[RESOLVED] I have been humbled and i beg your help...

Hello master techs and techtresses...

So i was working on a 98se machine with a WD 15G hard drive when... BOOM!

So perhaps it was a bad troubleshooter floppy, perhaps it wasn't, but when i rebooted (after running troubleshooter on the video card only) a functioning machine with an OK install; windoze (and i guess the FAT) was gone.

"missing command interpreter", cannot DIR, cannot scandisk etc.

FDISK sees the drive drive (file system "UNKNOWN"), and FDISK/mbr did not help. Cannot read the drive in my tech machine either (looks unformatted but fdisk can see it--again file sytem "UNKNOWN").

Is there any way to recreate this partition so i can read this drive?? Or at least recover the data which shouls still be there??

Pleeeeze?

THANKSINADVANCE!!!

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Don't let the Muggles get you down...

Try to reset CMOS and go into bios and see if your HD is there.

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"Dyin ain't much of a livin',boy"

There are several drive recovery programs you can use that may recover some of your lost data even if the partition has been lost. I have had the best luck with Tiramisu. This is definitely not 100% reliable, but you can give it a shot.

yeah, i should have mentioned that the drive is showing in the BIOS correctly.

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Don't let the Muggles get you down...

Is there a disk overlay installed (ie. EZ-Bios)? If there was and u booted to the floppy without first hitting a key to access the floppy from the drive overlay, then everything will get screwed up if u try to alter the hard drive with your test disk. This is an unlikely scenario but might be worth exploring. It is far more likely a cmos (bios) issue.

no ez bios, but wouldn't the fdisk/mbr have wiped that out anyway?

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Don't let the Muggles get you down...

I would suspect a boot sector virus first. If none is found, head off to WD's page and grab their hard drive test. run it on the drive and see if it passes.

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If it aint broke......use a bigger hammer

Did you have antivirus running with up to date definitions. It honestly sounds like the Chernobyl virus, or Win95.CIH virus from a couple years ago.

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Soylent Green is People!!!! Its made of People!!!!!

Quote:

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<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by thirdfey:
Did you have antivirus running with up to date definitions. It honestly sounds like the Chernobyl virus, or Win95.CIH virus from a couple years ago.

</font>

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Yup, and what a nasty virus it was *shudder*

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If it's not broken....Fix it!

hook it up to a second computer as a slave, pull the data off and back it up, then F&F the drive or hook it up as a secondary and run partion majic to try to recover the partion

worth a shot

Try Symantecs "Lost & Found" Ive used it a couple of times now, and it seriously rocks. You will need a spare hard drive of equal, or greater in size, than the one with the fubar partition, and its pretty easy from there. Good luck https://forums.windrivers.com/

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Its like shooting fish in a barrel, in the head, at point blank range, with an elephant gun.

Quote:

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<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by thirdfey:
Did you have antivirus running with up to date definitions. It honestly sounds like the Chernobyl virus, or Win95.CIH virus from a couple years ago.

</font>

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I don't really think it's Chernobyl.
Chernobyl Virus Also Destroys the BIOS data (as my brother had it...)

It maybe some kind of other Viruses...

Any way to my Point - If any of the the above mentioned didn't fix the problem, i would advice you to:

1. First load Pqmagic - it can detect Numerous problems defacing FAT/MBR.
2. Tiramisu Program is Gr8 - Try using it too.

Good Luck
Gabriel


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It Works Better if you Plug it in, It Works far better if you Turn it ON!

Quote:

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<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by kubrick:
Hello master techs and techtresses...

So i was working on a 98se machine with a WD 15G hard drive when... BOOM!

So perhaps it was a bad troubleshooter floppy, perhaps it wasn't, but when i rebooted (after running troubleshooter on the video card only) a functioning machine with an OK install; windoze (and i guess the FAT) was gone.

"missing command interpreter", cannot DIR, cannot scandisk etc.

FDISK sees the drive drive (file system "UNKNOWN"), and FDISK/mbr did not help. Cannot read the drive in my tech machine either (looks unformatted but fdisk can see it--again file sytem "UNKNOWN").

Is there any way to recreate this partition so i can read this drive?? Or at least recover the data which shouls still be there??

Pleeeeze?

THANKSINADVANCE!!!

</font>

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Since the machine does have the "Kmart of Hard Drives" in it, the problem could be a hardware problem with the drive itself, though traditionally when WD's go, they don't spin up at all. What kind of machine is it? Some of the older BIOSes required a third-party program to setup larger hard disks, you might try setting it up with one of those.

Quote:

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<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by thirdfey:
Did you have antivirus running with up to date definitions. It honestly sounds like the Chernobyl virus, or Win95.CIH virus from a couple years ago.

</font>

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Agreed - worth to try it.

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Ruslan Khyzha

thanks team for all the helpful hints....

i actually can't scan 4 virii since i cant read the drive @ all with NAV from flops...
I did try that TIRAMISU (eval/unreg) ver sion and it read the drive like mad, but the reg fee is steep and i dont want to use the widely available cracks for customer use...
If only i could get the boss to spring for some of these utils....
Anywho he seems cool with low-level,f/f reload so i guess the data wasn't that important to him after all.

THANKS AGAIN ALL!


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Don't let the Muggles get you down...