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Data Drive Recovery, MBR erros?

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by winthrop.polk 1 view

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HELP ME PLZ!

Okay,

My computer has 3 drives (80GB, 200GB and 750GB). I reinstalled Win XP on the 80GB where it is supposed to be.

Everything was going fine with system recovery after this until I stupidly installed a BIOS update. Then on reboot I got the error "....Error loading OS" on a black screen with nothing else.

I tried booting from the disk again and entered the recovery console to see if I could repair the problem caused by the BIOS update. I think I must have messed around with boot sector commands on the 750GB drive accidentally. The commands I messed with could have included FIXBOOT, and somethingMBR.

I determined that I could not repair this problem from here so I just reinstalled the OS. Now in Windows XP my computer, my 750GB data disk is showing up as 128GBs with zero data on it. I played around with a partition recovery tool last night (only scanning to see whats there). It found about 8 or 9 partitions, most of which were tiny. Only two were large stating about 698GB each. I tried to reinitialize one of these and was given an error; it appears that the info obtained via the scan was lost, so I am rescanning now.

Can I repair this problem from the recovery console? How? What else? Please help?

5 replies

by winthrop.polk

Your right, I shouldn't be messing with the drive, but I am hoping to restore the partition. very strange readings from computer:

Device manager:
says my 750GB drive is actually a 831GB and a 265GB drive, but they have no name nor drive designation.

My computer:
Does not show this drive or any of the proposed partitions.

get this, COmputer Management (right clicking my computer-->management) says:
IN TOP WINDOW:
2 untitled drives one 811GB and on 259GB
IN BOTTOM WINDOW:

Disk 1 - 104GB - 811GB - 259GB -92GB
unal. heal. heal. unal.
unal. - unallocated
heal. - healthy

DOS:
Can't navigate to that drive, should be leter e:/.

ARAX Disk Doctor:
Found like 9 partitions. two showed 698GB, the rest were tiny. Tried restoring one... failed.

Trying Knoppix now.

Any other suggestions other than forensics?

by oh smeg

Isn't a Forensic Tool it is a Partition Rebuilding tool and a very good one too I might add it's the best I have ever used.

However if this Data is [b]Important[/b] you need to send the drive off to a Data Recovery House as the more that you mess with it the less likely you are to recover anything and the more expensive you will make a Professional Recovery. Even then the Pro's are unlikely to get it all as you have deleted things.

What you should have done here originally when you Flashed the BIOS was to enter it and reset the Boot Options not touched the Recovery Console as that attacked what had become a Hardware Boot Drive by the changes made to the BIOS by updating it. You never need to update BIOS unless you have a current problem like a CPU not being correctly identified. The BIOS is always Hardware Related and doesn't offer any improvements over a already working Hardware Setup. It is not like Updating Windows which does sometimes offer Performance Improvements and always addresses some of the multitude of Security Problems associated with the Windows Operating System.

However if it would just be [b]Nice[/b] to recover the data and you don't really need it you can attack the drive with one of these applications

http://tinyurl.com/273ay5

http://tinyurl.com/rmvrv

http://tinyurl.com/yvrsl

http://tinyurl.com/yyk8cm

http://tinyurl.com/382vm

http://tinyurl.com/ynwnel

http://tinyurl.com/nc4kx

http://tinyurl.com/2wox7l

http://tinyurl.com/374d8b

http://tinyurl.com/djw6u

http://tinyurl.com/f73se

http://tinyurl.com/8bd3f

http://tinyurl.com/afu2j

While the last 2 are from the same company they are very different products. Win Hex should only be considered foe use by someone who knows Hex Inside Out while Davory is a great cheap General Purpose Application.

Personally I prefer the On Track Option but it's anything but cheap. However because I use this type of software a lot it's paid for itself many times over by now, for a cheaper option Spin Rite from Gibson Research or Stella have both very good reputations by other TR members.

In the past I have paid $56,000.00 to have a HDD Recovered but that had been dropped a very long way and was no longer working. Working Drives are no where near as expensive to recover but even still if you mess them up enough it will prove impossible to recover anything at all. ;)

Col

by winthrop.polk

THANKS YALLS:

1-found 1 partition called 750seagate (the name of the original partition) with knoppix, set to primary partion. Windows now shows this as a 0GB harddrive
2-in windows, used ARAX disk documentor to find files now that windows sees it.
3-recovered to new 1TB drive I bought for $91. Total recovered is about 313GB, at least 95% of my stuff, maybe all of it.

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