Trying to make a long story short. Had problems with Norton Anti-Virus [2001] and attempted to repair with rescue disk I made when I bought the program. After that, I lost access to my hard drive and can't start my computer without putting the Norton floppy rescue disk in the slot first. Then it still doesn't boot for some reason. The C drive has 5 gigs used on a 20 gig hard drive but I can't get to it. I would install a new hard drive if I thought that would help BUT I desperatly need that 5 gigs of information. How can I get the information out?
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Can't get information from Hard Drive
- Thread starter Markie37
- Start date
Usual steps are:
1) Use EBD to boot, then sys c:
2) Use EBD to boot, then fdisk to see partitions and 1 active
3) Use EBD to boot, then fdisk /mbr
If your EBD fails , then try downloading one from one of the sites like or do a google search for others. Ed Fair
unixstuff@juno.com
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.
1) Use EBD to boot, then sys c:
2) Use EBD to boot, then fdisk to see partitions and 1 active
3) Use EBD to boot, then fdisk /mbr
If your EBD fails , then try downloading one from one of the sites like or do a google search for others. Ed Fair
unixstuff@juno.com
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.
If edfair's system does not work you can force a rebuild of the boot sector using both Norton DiskEdit and Norton DiskDoctor. But it is complicated and delicate.
You hex edit the HD with DiskEdit and overwrite the first 10 sectors of the first cylinder with all zeroes. Then use DiskDoctor to analyze the disk - it will find and rewrite the boot sector and partition table entries in the boot sector.
The DiskEdit session is not necessarily for the faint of heart. It is not hard, and if you do exactly as I mentioned (I can give perfect instructions if you wish) no problem - but if you botch DiskEdit by fooling around it can corrupt the data on the HD - permenently.
All this assumes you (a) are using FAT or FAT32 partitions, (b) that you are not using a boot sector overlay, (c) that you didn't use things like Partition Magic to modify the boot record and partition tables after the initial creation (it still might work but Partition Magic and other programs may modify the format of the HD beyond what DiskDoctor can recreate).
Your mileage may vary...
You hex edit the HD with DiskEdit and overwrite the first 10 sectors of the first cylinder with all zeroes. Then use DiskDoctor to analyze the disk - it will find and rewrite the boot sector and partition table entries in the boot sector.
The DiskEdit session is not necessarily for the faint of heart. It is not hard, and if you do exactly as I mentioned (I can give perfect instructions if you wish) no problem - but if you botch DiskEdit by fooling around it can corrupt the data on the HD - permenently.
All this assumes you (a) are using FAT or FAT32 partitions, (b) that you are not using a boot sector overlay, (c) that you didn't use things like Partition Magic to modify the boot record and partition tables after the initial creation (it still might work but Partition Magic and other programs may modify the format of the HD beyond what DiskDoctor can recreate).
Your mileage may vary...
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