need some help HDD problems

Ned Flanders · Post by **Ned Flanders** » Wed Oct 30, 2002 5:55 pm

Long post ahead...you've been warned

Having a problem with Dell Inspiron 8000 Notebook PC.

The HDD crashed rendering the system unbootable. Vital data on machine. Early diagnostic test indicated some corrupted sectors on the HDD.

Troubleshot the boot process (win2k pro) on a file by file basis. Would copy new file to required directory (\\winnt\system32\config or \\winnt\system32\drivers and so on) as the boot process failed naming which file. There were a total of ten files, I believe.

Note: Doing a fast repair when booting via win2k pro CD mentioned no OS could be found. didn't want to reinstall over the top as profiles and mydocs directory were important

After replacing file by file, received a HDD inaccesable BSOD (I don't remember mem addresses off top of head) when rebooting. I was also unable to boot into safe mode (yielded same error).

at this point, I called Dell, notebook was under warranty and a new HDD was shipped. All good. Get new drive, remove faulty drive, reinstall OS, machine functions.

Now: still need to get data off bad drive.

At this point I pick up CMS's Data transfer kit for laptop. Use bad HDD as a second drive by connecting via PCMCIA slot. The new win2k installation sees the old HDD. All good except when I try to access the documents and settings folder under \\winnt, the HDD just grinds away.

Thus, I've been foiled time after time. Anyone out there (flibble, HLD) got any good cost effective ideas for retrieving this data. I realize an OnTrack or some other similar company could pull it off for a couple of grand, but I'm not interested in paying nor is my company that kind of cash for this data retrieval.

Any questions, any answers???

Mr Flibble · Post by **Mr Flibble** » Wed Oct 30, 2002 6:08 pm

What file system are you using on the dead drive? FAT16/32 or NTFS? And have you tried a disk checking program like scandisk or Norton Disk Doctor. It may be trying to read from bad sectors, so moving the data to a good area of the drive first may help.

Another possibility is PowerQuests' Lost and Found. It is DOS based only, but is an excellent choice for data recovery off dying HDD's. For this you'd need to set up the bad drive in a 2.5" mounting kit for a desktop system. The software itself is no longer being made, but should still be available from PowerQuest or any of their distributors.

Ned Flanders · Post by **Ned Flanders** » Wed Oct 30, 2002 6:20 pm

It is all NTFS. sorry about that. i figured I'd leave something important out.

The system itself comes with a pretty good hardware diagnostic toolset and yes the HDD is riddled with "uncorrectable" errors. The problem is, how do I move data I can't access from bad sectors to good sectors.

The possibility also exists it could be the file system and not the HDD at all although I find that unlikely. Still, I wonder if the win2k server resource kit has a tool to rebuild the file system and what kind of impact it will have on HDD data.

Ned Flanders · Post by **Ned Flanders** » Wed Oct 30, 2002 6:30 pm

help. I can see the little bats closing in.

Mr Flibble · Post by **Mr Flibble** » Wed Oct 30, 2002 6:38 pm

Originally posted by Ned Flanders
HDD is riddled with "uncorrectable" errors. The problem is, how do I move data I can't access from bad sectors to good sectors.

Not good, especially on NTFS. How big is the drive? Have you ran a complete disk check using the 2K chkdsk prog and included the option to attempt recovery of bad sectors? I'm guessing you have, but have to ask anyway.

Ned Flanders · Post by **Ned Flanders** » Wed Oct 30, 2002 6:44 pm

chkdsk previously would get to about 26% and just hang. that is, hang when running it from a command repair console when booting to win2k via CD.

Now that I have new HDD in, I will try a chkdsk /f of the troubled volume. results soon, though I expect little different.

Ned Flanders · Post by **Ned Flanders** » Wed Oct 30, 2002 6:48 pm

the chkdsk is at about 31% and has already spit out almost a dozen of 'XXXXX file segment unreadable's.

More stuff that's not good.

The fun part is that the user said the notebook had intermittent boot problems for about a week and a half before bringing the final damaged goods product to my attention.

Remember: "I have to have my data." I hate to rehash these end users nightmares but some things will never change.

Mr Flibble · Post by **Mr Flibble** » Wed Oct 30, 2002 6:52 pm

Originally posted by Ned Flanders
"I have to have my data."

The eternal cry of the end user. What's the chance he had a backup?

Ned Flanders · Post by **Ned Flanders** » Wed Oct 30, 2002 7:06 pm

Very little. actually, he's only had this new notebook for about five months and i let him keep his old notebook because it was a win98 gateway solo 9300. as i moved to win2k servers, I taboo win9x OS, so I told him to keep it unless the company had other plans for it.

That said, his old .pst file is good up til mid may of 2002. still 5 months of email is tough to lose. No, there ain't no exchange server here. Paying 25 dollars a month to have someone host POP3 accounts vs the cost/administration of exchange server is a no brainer. I doubt this instance will change it. If they were to get me a lackey I could push this end user support off on, I'd host exchange and our websites in a heartbeat. As it stands working 50+ hours a week is way better than 70 hours.

the chkdsk is on a nasty run right now. at about 70% but almost 1/5 of file segments between 48000 and 70000 are unreadable. Ugh!

Mr Flibble · Post by **Mr Flibble** » Wed Oct 30, 2002 7:14 pm

With any luck the recovered files are the ones you want. Most of the Documents and Settings folder is not actually user data anyway, so there still a chance.

Ned Flanders · Post by **Ned Flanders** » Wed Oct 30, 2002 7:21 pm

well, it is done. It seems the profile of interest has been renamed to 'profile of interest'.bak with 0 files and 0 bytes in it. Not entirely sure what this means but right now it looks like all that data is hosed (for a lack of better terms).

Trying to access the winnt directory on the damaged drive still yields all kinds of errors. Looks like going to a real pro's shop and spending some dough might be the only way to go and then they might not even be able to. Retrieving deleted data off a HDD is one thing but retrieving data off unreadable sectors is something entirely different.

I'll keep you filled in but right now it's 7:30pm so I am going home.

Mr Flibble · Post by **Mr Flibble** » Wed Oct 30, 2002 7:26 pm

Good luck with it then. Sounds rather bad though.

HighLordDave · Post by **HighLordDave** » Thu Oct 31, 2002 6:13 am

@Flanders:
Did you say that you've run the CHKDSK /R console from the bad drive? If you have, did that work?

When you say that the disk "grinds away", do you mean it's spinning like it's trying to read or is it making a grinding noise that's indictictive of physical failure?

If you can't get any of the easy ways to repair the disk to work, there aren't many ways to get your end user's "irreplacable" data back that don't involve spending $500 per MB. Do you like this person? If you don't, you can expose them to public humiliation by calling them a bad example and pointing out to everyone in the company the dangers of not doing regular backups. The sole function of some people's lives to to be the bad example, and this may be one of those instances.

You might also check with places like PCWorld.com or PCMagazine.com and see if they have any recommendations or knowledge base articles about data recovery, although I'm willing to be that most of their stuff is about setting up ghosting/imaging before the HDD goes bad and data is lost.

Mr Sleep · Post by **Mr Sleep** » Thu Oct 31, 2002 8:43 am

Originally posted by Ned Flanders
Trying to access the winnt directory on the damaged drive still yields all kinds of errors. Looks like going to a real pro's shop and spending some dough might be the only way to go and then they might not even be able to. Retrieving deleted data off a HDD is one thing but retrieving data off unreadable sectors is something entirely different.

Quite often with data recovery they can actually get the data itself back but not in a useable format, so you end up with files 500MB big of just ammassed data. I seem to recall you have to pay them more to get more and the bigger the hard disk the more it costs. They might have improved things since the last time we worked with a data recovery company.

Ned Flanders · Post by **Ned Flanders** » Thu Oct 31, 2002 10:41 am

A chkdsk /r from a recovery console in win2k got to about 27% complete and would just quit.

With the laptop data transfer kit I picked up, I was able to run a chkdsk /f with the new HDD and scan the old/bad drive. That scan results in finding about 18% of the HDD unreadable.

The chkdsk /r sounded like a physical problem

The chkdsk /f made it through the entire scan and was grinding but it was obviously just over bad sectors as the scan completed.

Do I like this person? Not really. He destroys a laptop at least once a year and is about the most computer illiterate Ph.D. (that's a Ph.D. in a electronically technical field) I ever met. He individually consumes roughly eight of my work hours per week. I call him the 'master of sparks' and 'captain static' for his ability to destroy computers with a single keystroke. The killer is his system was having problems for a week before he found a convenient time to tell me.

As far as backed up data, I don't know. there's no shortage of server space for data, however, it is the outlook .pst files that are of most concern. As we have no exchange server, all .pst files are kept locally. I have a backup plan in place for .pst (in the form of a portable USB drive and portable DVD-RW) so people can always back that up as well but very few do.

I think a real expensive measure might be the only outlet for a successful recovery.

@Sleep, a couple of years ago I had to do a data copy, not recovery, on a rather seedy employee. I think that cost us several grand. I'm not certain how worth it will be to recover this lost data, which only equates to about four months time as this laptop is relatively new for him and he still has his old laptop.

Apologies for overdoing the detail here. HLD being a part of this thread must have subliminally put me in HLD mode. I didn't even see it coming.

Mr Sleep · Post by **Mr Sleep** » Thu Oct 31, 2002 1:44 pm

He has obviously been reading up on This thinking it was in fact a tutorial.

I must admit I really hate it when one puts back up facilities in place and the buggers just don't use them and then come whining after the fact...bleh!

Yeah I think we were charged 3 grand or something for the data revcovery, I never did find out the exact figure, this was actually important data, their entire database of clients that is which they had forgotten to back up

HighLordDave · Post by **HighLordDave** » Thu Oct 31, 2002 5:48 pm

Originally posted by Ned Flanders
Apologies for overdoing the detail here. HLD being a part of this thread must have subliminally put me in HLD mode. I didn't even see it coming.

You can't blame me for this one, Flanders; you were in HLD Mode™ before I showed up in this thread.