Unmountable Boot_volume

[mdolls68]

My question is what is this? I bought a new Compaq Presario 2.8G P4 Laptop last week. It has XP Home on it. This morning when I went to turn on the laptop, it didn't turn on. The AC adapter was plugged in. Switched outlets. Both outlets had been working fine. Adapter cable is like new. Nothing spilled on the computer. Didn't have time to fiddle more with the laptop, but it wouldn't turn on at all. No lights. Nothing. Laptop was not dropped or anything.

Anyway, later this morning, my husband said it did turn on and he got a blue screen and it said, "UNMOUNTABLE BOOT_VOLUME" and had some other instructions with it.

What is this? The laptop is only a week old. Is this an XP problem? a Hard drive problem? Other problem?

For those responding, please respond in easy layman's terms. I'm not savy on all the technical jargon that may exist.

Thanks,
Molly

[Ya_know]

Have you tried Compaq Tech support? If it's a week old, you need to contact them right away for warrantee support...

[DocPC]

In laymans terms if it is indeed new, it should under warranty.....call Compaq.

Seems it can't find the MBR. I doubt if you have the proper CD to go to the repair console and repair it as you usually get recovery cd's or none at all.

[geoscomp]

Call the place where you bought it immediately...some stores..such as best buy for example..warranty things themselves and offer only a 90 day warranty unless you pay extra..

[NooNoo]

Welcome to Windrivers mdolls68!
Sorry to here about that, but the advice is good, don't go tinkering with it when its only a week old, it could be anything from a hardware fault to a virus.

[ScorpioIlya]

Like DocPc said..its an MBR problem most likely..........since the only other time that happens is when u move a windows install to a completely different type of system..and it can't mount the drive because it lacks the drivers. In that case its also an MBR problem actually :)

My advice, if you want to avoid warranty..in order from FASTEST/EASIEST, to longest: ....is to

1. Run fdisk /mbr from a windows 98 boot floppy

if that fails:
2. Download Bootmaster freedos from nonags.com in the disk utilities section.

3. Boot from the floppy, and then rewrite the MBR

4. Use a windows xp home cd, boot from it, and run a fast repair on it. If that fails....run a 'repair install'. (I think actually windows will choose which one to run).

-This is all assuming that the bios recognizes the drive, and the partition info is intact..because otherwise windows wouldn't even GET to that point. That's just my 2 cents.

[Ya_know]

In laymans terms, don't listen to ScorpioIlya .

[slgrieb]

Ya_Know is 100% correct! If you have WinXP DO NOT attempt any fix with Win98 utilities. XP has got its own repair utilities, but really, you need to make the vendor fix this. Don't accept no for an answer if they give you any crap about an issue that isn't covered under warranty, either.

[Escape_Driver]

I know ScorpioIlya means well but I think the right command is fixmbr in the window repair console (correct me if I'm wrong) .... But if you were my customer I would just take the laptop back and repair or replace it.... Thats my 0.02$

[eurobyn]

just boot with youre xp cd and choose R fot repair (follow on screen )
then you will enter the recovery console
once you are in the recoverey console just type in
chkdsk /r
then press enter
after that have finisched just type exit en restart youre computer
and let it start windows normal.

now youre problem is solved.

my 2 cents
eurobyn

[geoscomp]

Of course, none of this will fix whatever problem caused the power supply to malfunction in the first place..just take it back and get it replaced or repaired

[Ya_know]

just boot with youre xp cd and choose R fot repair (follow on screen )
then you will enter the recovery console
once you are in the recoverey console just type in
chkdsk /r
then press enter
after that have finisched just type exit en restart youre computer
and let it start windows normal.

now youre problem is solved.

my 2 cents
eurobyn

I had a dell that would require this fix once a week. I was not going to buy a new hardrive to try to figure out why it kept happening, or whether it was even the drive itself...it was out of warrantee, and a company PC...a company that went out of business. The point to be made...if there is something wrong with the machine, why should she fix it, if it is under warrantee? Additionally, as many here have pointed out, because it is a Compaq, she probably doesn't have an XP install CD, just a restore, therefore she can’t use the recovery console.

Judging by her expression of “layman” I have to guess she doesn’t want to deal with this for very long on here own. Hence, everyone has already given her the best advice…let the manufacturer handle this.

[eurobyn]

if they accept this as warranty !!

because soft does not get warranty
it could be the lang way

if they use warranty
back to dealer , then back to compaq ,then after a restore set used
back to dealer and then back to customer..

i think 8 day's

running the recovery console could fix the problem....

if it isnt working then warranty repair

(it could be the harddisk that fails but it could be anything ! )

what they deside
the pc is under warranty,try to make use of it...
or help yourself.

[NooNoo]

We are debating in a vacuum, let us wait for a reply from mdolls68 and then we will find out what they decided to do.

[Ya_know]

Compaq support will walk her through a restore over the phone; she doesn't have to take it in. However, the issue will be documented, and if it happens again, it can be sure that they will have to address the potential of a hardware problem.

I don't see the vacuum analogy. I was thinking more of an empty paper bag.

[NooNoo]

last word syndrome Ya_know? :D

[Ya_know]

last word syndrome Ya_know? :D

What, you think you can top me!?! http://smiley.onegreatguy.net/packin.gif

[Escape_Driver]

Now now you two play nice

[NooNoo]

:D

[Ya_know]

:p :p

[ScorpioIlya]

the fdisk /mbr is not a windows 98 utility...its a standard dos one..that has nothing to do with what os u use..........fdisk does recognize ntfs, and besides, rewriting it has nothing to do with what os you use. For some reason fixmbr under win2k and winxp, do not do anything what so ever for me...and yes i've gotten fdisk /mbr to work in an IDENTICAL situation........please have something to backup your claims, when you shut down someone else's.......

[slgrieb]

Scorp, you might want to read the following: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;q314058
and http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;297185

[mdolls68]

Ok, some of you guys have me a little confused. I can understand the take it back and have Compaq or the place I bought it from deal with my laptop. I did call Compaq/HP and got some guy with a British Indian accent trying to help me through the problem after trying to explain to him as slowly as I can the problem. Apparently there were some language issues. Anyway, it came down to him saying that I did something to the computer like deleting some shared files. That is a possibility, but frankly, I don't recall doing that. And, my computer was not being used at the time it went dead. He sort of treated me as if I was somewhat of an idiot, which I didn't really appreciate. He said my alternative was to do a Quick Restore, which would reformat my hard drive.

The Quick Restore might have been an option had I not had a bunch of files on there that I needed that I didn't have a backup (yeah, a no-no...but I was planning on doing my first backup this weekend....too late...I know). I can't redo the files, and if I cannot get them back, they are lost forever. If I chose to do the Quick Restore, I wouldn't have called HP nor written here and just did it.

He then said I can take it into a HP center and they can try to get the files off my harddrive, provided they can, but it will cost me. I'm thinking, what the heck. A few choice things popped into my mind, but I held my tongue.

So, I decided to take it to a friend's computer shop and he told me that nearly everything was wiped off my hard drive with the exception of a couple segments of the XP OS. Great. He says the files I was wanting are long gone. He said that it was not a virus that caused it. He sees these types of things happening all the time to people. He couldn't tell me what happened to cause this.

My question is, what is this happening all the time and how did it happen? Later when I had come home to look at the laptop before calling HP or taking it into the computer shop, I didn't see the unmountable boot volume error, rather something called a Missing NTDLR or something like that. I can't remember. What a mess.

So, it's my understanding that even when a HD is reformatted, it isn't totally wiped clean of its previous files. There is still a way to recover files, possibly. So, I'd like to understand how I can do this. Someone at work said that this can cost me in excess of $1k. I don't have that kind of money. I want to recover these files and then take the laptop back to Best Buy and have them remedy this situation.

I can't accept that my laptop can just crash like that under normal usage. I didn't do anything weird. I'm not a first time computer user and am a reasonable user. I've taken apart my desktops and rebuilt them (5 yrs ago). I just don't see how this happened. If need be, I'd want Best Buy to replace my laptop, and if it means spending even more on a better system like a Sony Vaio, I'm prepared to do so.

Ok, sorry this is long winded. I've hardly had any sleep (have a newborn who is a heavy feeder and does not sleep through the night), coming down with something, and totally stressed out at work...on top of my laptop and other issues. Please bear with me. Any other helpful suggestions?

Thanks,
Molly

[DocPC]

Molly, do you have a floppy or CD in any of the drives?

[slgrieb]

Sorry you're having all the computer problems, but congratulations on the offspring! Anyway, you say your friend looked at the drive and it appears to be toast. Well, I'm not sure what exactly was done to the machine, but here are a few suggestions. These are things I would do if I had the drive in to troubleshoot.

1. If your friend hasn't run some drive diagnostics like Microscope, Troubleshooter, Drive Fitness Test or whatever, he should do so to eliminate a failing drive as the source of your problem.

2. If the drive passes, he should use an XP CD to boot from and use the recovery console to repair the disk. If you have set up a password for the Administrator profile he will need it to perform the repair. Once in the recovery console, he should run chkdsk /r , exit the recovery console and then attempt a normal start.

3. If the system still does not boot into Windows, go to the recovery console as above, but instead of of chkdsk, run fixboot c:

4. If the system is still not running, or it has been reformatted, etc. it may be necessary to perform some data recovery operations on your drive. This doesn't mean you need to send it to a clean room or a data recovery service.

Your friend may have his own preferred recovery software, but I like Get Data Back from: http://runtime.org/ Ideally, this software works best if you remove the hard drive from your computer and install it in a system that has the data recovery software installed, but you can run the recovery over a network, too.

Why do these things happen? Well, first of all humans make the parts, so they are by nature imperfect. More to the point the computer industry has become so price-focused that there is almost no quality control left in the industry.

If you have data that must be recovered and none of the suggestions above worked, (or any of the alternative posts) send me a private email and I can refer you to some recovery services that charge you a flat rate with no minimum charge

[ScorpioIlya]

If you have nothign to lose , edited by NooNoo - Scorp, we are here to help not tout for business........christ..it takes 2-4 hours to do this....add the drive to a working system, and use some software that recovers from formatted volumes...........then burn it onto a cd and ship it back.....big whoop......even at 75 an hour its still 300 bucks at most............unless the driev is failing mechanically, there IS a way to recover data......very easily.......

This happened to my ex gf btw.......her hard drive failed, and compaq said her stuff was unrecoverable, and sent back the drive to her, and a new one with a fresh os install...i spent 4 hours with pc inspector (the only utility i knew at the time, and it being my first time doing this type of thing), and was able to find the partition that had her stuff (even though there were like 8 bogus ones......and was able to pull her docs off of it....admittedly, the drive slowed down my WHOLE system...and crashed my computer twice (on windows 2k server), BUT it did have the files.........its DOABLE...no matter what these shops tell you......its all about how much effort they wanna put into it....and how (in)competent they are. Remember, most people in IT, are money-grubbing idiots, just like anywhere else in the world......

remember.... the phrase "it can't be done" = "offer me more money".....

[NooNoo]

Getdataback is a great utility, but this free one has got me out of a hole before pc inspector (http://www.webattack.com/get/pcinspector.shtml)

There might be physical damage to the drive, the thing is that doing this sort of stuff you are going to head up a steep learning curve.

If you want to do this, we can teach you, I suggest you download pc inspector and see what it can find on the drive. Do you have another computer connected to the net? If so we could talk you through this in chat.

Is your friend sure your files are gone? Did he attempt any file recovery? To be honest if he was your friend and s/he is any good at his job, s/he would have downloaded a file recovery trial to see what could be got back and shown you.

You are right not to take this at face value.

Your decision now is, how badly do you want those files back, is the work re creating them more or less than trying to recover them?

Compaq lappies are no worse than any other laptop. Swapping to a Sony would just buy a more expensive laptop which does the same things and can break the same way.

[mdolls68]

Wow...you guys are really responsive. I've never been in a forum with so many responsive people. My friend's shop that we took the laptop to...it was one of his employees that dealt with me. That's neither here nor there because he failed to explain to me what happened, blah, blah, blah. I can't accept his explanation. He didn't say my harddrive was bad, so I'm assuming it isn't. I'll call him and ask.

I know that there have been hard drives that have faced fires and other things like that and data has been retrieved. Plus, the comments you guys (or gals) have made makes me think my friend's employee, HP/Compaq were just giving me a pat answer and not really wanting to help me further with this problem because it was the quick answer.

Yes, I do have 2 other computers (desktops) hooked up to the internet (cable modem) through a wireless router; however, none of the computers are networked. My husband does not want my desktop to be networked to his desktop (doesn't want anything I do to screw up his video projects for his clients). So, for now, I'll assume we only have my Compaq desktop (350 MHz....ancient) to use.

Yes, I'm willing to go through whatever steep learning curve to get those files from my harddrive. Why not? If you guys are willing to help walk me through, I'm willing to learn & go through it. I'm not sure what your (whomever that is) time schedule is, but I'm leaving for work shortly. Will be back later in the afternoon and I should be here for most of the day Saturday. I'm in Arizona (Mountain Standard Time).

Thanks,
Molly

[mdolls68]

Doc PC, NooNoo, Slgrieb, and others,

The laptop does not have a floppy, rather a DVD+RW. I do not have an external floppy. Is this what you were asking or were you asking if I physically had a floppy or CD in the drive? If it is the latter, no there are no CDs in the DVD drive.

And, in response to a different post. I do not know what diagnostics software was run at my friends' company to check to see what was left on the HD. My husband last night ran a data recovery demo software on the laptop and it came up with nothing. The software he used was at: http://www.data-recovery-software.net/Data_Recovery_Download.shtml#demo

He was able to load XP Home back again onto the computer, but right now I have to leave for work and don't have time to see what else he did.

When I get back home, I'll try PC Inspector and see what that says. If it comes back with nothing, I'll try the other suggestions that were posted.

Now is as good of a time to learn as any. See you guys later.

Thanks,
Molly

[confus-ed]

Oooo ! Everyone is already confus-ed ! :D

Errr ummm, my this all seems like 'muchos hard man' ! :D :D

My take on it :-

Since we have a 'friendly computer wiz' in the wings get him to make an image of your drive as it is now, with ghost or whatever (he'll understand that) ... then either send the bloody thing back, or restore it with the recovery disk, but make sure you at least tell 'em (in case it is hardware & we have future problems lurking - just like Ya_know said)...

Then it should be perfectly feasable to attempt data recovery on the image (again the friendly wiz can do that or diy ...)

& good luck with your newborn, I unlike most guys (having to do it all myself) remember sleepness nights & 'squarking' very well indeed ! :)

Edit: too damn late I see :rolleyes: - if Hubby has got xp back on it, whatever was there before is almost certainly 'effectively' gone (none of those online proggies you find will get it back anyway ;) ).

[geoscomp]

But lets not lose track of the first problem..the computer would not turn on at all, and showed no evidence of battery power or the charger/ac adapter being plugged in. This seems to point to an electrical event of some kind being the root cause of the hard drive problem...and still needs to be checked out.

[ScorpioIlya]

Oooo ! Everyone is already confus-ed ! :D

Errr ummm, my this all seems like 'muchos hard man' ! :D :D

My take on it :-

Since we have a 'friendly computer wiz' in the wings get him to make an image of your drive as it is now, with ghost or whatever (he'll understand that) ... then either send the bloody thing back, or restore it with the recovery disk, but make sure you at least tell 'em (in case it is hardware & we have future problems lurking - just like Ya_know said)...

Then it should be perfectly feasable to attempt data recovery on the image (again the friendly wiz can do that or diy ...)

& good luck with your newborn, I unlike most guys (having to do it all myself) remember sleepness nights & 'squarking' very well indeed ! :)

Edit: too damn late I see :rolleyes: - if Hubby has got xp back on it, whatever was there before is almost certainly 'effectively' gone (none of those online proggies you find will get it back anyway ;) ).


It depends on how fragmented his hard drive was, and where on it, the new xp files were installed..its quite possible some of the files are still around, hiding under a long-gone partition table.....something like pc inspector can pull it off............it might crash a coupla times......but it might work :)

[ScorpioIlya]

& good luck with your newborn, I unlike most guys (having to do it all myself) remember sleepness nights & 'squarking' very well indeed !

what the hell is squarking?......damn it......

(goes and adds 1 more question for potential wives-to-be questionaire..."how well do you handle squarking?")

[slgrieb]

All right! Proving once more that I just don't know when to shut up... Molly and confus-ed, yes some of these online proggies (proggies?) can actually recover data for you in spite of a reformat. Again, I (ouch) don't know everthing out there on the market, but Get Data Back has been very, very good to me. I have used it to recover data from drives that were so bad that the BIOS didn't even recognize them. A customer recently brought in a drive that he needed data from which he had actually Fdisked twice and formatted twice, once in FAT32 and once in NTFS. I got one hundred percent of his data recovered, which is not too shabby for a $79 program. Believe me I have spent much more on recovery software that doesn't work as well. I also know one of one company specializing in forensic data recovery that uses GDB routinely.

One nice feature is the network recovery tool. you can download a client to install on the machine with the data to be recovered, install the main program on a different computer and do the recovery via network or serial connection. It is painfully slow, but you don't have to pull the drive. Anyway you can run most of the operation at night while you are... oops! not sleeping anyway are you? You can also save the recovery operation and resume it from where you left off if need be. A trial download is free, and it does everything but the actual recovery. Bear in mind that the more the machine is used, the more unlikely complete recovery becomes. Just in case you want to know more or give the program a try, here's the link again http://www.runtime.org/

[confus-ed]

'Squarking' = waaaaaaaaaaaaah ! Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! (and that mad little sobbing noise newborns make) ad infinitum ;) - its dialect where I live

Just a point on formating/repartitioning & writing data back on a disk .... Yup its perfectly feasable to recover data after a format (no data written except to either FAT of MFT -so lets build another), Yup its perfectly feasable to recover after repartitioning (only mbr is recreated - & they aren't in the data area anyway so no files 'really' lost) but start writing data all over the place & your chances of recovery go down hill fast, windows setup tries to write in very specific places on any disk - its designed to - so it specifically places any swap file 2/3 of the way onto the disk for instance - trouble is it obviously writes just where stuff was before, then with xp you've that lovely self tuning mechanism where it caches prefetch files all over the shop, the swap files busy being as large as it likes, setup itself uses about 5 times as much space as the final install if its available & then does a big fat cleanup , etc etc ... my take on it was if you had to ask in the first place, I don't rate your chances with someone elses data recovery tools as something has probably been there already - sure it might still be possible, but every write to that disk makes it less likely ;) & you have to pay for the damn things before they'll actually get you back what they reckon they can - I figure anything at home can't be worth all this ... :)

[Grateful_Dad]

Ok , my 2cents. I just went through this for a friend. She wanted to upgrade her scabbed copy of xp to the real deal - not paying attention, she chose to format and not repair the install. upon reboot, no docs etc...
now that means this drive was reformatted to ntfs and xp pro installed ontop of xp pro.
I used getdatabackntfs and got 80% of what she wanted back (including some pix she had previously lost by deleting on old install) IT CAN BE DONE - I DID IT !! and boy was i surprised....
with that being said - the easiest way would be to get a 2.5 inch hard drive usb case and hook up drive on other system - run get databack on it - see what happens. You can download demo version which will show you what files it can find - but beware, not every file will be able to be opened. for my friend - i had to open som docs with wordpad or notepad and copy paste good text - gave her cd of recovered file ( over 1,000) and she went through rest to find what was actually good.
This means :
1. removing hard drive from notebook ( usually a screw)
2. Putting it in a USB case
3. Hook up to other PC
4. run getdataback or similar
5. cross fingers.....

Hope that helps

[mdolls68]

So, would it be a waste of time to run PC Inspector and should I just do GetDataBack only?

A couple questions:

1. The GDB instructions say to install its software on a working Windows computer. And, attach the laptop's HD to this computer as a slave. The Windows version the GDB would be installed on is Win'98 and the 2nd HD is XP Home. Win'98 is a FAT based system. XP Home is NTFS. Since the files are on the XP HD, the NTFS?

2. How do you make an image of your HD?

3. Ok, now I'm confused. I'm reading in a different area of GDB site and XP and Win'98 can use either FAT or NTFS.

I guess I can try both and see which actually gets the files in the right way?

[confus-ed]

So, would it be a waste of time to run PC Inspector and should I just do GetDataBack only?

A couple questions:

1. The GDB instructions say to install its software on a working Windows computer. And, attach the laptop's HD to this computer as a slave. The Windows version the GDB would be installed on is Win'98 and the 2nd HD is XP Home. Win'98 is a FAT based system. XP Home is NTFS. Since the files are on the XP HD, the NTFS?

2. How do you make an image of your HD?

3. Ok, now I'm confused. I'm reading in a different area of GDB site and XP and Win'98 can use either FAT or NTFS.

I guess I can try both and see which actually gets the files in the right way?

Either Product may or may not do the job with varying levels of 'ability'. (that'd be preference ;))

Its telling you to slave any disk to be recovered to try & avoid more writing taking place on it, as I commented earlier the less writing that has happened the better your chances of getting any files back, obviously the product used must be able to understand both file systems concerned FAT & NTFS

You can use either fat or ntfs with xp (that's down to the options you choose in setup). 98 however only understands FAT based file systems & won't 'see' any ntfs area.....

You make an 'image' of your cd with some imaging software (my that's informative :D - it does a sector by sector copy, different from just copying any files) the best known example is symantecs Ghost, there are others...

Yup you can use either, but without paying for the full version I don't think either will actually let you write the recovered result, which is pooh really as until its actually recovered you can't say for sure that its been recovered 'correctly' - just because it thinks its found a file - it ain't ! - its found the start of file marker, whether it manages to recover any subsequent parts of the file (files very rarely are 'saved' as just one bit as far as the file system is concerned, generally they are small bits (4k) 'linked' by a series of offset pointers which point to the next bit) , you won't know until after your 'full' version has written it back to disk :eek2:

[ScorpioIlya]

Either Product may or may not do the job with varying levels of 'ability'. (that'd be preference ;))

Its telling you to slave any disk to be recovered to try & avoid more writing taking place on it, as I commented earlier the less writing that has happened the better your chances of getting any files back, obviously the product used must be able to understand both file systems concerned FAT & NTFS

You can use either fat or ntfs with xp (that's down to the options you choose in setup). 98 however only understands FAT based file systems & won't 'see' any ntfs area.....

You make an 'image' of your cd with some imaging software (my that's informative :D - it does a sector by sector copy, different from just copying any files) the best known example is symantecs Ghost, there are others...

Yup you can use either, but without paying for the full version I don't think either will actually let you write the recovered result, which is pooh really as until its actually recovered you can't say for sure that its been recovered 'correctly' - just because it thinks its found a file - it ain't ! - its found the start of file marker, whether it manages to recover any subsequent parts of the file (files very rarely are 'saved' as just one bit as far as the file system is concerned, generally they are small bits (4k) 'linked' by a series of offset pointers which point to the next bit) , you won't know until after your 'full' version has written it back to disk :eek2:


pc inspector is free. that's why I recommended it. Did you see me suggesting this person running out and buying or pirating copies of software.......no......obviously there's like r-studio, on track easyrecovery, and a bunch of others......but..they cost money.....so.....pc inspector is a quick and free solution...free was the point i think, since this person doesn't have the budget for this.

[slgrieb]

Hello Molly! Hope you're getting some rest. But I'm kinda wishin' confus-ed would give it a rest. First off let me say that I like PCInspector. It's good, it's free. Still, I have just had better success, personally, with GDB and I like the network recovery feature. You have to remember, when you read these posts, that everybody's experience is different. Hey, feel free to experiment with some different programs.

I think we really need to address confus-ed's constant thread of " well, the program may say it can get it but there aint no way to be sure, etc" Actually, there is. GDB includes file viewers that will open many common files like jpgs. If you are trying to recover, say, MS Word files, and you have Word installed on the computer doing the recovery, you can open the recovered files and examine them. With the FREE trial version. Before you buy it. OK. Is this horse officially dead? Can we bury the damn thing before it starts to stink?

Runtime Software's website has lots of online help, tutorials, yadda. They are also located in Arizona, so they are on your clock. The staff is helpful, speaks English as a primary language (no "Dude, you're getting a New Delhi!" syndrome) if you need to give them a call.

Almost certainly, your drive is formatted in NTFS file system, so GDB for NTFS is the appropriate version. It runs under Win98 just fine. But you can run either triial version of GDB. As long as you are installing the recovery programs on some computer other than the one that contains the data you are looking for, and you don't write much to the laptop, you can experiment with and compare several different programs. These posts aren't rules, they're more in the way of guidelines.

I really hope that all this has been more helpful than confusing, and good luck!

[confus-ed]

Hello Molly! Hope you're getting some rest. But I'm kinda wishin' confus-ed would give it a rest. First off let me say that I like PCInspector. It's good, it's free. Still, I have just had better success, personally, with GDB and I like the network recovery feature. You have to remember, when you read these posts, that everybody's experience is different.

I really hope that all this has been more helpful than confusing, and good luck!

So ... numpty ain't that what I said ?

How can I say from here without the flipping disk, which 'util' will have a better chance of getting stuff back completely intact ? If infact either will, my experience is that both 'lie' & that you think you can fully recover stuff only you find later that your file is corrupt & that the real proggies won't infact read it at all, yet the util said it would .... that HAS been my considerable experience...

This dudes is a home user, so they are gonna take their lappie apart, get a converter so they can slave it into a.n.other machine, then use whatever util, do the recovery (if it will, which after all this activity on a laptop sized hard drive which probably only has a relatively small capacity & is therefore more likely to have been overwritten by any re-install) oh & then put it all back together in a working state.

The solution would appear to be more work than 're-doing' !

My point is that 'we' generally are skilled hands, what may be appropriate for any of 'us' to try, really is quite different from what you ought to be advising someone without 'expertise' to be undertaking ...

Now you can take that as a flame if you feel so inclined, but I'd suggest you were just thinking about how YOU might achieve this, not someone who had to ask about it all in the first place ... :)

[slgrieb]

Hello -ed! No, I don't take your remarks as a flame, just your opinion, and all of us got one. What I like about GDB is 1. you do not have to pull a drive to use it. The network recovery works just as well, albeit much more slowly. 2. before you buy it you can open and read the files it says it can recover to see it they are worth the price. Sure, some of the recovered files will be trash, but most of the recent files will be just fine. Even if they have been overwritten. No, you can't just save the recovered files or edit them without buying the program, but you can examine them and make an informed decision, so what's wrong with that? 3. the software is simple to use, on screen instructions are clear, online help is excellent, phone support is superb. This is not just software for experts.

Yes, no matter how you slice this, data recovery entails a fair ammount of time and effort, but you and I can't decide if all of it is worth it to someone else. I have seen people break down and cry over hard drive crashes because thought they had lost years (of course they had no backup) of genealogy research and family photos. Don't know what Molly had on her drive and don't really care about the specifics. I just want her to know that her data is almost certainly recoverable at a reasonable cost, without sending the machine to the shop, and without being a professional computer tech.

[slgrieb]

Well, back again. Sorry. Just in case I have failed to make this clear, the real programs installed on the machine performing the recovery with GDB can read the recoverable files generated by the free version, before you pay for it. You just can't save or edit them. This applies to any files, not just the formats for which GDB has native viewers. If you buy the software and then save the recovered files, you will still be able to open them with their native application. No smoke and mirrors. I use this program frequently, and it really does just what it says.

[NooNoo]

Network recovery - you are assuming slgrieb they have the ability to network.....

Either way molly, I hope you wanted to learn about all this!!

[mdolls68]

Ok, found out the hard drive was having some issues and parts of it was bad. After reading the stuff on the Getdataback site, it said that if the HD is bad, then then it can't get recover the data. I'm still upset about that, but decided that my energies were best figuring out how to salvage what was left of it.

I returned the Compaq laptop to Best Buy. They verified the HD was bad and allowed me to either get another Compaq laptop or get something else. I ended up getting a Sony Vaio. The desktop we have has been pretty good, so hope the laptop will be good.

Thanks to all for all their suggestions & help. You guys are great!!!!

[mdolls68]

Oh, I will be doing daily backups of my stuff from now on. Lesson learned. And, you guys taught me some great stuff. I look forward to learning more about other stuff (hopefully not the hard way, though) from you guys. :-)

[NooNoo]

Our pleasure Molly, now make sure you get some rest when the babe does....

[mdolls68]

Sleep? Sleep? Ahhhh....you don't have young children, do you? That's when I get work at home done, when he's asleep. Or, if he's asleep, my very active, curious 3 yr old daughter is up....sigh....heehee

[NooNoo]

Sleep? Sleep? Ahhhh....you don't have young children, do you? That's when I get work at home done, when he's asleep. Or, if he's asleep, my very active, curious 3 yr old daughter is up....sigh....heehee


My daughter slept for no more than 2 hours at a time, then was awake for 4 - 6 hours for the first 7 months of her life.... believe me I know what you are going through. ;)

[Telemar]

This sounds like a case for loading NOSMOKE, if your power supply is compatible!