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Hello guys, I need some assistance in data recovery. My hard drives "quit" on me...okay maybe it's partly my fault... So one day I noticed my computer's Internet was connecting/disconnecting by itself a lot while I was using my XP. I have a dual boot with XP and 2k. I then restarted and boot into 2k to try to isolate whether the problem was XP only. It turned out it wasn't so I rebooted again to get back to XP, but something seem to corrupted the registry and it told me i am missing some file. I tried 2k and it broke too... (I could've use the proper to fix the registry but i didn't..regret skipping that.) Instead I took the suggest windows give and booted into recovery console (which i had no idea how to use) I used a older XP boot disk and went into the console. It is supposed to detect my system but for some reason it detected my 2k instead (which is D:\WINNT, my XP was on C:\) Anyway I didn't give it much respect and logon to my 2k. Of couse windows didn't tell me what to do in the recovery console so I tried "fixboot C:" under 2k. After that was done, I kept on thinking something wasn't right; so to my thought that when I tried to check my C: root drive, it display nothing (volume serial 0000-0000, no directories, etc weird properties.) Of course when I rebooted i end up given the message NTDLR is missing. This alarmed me as I couldn't find where is my file. I managed to check with hard rive using the windows setup program and see my partition was still there (however the amount of free space available was off). I have three drive (C,D, E) each is about 25 GB. I managed to recover my D and E drive with Ubuntu live CD but my C: partition structure seems to have been damaged and could not be access. I tried to use Testdisk 6.5 on Knoppix but was a bit uneasy of the possibilities of making it worst (I already made one mistake with the fixboot thingy) so I didn't proceed and right now my computer is just sitting there doing nothing. can anyone assist me in getting my file back (if that's even possible)?

If i posted in the wrong section please excuse me and feel free to move it to other section. (I asked in the dead machine and they said data recovery belong here?)

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Dani AI

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— stop any further writes to that drive and take a controlled, read-only approach. was on the right track suggesting using a second system or a spare disk: the safest recoveries start with a full, sector-by-sector image of the failing media and all work done against the image, not the original.

Create the image with a tool designed to handle bad sectors (it will keep a retry/log file so you can resume). Example two-pass pattern with ddrescue (replace /dev/sdX and paths as needed):

sudo ddrescue -f -n /dev/sdX /path/to/external/image.img /path/to/external/rescue.log
sudo ddrescue -d -r3 /dev/sdX /path/to/external/image.img /path/to/external/rescue.log

Do the initial copy without retries (-n) to grab all good sectors quickly, then retry bad areas. Keep the log file; it lets you safely resume or re-run passes without duplicating work. See the ddrescue manual for details: GNU ddrescue manual.

Work from the image. Mount it read-only to inspect the filesystem (mount -o ro,loop image.img /mnt/recovery) and run file-recovery or carving tools against the image rather than the source. Tools like Foremost or similar file-carvers can extract files when metadata is damaged: Foremost. Do not run automatic repair utilities that write to the original disk; those can make recovery harder.

Check hardware health before long work (SMART tests via smartmontools). If the disk clicks, reports many reallocated sectors, or imaging stalls, professional recovery is the safer option. For guidance and examples of imaging workflows, see the ddrescue guides and smartmontools project: Gentoo ddrescue guide and smartmontools.

Member Avatar for another guest

why not take da hd off from ur pc and hook it up to another pc run a full virus and spyware scan on it and then run a data recovery program to recover wuteva that was on c: drive ;)

Member Avatar for Drixoman

I can't get hold of another computer right now; all I got is another laptop which doesn't support ATA cable. I would prefer if I can run the data recovery program locally since I can use my external usb drive.

Member Avatar for another guest

hmmm how bout getting another hd and installing xp on it and give a shot at recovering your data...cuz you'll need a separate hd if you're gonna do a raw data recovery

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