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Alfred
Senior Member
USA
1527 Posts |
 Posted - 29 May 2004 : 16:47:49
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Something horrible is about to happen to my total data, unless someone knows a cure for my dilemma.
I a nutshell:
A backup of my HD1 was stored on my HD2, while I scrubbed and reformatted HD1.
Now, after a 2-day nightmare of reinstallation problems, I finally succeded getting XP up and running again, I find that the partition on HD2 which holds my backup files is claiming to be unformatted!
I have no idea how this happened, because I made a point not to touch the second HD for fear of losing my data.
Naturally I am scared to format it, since that usually erases all data on the partition.
The million dollar question now is - How can I get my data back? |
Alfred
The Battle Group
CREDO
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Edited by - ruirib on 29 May 2004 21:38:41 |
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Doug G
Support Moderator
USA
6493 Posts |
Posted - 29 May 2004 : 23:02:25
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Did you do any fdisk changes while reinstalling?
It's probably too late, but if you do this again first after doing your backup verify the data is usable, then I'd disconnect the backup drive and leave it out of the machine until you get the OS reinstalled.
A CD-R backup of really irreplaceable stuff is always a good idea, a couple such cd's if you really can't afford to lose anything.
Back to the problem, if you changed any disk cables or jumpers, review your work. If the drive is seen in the BIOS but says it's unformatted, I don't know how to get it to come back to life safely.
There are data recovery services that will try to recover your dead drive but they are very expensive, sometimes in the $1000.00's to get all the stuff back off.
Anything you do that may write to the backup disk reduces your chances of a successful recovery.
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Doug G
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Computer history and help at www.dougscode.com |
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seven
Senior Member
USA
1037 Posts |
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Alfred
Senior Member
USA
1527 Posts |
Posted - 30 May 2004 : 12:25:46
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HI seven,
I did that recovery last night, but was unable to jump all the complex hoops it sent me through to actually SEE any of the files I recovered.
You say you managed to get 99% back and see them? |
Alfred
The Battle Group
CREDO
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Alfred
Senior Member
USA
1527 Posts |
Posted - 30 May 2004 : 12:45:21
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quote:
Originally posted by Doug G
Did you do any fdisk changes while reinstalling?
Only on HD1, but I took care not to touch HD2 where the backup was.quote:
It's probably too late, but if you do this again first after doing your backup verify the data is usable, then I'd disconnect the backup drive and leave it out of the machine until you get the OS reinstalled.
Yes, I did that as well, but only for some of the time while trying to reinstall the OS on HD1.quote:
Back to the problem, if you changed any disk cables or jumpers, review your work.
I had a lot of trouble getting my OS on the first drive again, and switched the jumpers to cable select on it. Could this be the cause of all this evil, and should I switch the jumpers back to master? |
Alfred
The Battle Group
CREDO
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Alfred
Senior Member
USA
1527 Posts |
Posted - 30 May 2004 : 13:10:07
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PartitionMagic tells me that the partition in question is unformatted.
PM has a undelete feature, but that is of no use here, since nothing got deleted.
The option to *undelete* is paled out, since the partition wasn't deleted.
Interestingly, PM offers to *convert* the partition to FAT or NTFS, and the FAT32 option is paled out.
To my thinking that would mean that it is recognized as having a FAT 32, yet PM says it is not formatted.
PS.: Sorry, it does not - I must have made a mistake in selecting before! |
Alfred
The Battle Group
CREDO
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Edited by - Alfred on 30 May 2004 13:14:54 |
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Doug G
Support Moderator
USA
6493 Posts |
Posted - 30 May 2004 : 13:47:31
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If you switched only one drive to csel, perhaps both drives thought they were master, although I wouldn't expect your computer to even boot in that configuration. For two IDE drives on the same controller, either jumper one to master and the other to slave, or if your MB and cable supports it as most newer computers do, use csel on both drives.
I don't know what else to offer except good luck!
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Doug G
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Computer history and help at www.dougscode.com |
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Alfred
Senior Member
USA
1527 Posts |
Posted - 30 May 2004 : 15:01:51
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Doug -
drive 2 was always set to slave only, but drive 1 is now on cable select.
Is what you are saying that I should try to set HD2 to csel as well?
And if that doesn't change anything try to leave HD2 on slave and put HD1 back onto master as it was before? |
Alfred
The Battle Group
CREDO
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seven
Senior Member
USA
1037 Posts |
Posted - 30 May 2004 : 17:30:25
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I remember it had a wizard that took me through it step by step. It took a good 9 days to do all the operations on the 57GB hard drive (it was really badly corrupted). But I recovered just about everything I needed...
quote:
Originally posted by Alfred
HI seven,
I did that recovery last night, but was unable to jump all the complex hoops it sent me through to actually SEE any of the files I recovered.
You say you managed to get 99% back and see them?
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Alfred
Senior Member
USA
1527 Posts |
Posted - 30 May 2004 : 19:03:02
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Geez, I would also be facing about 65GB, and probably 9 months!  Maybe I should really just open the box once more and try the different jumper settings, as Doug hinted? |
Alfred
The Battle Group
CREDO
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Gremlin
General Help Moderator
New Zealand
7528 Posts |
Posted - 30 May 2004 : 21:00:49
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| Try the different jumper settings, I had the exact same problem a few weeks back becuase I'd forgotten to change my jumpers around and I think ended up with one drive set on CSEL and one not. |
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Doug G
Support Moderator
USA
6493 Posts |
Posted - 30 May 2004 : 21:03:20
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I would hesitate to play with jumper settings with all that potential data on the backup drive. If both drives are seen by your computer bios correctly, then the jumper settings you're using are good enough for now. I was only thinking that maybe something happened when you changed jumpers and did fdisk on the other drive, and something got mixed up.
Do you have another disk drive to experiment with? If so, you could put a different drive on as the slave drive and see if your new OS installation recognizes it.
Also look over your disk connectors and cables carefully, make sure you didn't accidently bent over a pin or something. Also if your ribbon cable is unkeyed, make sure you have the plug in the correct orientation. The stripe side of the ribbon cable should align with pin #1 of the connector on the disk.
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Doug G
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Computer history and help at www.dougscode.com |
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Gremlin
General Help Moderator
New Zealand
7528 Posts |
Posted - 31 May 2004 : 08:19:57
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Changing the jumpers and getting it wrong is unlikely to cause any problem .. trust me I've done that so many times it aint funny. What will cause a problem is if you reply yes to the "do you want to format" dialogue that Windows comes up with when you try to access the drive.
It's very unlikely you've lost any data so far, you just need to make sure you've got everything setup correctly master/slave/csel wise .. and if required are using the correct cables (newer drives use 80 cable ribbons rather than the older 40 ribbon cables).
Like I said I had the exact same error just a week or so back and it was nothing more than jumpers being set wrong, even set wrong the BIOS can still often see and identify both drives, but when set wrong the drive may not be replying to the correct data streams from the controller.
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Doug G
Support Moderator
USA
6493 Posts |
Posted - 01 June 2004 : 21:53:36
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I hope you have reached a happy conclusion to this problem.
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Doug G
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Computer history and help at www.dougscode.com |
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Alfred
Senior Member
USA
1527 Posts |
Posted - 02 June 2004 : 13:34:54
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Hi guys,
I am back online again after a few days' ordeal.
No happy ending to report, mostly due to my impatience.
After playing around with the jumpers got no results either I also suddenly heard a suspicious clicking sound and the next thing I know is that PartitionMagic doesn't recognize my drive 1 any longer.
Ok, drives do fail occasionally, although this was only a 1 year-old IBM, and the occasion was not ideal.
So I was faced with getting a new drive so that I could reinstall a clean new OS and go on from there with the restore effort.
But youth and enthusiasm got the better of me and I decided not to wait until getting a new drive, but instead went ahead and gave up my backup in favor of using that HD for a new OS install.
Which was unsuccessful as well, for reasons of all kinds of error msgs on Partition Magic.
So I ended up with the worst of both scenarios: Gave up my data, and still had to wait for the next day to get a new drive.
I also saw an article in a German techie group claiming that Linux SuSe installs can screw up MS partitions on your drive, which would go a long way in explaining my puzzle.
Now to the good part (I see the cup as "half FULL"!):
Went to one of our big stores and found a Seagate 8O GB for $50 after mail-in rebates!
Quality OEM package, with new cable included.
What do you think of such a find?
That's the one I am running now while I write this, and I will spend my next few days scraping together what I can from memory to build my apps and find my usenet groups again.
The other good part is that my initial instinct was not to check the ceiling height to see how far up I could toss the machine, but instead still have admit that I love computers, and actually enjoy starting from scratch! I will also give Linux another shot, but only when I have secured a couple of escape routes! 
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Alfred
The Battle Group
CREDO
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laser
Advanced Member
Australia
3859 Posts |
Posted - 02 June 2004 : 17:35:41
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quote:
I also saw an article in a German techie group claiming that Linux SuSe installs can screw up MS partitions on your drive, which would go a long way in explaining my puzzle.
So you were playing with SuSe at the time ?
quote:
find my usenet groups again.
Google Groups is your friend, just type in your usenet name in the Author field, and all your posts will be displayed  |
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