Evil Blue Screen - unrecoverable, unmountable
Hi,
I've looked for a thread similar to mine, but they all seem to have slightly different problems.
My Dell Desktop running Windows XP Home Edition sp2 is telling me that I have an Unmountable boot version. I do not have boot recovery disks made. When installing the XP cd and running chkdsk it stops at 25% telling me I have one or more unrecoverable problems. XP is and 95% of my files are on the C harddrive, but I have a larger D drive slaved which is installed for storage of music (nothing else is backed up on it from the primary drive).
I can not start the computer in safe mode. Can anyone offer any assistance in helping me retrieve the documents, files and pictures saved on the primary drive or ideally in being able to bootup windows again. I truly appreciate any time you are willing to lend to help with this problem. Thank you so much!!!
Matt
I've looked for a thread similar to mine, but they all seem to have slightly different problems.
My Dell Desktop running Windows XP Home Edition sp2 is telling me that I have an Unmountable boot version. I do not have boot recovery disks made. When installing the XP cd and running chkdsk it stops at 25% telling me I have one or more unrecoverable problems. XP is and 95% of my files are on the C harddrive, but I have a larger D drive slaved which is installed for storage of music (nothing else is backed up on it from the primary drive).
I can not start the computer in safe mode. Can anyone offer any assistance in helping me retrieve the documents, files and pictures saved on the primary drive or ideally in being able to bootup windows again. I truly appreciate any time you are willing to lend to help with this problem. Thank you so much!!!
Matt
0
Comments
Take out your primary drive and connect it to the converter and transfer your files to the second PC.
That's what I'd do to backup your data. After you've transfered your files, download a hard drive diagnosis software from your hard drive manufacturer. Boot to the diagnosis CD and do the advanced test to make sure the drive is not dead. If it comes back fine, reformat it through the diagnosis CD.
Then try installing WinXP....
Try that and let us know how it goes...
First of all, I recommend you keep the failing hard disk drive powered down (not connected to any power source) until you are ready to pursue recovering your data. The reason for this is, if the drive is failing, there is a good chance that you have a limited amount of time in which to pull your data off of the drive b4 more data is corrupted and/or the drive fails completely.
QCH2002 has some very good advice. If you do choose to use one of the converters, make sure, if at all possible, that you plug the drive into an USB 2.0 port. (As opposed to the older USB 1.1 standard which is much slower)
The reason for this is speed. Again, if the drive is failing, chances are you have a limited amount of time in which you can pull your data off b4 the problem worsens. The faster the data transfer rate the better. If you will be moving larger files like video and music files, this faster transfer rate is even more critical.
You can connect the failed hard disk drive to the inside of another computer as well if you like. That would afford you a much faster data transfer rate. If you'd like to do that, let us know and we'll step you through it.
Bottom line, the first thing to address is getting your data off the drive. The rest comes after.
Hi, I want to thank both of you for taking the time to respond to my post and for the invaluable help. I will try what you've suggested. I'm assuming I can get the converters from CompUSA or Best Buy. I appreciate you offering to walk me through connecting the failed hard drive to the inside of another computer. How would I go about that??? THANKS AGAIN !!!!!!!!
As for installing your failing hard disk drive into another computer; It wouldn't be bad. I think you'd have a better shot at recovering your data that way, too. However, if you're not comfortable futzing w/ your or someone else's computer innards, by all means, use one of the adapters that QCH2002 recommended. It will provide the simplest method of connecting your hard disk drive to another computer.
I have removed both hard drives from my computer. They were both connected via ATA cables. I have minimal experience working on computers. I've done the basics like adding hard drives and memory, but thats about the extent of it. I'm open to learning though;) Ready for the next step!
My backup computer is old. Not sure how much free space there is on it but I would guess about 12 GB of space. It doesn't allow for ethernet connections only dialup so I am not able to get online with it. Is there a way to find out the amount of free space without connecting to the internet?
- Open up MY COMPUTER
- Select from the top of the window: VIEW then DETAILS
- Expand the window fully (so that it takes up the whole screen)
- Look in the TOTAL SIZE and FREE SPACE columns
- That's the information we need for each hard disk drive.
Now, here's a possible problem; if your older system is pre-Windows 2000 or NT (Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME), you may not be able to read the contents on your failing primary (C) drive because it will be formatted NTFS. (And the HDD on the older system will be formatted FAT32. In this context, the formats are incompatible)There are other potential problems as well depending upon the age of your older system and the capacity of the HDD you need to be able to access.
So, to that end:
Do you have access to another computer running Windows XP?
EDIT://
If you don't, then you will need to purchase a new hard disk drive.
We'll need to get you up and running w/ the new hard disk drive on your Dell computer then work on recovering your data from the failed hard drive w/ the same computer.
G'nite.