i cannot access it.

and the full descrption of what i see when i reboot is as
follows:

first, the machine starts normally, no abnormal sounds or
other weird things.

then it arrives in a disk checking screen (which is same
as the one sometimes appears when i do not shut the
machine down properly). then it says that my d-drive have
to be scanned for consisency. it points out that it is a
FAT32 partition (which is correct as long as i can
remember). but then it says "The specified disk appears to
be a non-Windows 2000 disk". it asks "continue?" but the
only options is "no" (i can not type anything and the
word "no" is appeared by default)

after that i can enter windows a bit slow than usual,
which is not surprise as i know it have trouble reading my
d:. i can use my windows like usual. but if i open "my
computer" or "windows explorer", it takes about 2 min to
start. i can see my d: in windows explorer, but without
the correct labelling. i cannot read or write on it, and
there is error message appear when i try to click into it.


if you still need any more information, just let me know.
i really appreiate any help.


Derek
 
Hi, Derek.

Well, I waited for a week, hoping someone else would jump in with
suggestions, but it looks like it's just you and me here. Thanks for the
additional info about your system and about the symptoms.

First, the short'n'sweet version: First, make sure nothing writes to your
D: drive until you've given up on getting anything more from it. Then, buy
R-Studio (at your favorite computer store or online - see below). Run
R-Studio and recover your files from that drive to a folder on your good
drive. (You may need to get a third HD to use for storage - at least
temporarily.)


Now, for the VERY long version: Your symptoms remind me of what I saw on my
own computer last Spring. I was eventually able to recover nearly all my
files, but not quickly and not without trauma. All this was in WinXP Pro,
but it should be identical in Win2K Pro.

My system has 3 HDs. The first is a 9 GB SCSI; it is partitioned into C:,
which is my "system drive" (the one I normally boot from) and D:, which is
my "boot volume", where WinXP XP Pro is installed. My second and third HDs
are Maxtor IDEs (30 and 120 GB), now connected to a Highpoint RAID
controller on my EPoX mainboard (but not using RAID). These two HDs are
partitioned with minimal (8 MB) primary partitions on which I've installed
WinXP's "system files" so that I can boot from either of these HDs (if I
want to or need to) by changing settings in my BIOS. The rest of each
Maxtor is an extended partition holding two or more logical drives. From
time to time, I delete and recreate logical drives, as my needs change. The
120 GB drive gave me "more room than I'd ever need", so I left half of it
unallocated. The 30 GB was divided into 25 GB for my main Data drive (E:)
and 5 GB for a second copy of WinXP (X:). The first 60 GB of the 120 was
M:, for music, photos, archives, and other especially bulky files. The
small system partitions (1 on each HD) are formatted FAT12 for maximum
compatibility; all the others are NTFS. With all this hardware to
initialize, my computer normally takes 3 to 5 minutes to boot up, because it
has to detect the SCSI BIOS, then the SCSI drive, then the RAID BIOS, then
the two IDE drives, etc., all before it even gets to start loading Windows,
which also loads a couple of background programs before it's ready for me to
take control.

One morning last Spring, I turned on the computer and went for a cup of
coffee while it booted. When I came back, Chkdsk was running! This was
definitely not normal for my computer. It apparently had already "fixed"
Drive X: and was working on E: - these are the two volumes on the 30 GB
Maxtor. It had found errors on X: and "corrected" them and was having
problems with E:, which it was not able to fix.

By the time I regained control, both X: and E: were damaged beyond Chkdsk's
ability to repair. I got weird error messages, such as "wrong diskette in
the drive". Drive X: was expendable, but E:, remember, was the 25 GB volume
holding about 10 GB of my most important applications and data. :>(

The first rule in such a situation is: Don't let ANYTHING write to the hard
drive that holds information you want to recover! So, I created a 25 GB
logical drive in my unallocated (Whew!) 60 GB on that 120 GB drive,
formatted it, and named it "Data (New)". I reassigned the old Data drive
the letter Z:, then assigned E: to the new volume. (All this partition,
formatting, letter assigning, etc., are done with Disk Management, of
course.)

I reinstalled applications on my new E: volume and recovered as much data as
I could from M:, CD-R/RWs, etc., and any other backup scraps I could find.
My system was crippled, but operable. And I made sure never to write to
Z: - actually, I couldn't, because Windows could not even read its
directory.

I tried many recovery techniques, starting with Chkdsk, of course. I tried
DiskEdit from the old DOS versions of Norton Utilities; the FixIt utilities
from OnTrack (now sold to V-Com); DiskEditor Demo version from Acronis; and
others, but nothing helped. Finally, after about 3 months, I downloaded
R-Studio ($80 from www.r-tt.com) and ran it. R-Studio did the job! It
found files and moved them to a new folder on my still-mostly-empty Drive
M:, from which I could complete the revival. (By the time I recovered my
Quicken files, of course, they were out of date, since I had restored a
backup and added entries to it.) It took several passes (and I still
haven't completed the recovery of the less-critical stuff) but I had my most
important files back within an hour or two and lots more in a day or two.
The rest of it is there, but I still need to translate names of files and
folders from the generic names that R-Studio assigned.

Sorry for the long recitation, but I wanted to let you know that (a) you are
not alone, and (b) there's always hope, so long as you don't let anything
overwrite your data. It is likely to cost you money, either to hire a disk
recovery service (BIG bucks, usually) or to find, buy, learn and use a
competent recovery utility program. Only YOU can decide how much time and
money YOUR data is worth TO YOU.

My theory as to what caused my problem in the first place is the same as I
said in my first message: a cable problem (dust, corrosion, faulty cable?)
that caused a momentary glitch during that bootup while I was out of the
room. Chkdsk probably offered me a chance to cancel its operation within 10
seconds, but I didn't see that, so it went ahead and tried to "repair" what
really wasn't broken. :>( The problem was not on the HD at all; it was in
the cable that garbled the signal from the drive, leading Windows and Chkdsk
to think that the HD had a problem. All the disk tests I ran (from Maxtor
and others) confirmed that the HD itself is fine. And that disk has given
me no new hassles in the 9 months since the disaster. I've reformatted the
5 GB logical drive X: a couple of times and installed stuff there with no
problems.

Any day now, I'm going to run R-Studio one more time to complete recovery of
whatever useful files may still be on Drive Z:, then reformat it, restore
its letter E:, and move everything from the new E: back to it. Then I can
delete that new E: volume and recover its 25 GB on the 120 for future use.

And I still hope someone else can jump in here with a better solution.

RC
 
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