Data Recovering when XP's removed itself...

[Presea]

Just to start off, I'm an artist, not a programmer. I can do the general things, I can work in BIOS and I can install hardware. I appreciate the help a great deal.

June 21st, I was trying to install a scanner (UMAX 2000U USB) on Windows XP Pro (I'd been using 98). Everything seemed to be going fine, though I've always had a lot of trouble installing the program for it. XP itself reconized the scanner right off, but when I tried to scan something, I'd always get just black. So, I restarted, and the computer would just freeze after getting past GoBack's screen. I tried checking on everything, and things were running normally.

So, I popped in the XP CD, and tried to see if I could just repair it. Instead, my computer insists that XP is nowhere to be found. I't's as if XP removed itself. I check back in BIOS, and all the data seems to be there, just as I left it.

I can't afford to lose the data on there, and I don't have backups. Years of artwork, writing, things I'd prepared for class, are all on there. A friend of mine said he'd help, but the most he did was rearrange the drives, and gave me a Linux disk to see if Linux could get through the lock that XP Pro puts on the drives. We used Lyconis Beta, and it sees the drive, but can't reach it. It might be because I didn't have the drive plugged in while putting the OS on the spare drive. XP Home was able to get in, but not see the data.

Thanks for any suggestions you can give me, I really appreciate the help.

 

[kshugart]

Presea

Remove GoBack! It has serious problems, like everything mysteriously vanishes!!

Ghosts in GoBack.

Your friend's help might have set you back and made the recovery more difficult.
Xp home and Pro are different animals, don't mix them, Xp home over XP Pro will overwrite critical system files and corrupt your MFT.

You need to revert everything that was attempted and start over.

From your post, the first problem was the drivers for the scanner, which the driver for win98 and XP are very different. If the scanner has software specific for XP, install first, reboot, then plug in device (scanner).

If this works, okay. You might need some other utilities to recover the data. However, if yoou need professional help we can help.

Klon Shugart
Data Recovery Specialist
CCNA/MCP2K/CDRT
Microsoft Certified Partners

http://www.adv-data.com

 

[Presea]

Thanks so much for replying, and your help. I look it over now, and I was more than a little vague.

My father, who's helped me in building my computer, always swears by GoBack, so I listened to him and put it on. As for getting it off, I've no clue how. The big thing is I can't access a thing in the computer, so my usual way of removing things is gone. The only way I know anything is there is from BIOS and having an OS on the other drive look at it, yet nothing can ever access it.

We didn't load on Home over XP, at least I know enough not to do that. We just tried attaching it as a slave to this computer, on the off chance that maybe the security permissions would work if I created an account using the same name, password, and settings as I'd had on the old computer.

Starting over shouldn't be a problem, all that we tried that stuck is on the spare drive, so I can just wipe it clean.

As for the drivers, the scanner is so old, I can't find support for it anymore. The CD itself says nothing about versions, just that it works with both Macs and Windows. I tried putting in the CD with the scanner connected, as you said, and nothing comes up. Just the same, blinking cursor that comes whenever I try and boot up from that drive.

Sorry about bothering you and all for this, but I really appreciate your help.