PARTITIONING PROBLEM

  • Thread starter Thread starter anon
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A

anon

i apologise to anyone who takes offence at my crossposting my question

i first posted several days ago, and got no reply, so i tried posting in a
few other NG's too - hoping to get a response

i wasnt EXACTLY sure WHICH NG it pertained to - there doesnt seem to be a
public NG for forensic or low level retrieval of lost files

i cant believe that NOBODY in 3 NG's has ANY suggestions for me.... so
please forgive my breach of NG posting etiquette

Merry Xmas & Happy New Year to All
 
Quit apologizing and tell us what your problem is!

Perhaps your other post was unclear, as is this one.

Re-post and state your problems, with any details that are pertinent to
them.

Merry Christmas,
JAX
 
Well, I tried searching for your original post and after scrolling through
about 25% of all the posts that showed up under the "From" ID of "anon," I
got tired of scrolling so I decided to try "Partitioning Problem" and your
current post and one response was all that appeared.

Now, perhaps we could be of some help this time around if we only knew
exactly what the question was? It's much better and heightens the
likelihood of a response if repost the question rather than making us go
hunt for it especially with absolutely no clue as to what to use a search
criteria for your previous post.
 
sorry for the long message - but you need to know all the details

i run winxp pro - two hard disks each partitioned.

i was fiddling around with creating an unnattended install disk,
intending it to re-install a fresh copy over my existing C: drive

however, without me catching it quick enough, for some reason, it
started installing it on my H: drive (first available partition on the
second hard drive) which contains very valuable data (and no... silly
me.. no backups)

i cancelled the install after about only 20 seconds, however, it has
&*%^&$ up the partition table & MBR (i think) as now the drive is
inaccessible. i tried command line chkdsk and all it says is that the
H: partition has free space marked as allocated, and tries to correct
it, but then gives error msg of insufficient disk space to fix it.

i have run partition magic pro to examine the partition - it is visible,
but inaccessible thru PM Pro - only option is to delete it entirely -
and it shows that the partition is full (as chkdsk also noted) however,
i know for a fact that it ISNT full - just been mis-allocated as full

in desperation i ran nortons windoctor - HOORAY - this managed to
somehow fix some of the file pointers, so i was then able to access the
drive as normal from within explorer. I tried to move all the files off
that partition to another one on the first physical hard disk, but a lot
of them give error msg of I/O device error - not accessible

GRRRR..... ive tried the recovery console - fixmbr and this said that
all partitions (3 of them) on the affected disk had been successfully
rewritten, however rebooting into explorer results in the entire disk
being inaccessible again..... back to norton windoctor to at least make
the files visible again

can somebody PLEASE help me reclaim these files. I am prepared to lose
a few files, but there are WAY too many of them affected here for me to
lose them all

im using NTFS... problem is not with windows itself. i am very happy using
windows - problem is my own stupidity trying to simplify myinstall process
by creating an unnattended install... when i had several partitions on the
physical drive i was using.

i had set "repartition" setting to NO, in the unnattended instruction file,
yet it did
not ask me which partition to set up on, (as the help file on creating
unattended installations said it would) and by the time i realised it was
installing on the wrong partition (not only the wrong partition, but the
wrong physical hard disk too) it was too late

my problem is the corrupted MFT / index structures, which are making some
important files inaccessible under windows. can anyone tell me how i can
manually (or otherwise) reset these details, so i can restore my files, move
them to new partition, and completely reformat the affected disk drive???
 
That's why you didn't get any answers. It sounds as though the partition is
pretty well hosed and whatever files are likely to be corrupt.

Nonetheless, since you can see and copy some of the files, this might be a
file ownership issue:
.. Note, file ownership and permissions supersede administrator rights. How
you resolve it depends upon which version of XP you are running.



XP-Home



Unfortunately, XP Home using NTFS is essentially hard wired for "Simple File
Sharing" at system level.

However, you can set XP Home permissions in Safe Mode. Reboot, and start
hitting F8, a menu should eventually appear and one of the
options is Safe Mode. Select it. Note, it will ask for the administrator's
password. This is not your administrator account, rather it is the
machine's administrator account for which users are asked to create a
password during setup.

If you created no such password, when requested, leave blank and press
enter.

Open Explorer, go to Tools and Folder Options, on the view tab, scroll to
the bottom of the list, if it shows "Enable Simple File Sharing" deselect it
and click apply and ok. If it shows nothing or won't let you make a change,
move on to the next step.

Navigate to the files, right click, select properties, go to the Security
tab, click advanced, go to the Owner tab and select the user that was logged
on when you were refused permission to access the files. Click apply and
ok. Close the properties box, reopen it, click add and type in the name of
the user you just enabled. If you wish to set ownership for everything in
the folder, at the bottom of the Owner tab is the following selection:
"Replace owner on subcontainers and objects," select it as well.

Once complete, you should be able to do what you wish with these files when
you log back on as that user.



XP-Pro



If you have XP Pro, temporarily change the limited account to
administrative. First, go to Windows Explorer, go to Tools, select Folder
Options, go to the View tab and be sure "Use Simple File Sharing" is not
selected. If it is, deselect it and click apply and ok.



If you wish everything in a specific folder to be accessible to a user,
right click the folder, select properties, go to the Security tab, click
Advanced, go to the Owner tab,
select the user you wish to have access, at the bottom of the box, you
should see a check box for "Replace owner on subcontainers and objects,"
place a check in the box and click apply and ok.

The user should now be able to perform necessary functions on files in the
folder even as a limited account. If not, make it an admin account again,
right click the folder, select Properties, go to the Security tab and be
sure the user is listed in the user list. If not, click add and type the
user name in the appropriate box, be sure the user has all the necessary
permissions checked in the permission list below the user list, click apply
and ok.

That should do it and allow whatever access you desire for that folder even
in a limited account.






--
Michael Solomon MS-MVP
Windows Shell/User
Backup is a PC User's Best Friend
DTS-L.Org: http://www.dts-l.org/
 
It wasn't cross-posting, it was just posted seperately to help_and_support
and has plenty of replies there if he bothers to look.
 
Thanks John. I didn't know if it was crossposted or not since this was a
different post and thread. But since he made no mention of where the other
post might be, I assumed one must have been on this board which is where I
confined my search. It was tough enough just scrolling through that list.
Given all the posts using "Anonymous@..." as an ID, can you imagine how many
would have come up had I used "anon" as the search criteria for the entire
server?<LOL>
 
thankyou for your response Michael

my initial apology was in reply to a posting complaining about all the
cross-posted messages - i had a feeling i was partly responsible for the
complaint as i have posted my problem in .basics, .help & support & .general

i saw one reply, which unfortunately didnt help my issue, but i appreciate
the response there too

sorry if im a bit vague... im posting this from my work computer, but the
problem is at home

i was not very clear, in hindsight though, with my description of my
issue.... the problem is not so much access denied messages now, but "cannot
perform operation due to I/O error" or something similar

subsequent chkdsks have revealed the first partition (the one windows
started installing on) is free of bad sectors, but has free space allocated
as used, but is unable to fix this. I have since moved as many accessible
files off that disk, to increase the free space, but still chkdsk refuses to
fix the free space allocated issue.

the OTHER 2 partitions on that physical disk are BOTH showing a very small
number of bad sectors, which chkdsk has now isolated.

my REAL question now is... once ive moved the still-movable files off these
partitions, how can i de-isolate the bad sectors, or at least, examine the
file structures at a lower level, to fix them, or at least, decide if they
are corrupted beyond repair, etc, etc

as always, any help and responses are greatly appreciated
 
No problem.

You can't isolate them and I wouldn't try. Bad sectors are the first sign
of a failing hard drive. Usually, it begins slowly and then cascades, it
just keeps getting bigger, much the same as a snowball rolling down a hill.
Couple the bad sectors with "cannot perform operation due to I/O error"
message you are getting and the best thing you can do is get as much of your
data copied to some place off your hard drive and get a new hard drive.

Your hard drive is failing.
 
thanx again for your reply Michael

im not trying to sound stupid - but is that the ONLY course of action for
me..... the drive is failing???

is there no other possible explanation?

you see ive had a fujitsu 20GB drive for about 4 years without any problem.

this affected drive is about 1 yr old Seagate - i bought it specifically for
Seagates renowned good & trusted name (not sure if still under warranty or
not - i will check that when i get home!)

i realise drives fail, but i would have guessed my old Fuji would crack
before the newer SG.

Also, is it PURELY coincidence this happened WHILE i was performing an
install of windows - then cancelled the install..... i was hoping it would
be something related, presumably not simple to fix, but still fixable all
the same???

i accept your response, but of course would prefer a more favourable
alternative solution!!!!!

Thanx again for you time and replies
Spinifex (yet another anonymous poster!!!)
 
anon said:
thanx again for your reply Michael

im not trying to sound stupid - but is that the ONLY course of action for
me..... the drive is failing???

is there no other possible explanation?

you see ive had a fujitsu 20GB drive for about 4 years without any problem.

this affected drive is about 1 yr old Seagate - i bought it specifically for
Seagates renowned good & trusted name (not sure if still under warranty or
not - i will check that when i get home!)

i realise drives fail, but i would have guessed my old Fuji would crack
before the newer SG.

Also, is it PURELY coincidence this happened WHILE i was performing an
install of windows - then cancelled the install..... i was hoping it would
be something related, presumably not simple to fix, but still fixable all
the same???

i accept your response, but of course would prefer a more favourable
alternative solution!!!!!

Thanx again for you time and replies
Spinifex (yet another anonymous poster!!!)



entirely -
Click to expand...

There is one other option. Try installing to the H drive
a letting windows setup complete, if possible, the
operation. Then run windows from the H drive and see if you
can access your files. If so copy all the data to CD s or
the other HD. Do that for all partitions. Then delete all
the partition tables on the offending drive using the
utilities that came for the drive. The set the drive up as a
new drive with all new partitions. If this doesn't work, you
may have to kiss all that data 'good-bye' in order to save
the drive.

--

Lester Stiefel

Try http://www.familyradio.com/index.html

You might just like it!!
 
All well and good but age is meaningless on a hard drive. I had 3 go in one
year and the warnings you are now getting are textbook for the beginning of
the end. It may just be the luck of the draw and you got a drive with some
built-weakness, you may have crashed and improperly shutdown or there may be
some problem device that may have a short that might be the source of the
issue, whatever the case, your best defense right now is a good offense, get
that data off the drive, worry about trying to save the drive when your data
is safe. However, given my own experience, I wouldn't trust any data to
that drive given the symptoms it's showing.

Hard drives are too inexpensive and data too valuable to play around with
this. Better you should get your data off the drive and it not fail then
you try a bunch of smoke and mirrors that makes you feel good but in end
loses all your data.
 
Hi, Anon.

If your inaccessible files are that valuable, you might want to try
R-Studio, from www.r-tt.com (about $80 US, although it's a Canadian
company).

Some momentary glitch (bad cable connection?) during bootup while I was out
of the room triggered Chkdsk on one of my NTFS volumes - 25 GB with about 10
GB of important data in it. Chkdsk bombed and never was able to recover.
Neither could Norton, OnTrack, Acronis or anything else I tried. I
downloaded R-Studio, installed and ran it, and had all of my most important
files back in an hour or two. (The rest of the files are available, but
I've been too busy - or too lazy - to complete the recovery and reformat
that volume.)

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP

anon said:
sorry for the long message - but you need to know all the details

i run winxp pro - two hard disks each partitioned.

i was fiddling around with creating an unnattended install disk,
intending it to re-install a fresh copy over my existing C: drive

however, without me catching it quick enough, for some reason, it
started installing it on my H: drive (first available partition on the
second hard drive) which contains very valuable data (and no... silly
me.. no backups)

i cancelled the install after about only 20 seconds, however, it has
&*%^&$ up the partition table & MBR (i think) as now the drive is
inaccessible. i tried command line chkdsk and all it says is that the
H: partition has free space marked as allocated, and tries to correct
it, but then gives error msg of insufficient disk space to fix it.

i have run partition magic pro to examine the partition - it is visible,
but inaccessible thru PM Pro - only option is to delete it entirely -
and it shows that the partition is full (as chkdsk also noted) however,
i know for a fact that it ISNT full - just been mis-allocated as full

in desperation i ran nortons windoctor - HOORAY - this managed to
somehow fix some of the file pointers, so i was then able to access the
drive as normal from within explorer. I tried to move all the files off
that partition to another one on the first physical hard disk, but a lot
of them give error msg of I/O device error - not accessible

GRRRR..... ive tried the recovery console - fixmbr and this said that
all partitions (3 of them) on the affected disk had been successfully
rewritten, however rebooting into explorer results in the entire disk
being inaccessible again..... back to norton windoctor to at least make
the files visible again

can somebody PLEASE help me reclaim these files. I am prepared to lose
a few files, but there are WAY too many of them affected here for me to
lose them all

im using NTFS... problem is not with windows itself. i am very happy using
windows - problem is my own stupidity trying to simplify myinstall process
by creating an unnattended install... when i had several partitions on the
physical drive i was using.

i had set "repartition" setting to NO, in the unnattended instruction file,
yet it did
not ask me which partition to set up on, (as the help file on creating
unattended installations said it would) and by the time i realised it was
installing on the wrong partition (not only the wrong partition, but the
wrong physical hard disk too) it was too late

my problem is the corrupted MFT / index structures, which are making some
important files inaccessible under windows. can anyone tell me how i can
manually (or otherwise) reset these details, so i can restore my files, move
them to new partition, and completely reformat the affected disk drive???
Click to expand...
<SNIP>
 
Thanx Lester for your input... i will try that tonite... if it doesnt work,
im destined to finish moving the ok files onto another drive (VERY tedious
process, as for some reason, when moving or copying files, from within
windows, when an error occurs, there is NO skip/Ignore option.... everything
stops, so you must isolate the bad file and re-highlight the good ones
again)

if not successful, i'll just reformat the drive - check again for bad
sectors, and resign myself to buying a new drive!!!

Lester Stiefel said:
There is one other option. Try installing to the H drive
a letting windows setup complete, if possible, the
operation. Then run windows from the H drive and see if you
can access your files. If so copy all the data to CD s or
the other HD. Do that for all partitions. Then delete all
the partition tables on the offending drive using the
utilities that came for the drive. The set the drive up as a
new drive with all new partitions. If this doesn't work, you
may have to kiss all that data 'good-bye' in order to save
the drive.

--

Lester Stiefel

Try http://www.familyradio.com/index.html

You might just like it!!


----== Posted via Newsfeed.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet News==----
http://www.newsfeed.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! >100,000 Newsgroups
---= 19 East/West-Coast Specialized Servers - Total Privacy via Encryption
Click to expand...
=---
 
Thanx again Michael for your input.

In desperation, im going to finish moving the OK files onto another drive,
then try Lesters suggestion for recovering the corrupted ones - then
reformat & start from scratch (and make backing up a regular thing!!!)

One new question tho... is there a MOVE function similar to XCOPY in
windows - or can u suggest a different "explorer shell" alternative that
offers a skip/ignore option when file transfers strike an error???

Within windows, if moving a batch of files (from within explorer) strikes an
error - it simply spits out a simple error message, with OK. Once you hit
OK, you must re-highlight the remaining files and drag/drop again. VERY
tedious with several thousand individual files... and it seems many
corrupted ones to interrupt proceedings.

Any thoughts anybody???

Thanx & Merry Xmas

Michael Solomon (MS-MVP Windows Shell/User) said:
All well and good but age is meaningless on a hard drive. I had 3 go in one
year and the warnings you are now getting are textbook for the beginning of
the end. It may just be the luck of the draw and you got a drive with some
built-weakness, you may have crashed and improperly shutdown or there may be
some problem device that may have a short that might be the source of the
issue, whatever the case, your best defense right now is a good offense, get
that data off the drive, worry about trying to save the drive when your data
is safe. However, given my own experience, I wouldn't trust any data to
that drive given the symptoms it's showing.

Hard drives are too inexpensive and data too valuable to play around with
this. Better you should get your data off the drive and it not fail then
you try a bunch of smoke and mirrors that makes you feel good but in end
loses all your data.

--
Michael Solomon MS-MVP
Windows Shell/User
Backup is a PC User's Best Friend
DTS-L.Org: http://www.dts-l.org/

anon said:
thanx again for your reply Michael

im not trying to sound stupid - but is that the ONLY course of action for
me..... the drive is failing???

is there no other possible explanation?

you see ive had a fujitsu 20GB drive for about 4 years without any problem.

this affected drive is about 1 yr old Seagate - i bought it specifically for
Seagates renowned good & trusted name (not sure if still under warranty or
not - i will check that when i get home!)

i realise drives fail, but i would have guessed my old Fuji would crack
before the newer SG.

Also, is it PURELY coincidence this happened WHILE i was performing an
install of windows - then cancelled the install..... i was hoping it would
be something related, presumably not simple to fix, but still fixable all
the same???

i accept your response, but of course would prefer a more favourable
alternative solution!!!!!

Thanx again for you time and replies
Spinifex (yet another anonymous poster!!!)

Michael Solomon (MS-MVP Windows Shell/User) said:
No problem.

You can't isolate them and I wouldn't try. Bad sectors are the first sign
of a failing hard drive. Usually, it begins slowly and then cascades, it
just keeps getting bigger, much the same as a snowball rolling down a hill.
Couple the bad sectors with "cannot perform operation due to I/O error"
message you are getting and the best thing you can do is get as much
Click to expand...
of
your
data copied to some place off your hard drive and get a new hard drive.

Your hard drive is failing.

--
Michael Solomon MS-MVP
Windows Shell/User
Backup is a PC User's Best Friend
DTS-L.Org: http://www.dts-l.org/

thankyou for your response Michael

my initial apology was in reply to a posting complaining about all the
cross-posted messages - i had a feeling i was partly responsible for the
complaint as i have posted my problem in .basics, .help & support &
.general

i saw one reply, which unfortunately didnt help my issue, but i appreciate
the response there too

sorry if im a bit vague... im posting this from my work computer,
Click to expand...
but
the
problem is at home

i was not very clear, in hindsight though, with my description of my
issue.... the problem is not so much access denied messages now, but
"cannot
perform operation due to I/O error" or something similar

subsequent chkdsks have revealed the first partition (the one windows
started installing on) is free of bad sectors, but has free space
allocated
as used, but is unable to fix this. I have since moved as many accessible
files off that disk, to increase the free space, but still chkdsk refuses
to
fix the free space allocated issue.

the OTHER 2 partitions on that physical disk are BOTH showing a very small
number of bad sectors, which chkdsk has now isolated.

my REAL question now is... once ive moved the still-movable files off
these
partitions, how can i de-isolate the bad sectors, or at least,
Click to expand...
examine
the
file structures at a lower level, to fix them, or at least, decide
Click to expand...
if
they
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
I don't know of one off hand which doesn't mean there isn't one, I just
don't have much experience in that area. Given what is going on with that
drive, I wouldn't use such a function. What you are likely running into is
a result of continuing problems with that drive and possibly the increase in
the number of bad sectors. Hence, with regard to your post above, it's
having trouble reading some sectors and that halts the move or copy
function.

In other words, even using such a command, you might still end up with the
same issue because as soon it as has trouble with a sector, the whole
function might be halted. I will say this, use a copy function not a move
function. If the move function is halted, you may loose everything you
tried to move.

--
Michael Solomon MS-MVP
Windows Shell/User
Backup is a PC User's Best Friend
DTS-L.Org: http://www.dts-l.org/

anon said:
Thanx again Michael for your input.

In desperation, im going to finish moving the OK files onto another drive,
then try Lesters suggestion for recovering the corrupted ones - then
reformat & start from scratch (and make backing up a regular thing!!!)

One new question tho... is there a MOVE function similar to XCOPY in
windows - or can u suggest a different "explorer shell" alternative that
offers a skip/ignore option when file transfers strike an error???

Within windows, if moving a batch of files (from within explorer) strikes an
error - it simply spits out a simple error message, with OK. Once you hit
OK, you must re-highlight the remaining files and drag/drop again. VERY
tedious with several thousand individual files... and it seems many
corrupted ones to interrupt proceedings.

Any thoughts anybody???

Thanx & Merry Xmas

Michael Solomon (MS-MVP Windows Shell/User) said:
All well and good but age is meaningless on a hard drive. I had 3 go in one
year and the warnings you are now getting are textbook for the beginning of
the end. It may just be the luck of the draw and you got a drive with some
built-weakness, you may have crashed and improperly shutdown or there
Click to expand...
may
be
some problem device that may have a short that might be the source of the
issue, whatever the case, your best defense right now is a good offense, get
that data off the drive, worry about trying to save the drive when your data
is safe. However, given my own experience, I wouldn't trust any data to
that drive given the symptoms it's showing.

Hard drives are too inexpensive and data too valuable to play around with
this. Better you should get your data off the drive and it not fail then
you try a bunch of smoke and mirrors that makes you feel good but in end
loses all your data.

--
Michael Solomon MS-MVP
Windows Shell/User
Backup is a PC User's Best Friend
DTS-L.Org: http://www.dts-l.org/

specifically
for
Click to expand...
warranty
Click to expand...
 
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