Notebook Backup Crisis! - HELP!
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headshot
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Location: UK
PostPosted: Tue, 8th Mar 2005 20:06    Post subject: Notebook Backup Crisis! - HELP!
I work in a computer store where we sell and upgrade personal computers. Occasionally we get notebooks in but we primarily deal with desktop systems.

A customer of ours brought his notebook in, explaining it was totally infected with viruses and spyware and he wanted the data in 'my documents' backing up, the hard drive formatting and the operating system reloading.

I took his hard drive out of the notebook and put it in a caddy to connect to a desktop computer via USB so I could make duplicates of his data. I have done this before without any problems but on this occasion I was able to view the data on the notebook hard drive but any attempts at copying files failed.

I then decided I would put the hard drive back in the notebook and burn the files to multiple CDRs, however after putting the hard drive back into the notebook and booting into Windows, I was greeted by an ntfs error message. I thought little of it and rebooted only to that after loading, Windows would flash up a BSOD and immediately reboot.

It does this constantly, no matter which boot up option I choose. I then decided to repair the operating system by booting off the CD-ROM but instead of the partition being NTFS, it was displayed as UNKNOWN which leads me to believe the partition is corrupt or the drive is damaged. I dont think it is damaged since it shows up in the BIOS.

What would you do in this situation?
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skidrow
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PostPosted: Tue, 8th Mar 2005 20:15    Post subject:
what happens if you install windows over the existing windows?

or is it simular to:

"it was displayed as UNKNOWN which leads me to believe the partition is corrupt or the drive is damaged" ?


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whoKnows
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PostPosted: Tue, 8th Mar 2005 20:16    Post subject:
You have two options:

1. Take the HD out of the notebook again and plug it to an ide bus of another pc with an adapter (a good pc store always has these Wink ). After that you can boot the other pc and run easy recovery from ontrack and choose the appropiate method of restoring data again. You may want to use raw recovery if windows doesn't show anything from the drive in explorer.

2. the second option would be to leave the drive in the notebook and boot easy recovery directly from cd on the notebook. However i am not sure if easy recovery regocognizes usb/network devices. You would need a partiton or network device (ftp) to store the retrieved data. You you have no ftp you can use another usb device, but i'm really not sure if easy recovery supports these in dos.
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headshot
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Location: UK
PostPosted: Tue, 8th Mar 2005 20:41    Post subject:
First of all thanks for your replies guys. Now I have some solutions, Im sure Ill sleep better tonight! Very Happy

Skidrow.
I dont think I mentioned the operating system I am using is Windows XP Home Edition. I didn't think you could install XP over an existing installation and as such I haven't attempted that but if the file system is corrupted, I very much doubt Windows XP will reinstall on an unknown partition since it requires FAT32 or NTFS.

whoKnows
I am gonna get Easy Recovery and try your first option. Sounds like a great app if it works as well as what I just read about it!

I can't try anything yet because I am home at the moment and not back to work until tomorrow.

Any other replies and suggestions are welcome and greatly appreciated.
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whoKnows
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PostPosted: Tue, 8th Mar 2005 21:26    Post subject:
I read your post again, and i think before using Easy Recovery you should boot with Partition Magic first. Maybe PM can fix the partition or it shows the error code. If PM sees the partitions and shows errors numbers like #108 you might be lucky.

After that you can boot with ERD Commander 2005 and "mount" the XP OS on the hd. Now if that works you can copy the data directly to an usb disk or burn it to dvd if the notebook has a writer. I would do these steps first befor e using Easy Recovery because this program can take a while depending on the amount of data and the damage (even up to a few days)
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headshot
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PostPosted: Wed, 9th Mar 2005 18:04    Post subject:
I had no joy whatsoever with Partition Magic. All I got from it when I tried to run it was a bad partition table error and then the program closed. I then ran Easy Recovery and it passed a quick diagnostic scan. The full diagnostic scan failed with physical damage reported. I was unable to recover the data in my documents and ended up using the notebook recovery software to format and reload the operating system which went without a hitch. Thankfully the customer wasn't half as bothered about losing the data as I thought he would be and was just pleased I was honest with him rather than making out the corrupt hard drive was his own fault!

Thanks for your help and recommending Easy Recovery. I will use this software in future for any other similar situations.

EDIT: Woohoo! My 500th post! Very Happy
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whoKnows
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PostPosted: Wed, 9th Mar 2005 18:51    Post subject:
hmm, that's strange because EasyRecovery can restore data from partitions even if you make a new partition over the old one. I was talking about this product here: ( I just googled for it and found various products with that name from different companys)

http://www.ontrack.com/easyrecoveryprofessional/?pageTarget=Welcome&buttonName=EasyRecovery%e2%84%a2+Professional
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headshot
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Posts: 35967
Location: UK
PostPosted: Thu, 10th Mar 2005 19:27    Post subject:
I used Ontrack Easy Recovery Professional 6.04 but I guess it's no longer relevant since the situation has been resolved Smile


May the NFOrce be with you always.
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