PC down.....

HD would be my guess - I've seen that on two machines recently and in both
cases the drives were finished.

Were you using NTFS? If not, try installing Win 98[1] on the same disc - for
some reason the 'smaller' footprint [2]occasionally seems to let itl boot up
and allow you to get your data off.



[1] or even Windows 2000
[2] or different part of the disk

 

Tried to reboot my megabox last night, after it had been up & online for 3
weeks without a break.

Went down to get a coffee and let it sort itself out, came back up 5 mins
later and.... Nowt. The bloody thing was repeatedly trying to reboot itself.
Stopped it doing that, then tried to restart in safe mode - Same result.
Ended up booting from my XP (pro) CD with a view to using the command
console to sort it out.

Sodding thing was only detecting a single 24 Mb partition on my 180 Gb HD -
Nothing else.

So I tried another cold boot, and kept an eye on the POST readings - 180 Gig
drive detected. Come XP time - 24 Mb partition only again.

Panic set in at this point. I have shitloads of work on the HD that I
(stupidly) hadn't backed up.

Dragged my old Win 98se box out of the attic, got that up then tried to
install my DSL connection stuff - THAT only works with XP...... Fuckit.

So this AM saw me standing at the door of my local computer emporium, the
guys that built the PC for me (and a bloody good job they did at a very keen
price) with my ailing PC in my arms. Their tech is currently running
diagnostics on the thing to see if he can either get it to work or at least
recover my data and slap another HD in it.

Ended up pinching the wife's new PC and setting that up (she hadn't even
unpacked it) to see if my eBay shite sold (it did) and if I'd won the bike I
was bidding on (I didn't).

Anyway - Any suggestions as to what the actual problem may be? HD fucked? XP
fucked? BOTH fucked?

 

----- Original Message -----
From: "dwb" <>
Newsgroups: uk.rec.motorcycles
Sent: Thursday, June 16, 2005 4:41 PM
Subject: Re: PC down.....

Feared as much, but thanks for the confirmation.

Yes, it was NTFS :/

 

Well, first thing I'd do would be to stop trying to boot it, and plug the
drive in another machine to get the data off.

FWIW HD or XP failing kind of depends on how far it gets before it tries to
reboot again IYSWIM. I'd suspect XP first but ICBW
--
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Triumph Speed Triple: Black with extra black bits
www.cuore-sportivo.co.uk

 

Just had the tech on the phone - HD is sound, but there is absolutely NO
data on the thing! Fuctifino what's happened, but there's nothing at all on
it. All he can do is a low level format and reinstallation of XP for me.

Hey ho.

 

Nnnnoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Try some data recovery stuff first, if he's not tried. Data does not just
vanish unless the things been through a degaussing coil.
--
Catman MIB#14 SKoGA#6 TEAR#4 BOTAFOF#38 Apostle#21 COSOC#3
Tyger, Tyger Burning Bright (Remove rust to reply)
Alfa 116 Giulietta 3.0l (Really) Sprint 1.7 75 TS 156 TS S2
Triumph Speed Triple: Black with extra black bits
www.cuore-sportivo.co.uk

 

Last ditch effort....

Boot up off Knoppix, mount ntfs partition, burn the stuff you want on a
DVD or CD if you've got a burner. If not, borrow a USB one and do the
same.

 

that's strong enough to bend the disk platters.

 

Well, first thing I'd do would be to stop trying to boot it, and plug the

I got a HD recovery program here wot saved 98% of the stuff on my XP machine
a while back when a virus slipped past and fkd the boot sector.
I'd be able to give it a whirl but no promises.
Payment in Beer tokens or suchlike if successful

If there's any pron on it I'll ignore it.

--


--
Robbo

Trophy 1200 1998
BotaFOF #19. E.O.S.M 2001/2002/2003/2004.
B.O.S.M 2003, 2004, 2005
FURSWB#1 KotL..YTC449
PM#7
..

 

Now *that's* strong. Offer-smite was keen to disassemble his old
disk once he'd replaced it in his HP Pavilion. We quickly had it down to
its component parts, with the only "irreversible" step being drilling out
a screw holding the head-assembly pivot. He's determined to trash it. I
showed him how eddy currents work, dragging the voice-coil magnet across
the platters and them following it. Unknown to me, this was because the
edge of the magnet was catching the platters...

"How do I destroy these?" "Well, they appear to be aluminium.
What thickness is the guillotine in the Lab rated for?" He disappears,
returning some time later. "That took a lot of cleaning up." "Why?"
"They were glass..."

--
Ivan Reid, Electronic & Computer Engineering, ___ CMS Collaboration,
Brunel University. Room 40-1-B12, CERN
GSX600F, RG250WD. "You Porsche. Me pass!" DoD #484 JKLO# 003, 005
WP7# 3000 LC Unit #2368 (tinlc) UKMC#00009 BOTAFOT#16 UKRMMA#7 (Hon)
KotPT -- "for stupidity above and beyond the call of duty".

 

Typo corrected...

--
Ivan Reid, Electronic & Computer Engineering, ___ CMS Collaboration,
Brunel University. Room 40-1-B12, CERN
GSX600F, RG250WD. "You Porsche. Me pass!" DoD #484 JKLO# 003, 005
WP7# 3000 LC Unit #2368 (tinlc) UKMC#00009 BOTAFOT#16 UKRMMA#7 (Hon)
KotPT -- "for stupidity above and beyond the call of duty".

 

Aye.

I've utterly torched the partition table of a disk by running dd in
advisedly (while trying to clear the partition table on another disk) and
still got data back
--
Catman MIB#14 SKoGA#6 TEAR#4 BOTAFOF#38 Apostle#21 COSOC#3
Tyger, Tyger Burning Bright (Remove rust to reply)
Alfa 116 Giulietta 3.0l (Really) Sprint 1.7 75 TS 156 TS S2
Triumph Speed Triple: Black with extra black bits
www.cuore-sportivo.co.uk

 

I remember reading about a machine in the USA that erased aluminum hard
disk platters, one side effect was that they bent, a lot. I thought that
they usually machined the platters into very small chunks for secure
deletion these days though.

Heh, yes, I forgot about those platters. I just used to drill a hole
right through a hard drive before I chucked it, as nothing I've had on
my computers is worth doing any more for.

 

True, but what I meant was, that to erase data so it can't
reconstructed, you have to expose the disk to a really powerful magnetic
field, which physically destroys the disk, even if it didn't, it still
wouldn't work, because the head tracking would no longer work.

 

I didn't realise it had to be that strong.

But then you'd just send it off to Vogon who would dismantle it in a clean
room and apply their own heads IYSWIM.

--
Catman MIB#14 SKoGA#6 TEAR#4 BOTAFOF#38 Apostle#21 COSOC#3
Tyger, Tyger Burning Bright (Remove rust to reply)
Alfa 116 Giulietta 3.0l (Really) Sprint 1.7 75 TS 156 TS S2
Triumph Speed Triple: Black with extra black bits
www.cuore-sportivo.co.uk

 

If it was erased by the above method, even they wouldn't be able to get
at any data. This is why some disks are ground up into dust, and the
fact that there aren't very many machines capable of generating the
magnetic fields needed to erase a disk properly.

 

Gotcha.
--
Catman MIB#14 SKoGA#6 TEAR#4 BOTAFOF#38 Apostle#21 COSOC#3
Tyger, Tyger Burning Bright (Remove rust to reply)
Alfa 116 Giulietta 3.0l (Really) Sprint 1.7 75 TS 156 TS S2
Triumph Speed Triple: Black with extra black bits
www.cuore-sportivo.co.uk

 

I got a HD recovery program here wot saved 98% of the stuff on my XP

<fx..looks around nonchalantly seeking a bolt of lightning>
Now would *I* do that..........

--


--
Robbo

Trophy 1200 1998
BotaFOF #19. E.O.S.M 2001/2002/2003/2004.
B.O.S.M 2003, 2004, 2005
FURSWB#1 KotL..YTC449
PM#7
..