Hard Drive in BIOS but NOT XP!

[datasafe1]

Hi guys

This is a problem on a friends PC that I've been unable to resolve yet!

The symptoms:

His PC wouldn't boot kept comming up with the menu, start windows normally, safe mode, last known.... etc. Regardless of which option chosen the PC would simply restart and the same menu appear.

He has another PC and just wanted to retrieve his data from the hard drive so I removed the drive and connected it to a USB/IDE converter. Pluuged into the working PC but no USB drive was detected.

With time running late I brought the 'bad' drive home with me and installed it in my PC (secondaty IDE channel as master). The BIOS recognised the drive but WindowsXP didn't so it doesn't appear in My Computer.

I have Partition Magic installed on my PC which lists the drive without a drive letter and formatted Type 44. I believe Norton GoBack was used with this drive.

So my question is:

How can I convert or replace the partition on this drive with the NTFS file system and more importantly recover some of his user data?

Cheers

John

 

[vacunita]

Goback is a bad seed, in my experience it causes a lot of problems.



anyway, sounds like you'll have to get a Data recovery app, to read through the drive, and see what it can find.

Personally i recommend GetDataBack from runtime.org. a little pricey, but its worth it. And has a shareware version that will let you see what can be recovered, but wont actually recover it for you.

----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

 

[Freestone]

Before resorting to data recovery, you can always try adding GoBack to your PC or look at micker377 post for GoBack removal:

thread751-1261568

 

[datasafe1]

Thanks guys

In the intervening time I did run a data recovery program and have recovered a lot of files, probably all of them.

The only issue is that all the recovered files have been given meaningless names and recovered to folders depending on their type e.g. Doc, XLS, ZIP, TXT folders.

The fact that the data has been recovered is great, I just wondered if there was a way of preserving the original file names/folders?

I agree, Norton Go Back is a bloody disaster.

John

 

[G0AOZ]

Which data recovery programme did you use? Did it give you a variety of recovery options? I've usually found that if you use the "raw data" option, then you often get meaningless filenames and folders.

ROGER - G0AOZ.

 

[datasafe1]

O&O File Recovery

It actually did a great job. I was just wondering if there's any recovery program that would maintain file names and maybe even folder structure!

Perhaps that's expecting to much

John
GW0ACH & GW8VBV

 

[G0AOZ]

John, might be worth trying Get Data Back. It's one I've had a great deal of success with...

73, and CU on 80m ssb maybe?

ROGER - G0AOZ.

 

[datasafe1]

Used to be a great 80 & 40m mobile op but not been on for years!

Still have my Hy Gain TH11

I still fancy doing some mobile work, you never know.

73s de John

 

[Freestone]

Any reason why you don't want to install GoBack (I'd certainly image my C: first)? That appears to me to be the easiest option, followed by GoBack removal.

 

[datasafe1]

I guess it's because I've heard so many horror stories about GoBack and don't like to take the risk.

My C drive is 500Gig and has stacks on it so I'm guessing I'd need another 500Gig to do an image?

If everything went according to plan with GoBack, is it a case of just installing it and then removing it or will it want to convert my drive C: ?

The 'bad' drive is recognised in BIOS but not in WindowsXP. It doesn't have a drive letter asscociated with it and Partition Magic reports it as a Type 44 file system which is Norton GoBacks system I believe.

Cheers

John

 

[Freestone]

Partition type 44 is a GoBack partition (

http://www.win.tue.nl/~aeb/partitions/partition_types-1.html)

The symptoms you describe are exactly what a partition with GoBack installed presents to a system without GoBack. This problem used to appear on a weekly basis here, but is less common now.

I can't blame you for not taking the risk of just installing GoBack, which is why I advised imaging beforehand. And not having any personal experience with GoBack other than the forums here is another reason I mentioned imaging. I imagine it will want to install to C:, but I don't know if it gives you a choice.

An image size usually depends on the amout of space used on a drive. If you have a 500GB drive with a few GB used, your image will not be 500GB.

I just found these links on Symantec. They describe removal of GoBack changes without actual installation of GoBack:

http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPOR...id=2001092611363307&nsf=goback.nsf&view=docid

http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPOR...ack.nsf&view=8655ac7556510eca88256d4200687f49

Perhaps removing your 500GB hard drive and placing the other drive in its place and using one of the above procedures will help? In this case, I would image the drive in question to your 500GB drive just in case the above fails.