[Frustrated05]

is it possible to reinstall Windows on the computer but keep all the old files? i seemed to have kept some of them on this old one im using but its hard to say if i kept all of it because i hvent looked at it in awhile

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nope it still tells me that only 3MB are available on my partition
and when i run chkdsk /r it tells me that i hve unrecoverable problems
indicator of a malfunctioning hard drive? a similar problem happened recently to
another harddrive i had, but that occurred when the partition tied to it was deleted

[Frustrated05]

nope it still tells me that only 3MB are available on my partition
and when i run chkdsk /r it tells me that i hve unrecoverable problems
indicator of a malfunctioning hard drive? a similar problem happened recently to
another harddrive i had, but that occurred when the partition tied to it was deleted

[Frustrated05]

C:\>chkdsk /r
The volume Serial Number is 0000-0000

The volume appears to contain one or more unrecoverable problems.
10344 kilobytes total disk space.
3456 kilobytes are available.

4096 bytes in allocation unit.
2586 total allocation units on disk.
864 allocation uinits available on disk.

some one explain what this means please? thanks

[Frustrated05]

i just had an idea...
if i were to plug a working hard drive with XP installed would i be able to access evrything and possibly figure out the problem from there? would the computer automatically boot from a different hard drive thats plugged in? it seems to me that one problem with my current one is that Windows XP is not installed, but it still should have my info on it right?

[wannabe1]

You could take a look at what's there using Puppy Linux.

[Frustrated05]

this is fully operational from CD iso? no need to install?

[Frustrated05]

ok now ive booted puppy linux, i mounted my hard drive to view it, but everything is in weird text like boxes and question marks... wut do i do from here?

[quin8484]

I just need to know where to go to get to the screen so you can view our old files on puppy linux cause i have the same prob my xp wont boot up

Edited by quin8484, 02 June 2007 - 10:25 AM.

[Frustrated05]

i cant seem to access my info through Puppy

tell me if im doing something wrong please :
on the desktop display i click the "drives" button, and it displays a msg saying Puppy Drive Mounter, click on the picture of my hard drive and it tells me that its mounted(icon is green), when i view the files it shows me SOMETHING but im not quite sure what, everything is listed in weird symbols and it only shows 2 folders and some of what i think are programs, some files have no icons at all and many just have "?" as a name or a box with 0002 or 0001 inside, it also tells me that only 67% of the 160 GB harddrive is used but 3.7 MB are free.....

signs of a bad hard drive or am i just doing something wrong? help appreciated

[Frustrated05]

i tried plugging in another hard drive that has a recovery software on it
whenever i turn it on the computer shows me a blue screen telling me take out any new hard drives or devices
how can i recover info on a hard drive thats not working?

[wannabe1]

This is not looking good.

Have you got a working machine you can slave that drive on? GetDataBack might be able to recover the files. This is free to download and run and will show you any data it can recover. However, to actually recover the data, you'll have to purchase a license for about $80 US. It works surprisingly well, though. You'll want to download the version (NTFS or FAT32) for the file system on your machine and it has to be run on the bad drive configured as a slave on a working machine. It will recover by cluster so a bad file system will not stop it from recovering files...in most cases.

I'm surprised Puppy Linux couldn't do it. The file system must be really shredded.

[Frustrated05]

well if theres really no hope for the drive being fixed easily...my friend has a file recovery software that he will use as soon as he gets back, and the power source for my working machine got fried... it must not have been turned off when i plugged in the bad drive because it wont turn on at all, no signs of having any power but the outlet still works fine
this really hasnt been my week for computers

[happyrock]

you may have hurt your system bad...you must unplug the computer from the wall before working inside the case...because there is power to the motherboard as long as its plugged in to the wall...
where exactly are we at with this...

on the desktop display i click the "drives" button, and it displays a msg saying Puppy Drive Mounter, click on the picture of my hard drive and it tells me that its mounted(icon is green), when i view the files it shows me SOMETHING but im not quite sure what, everything is listed in weird symbols

those weird symbols are puppys files your looking at not yours...click on what looks like filing cabinet just to the left of the green icon on the hard drive...not the cd drive

Edited by happyrck, 04 June 2007 - 07:05 AM.

[Frustrated05]

yes i clicked on that and it displays the same thing...neither of my 160 GB hard drives are functioning, one is the one that is displaying the weird file names with only 3 MB left, while the other is not showing up at all, as if it werent there
also the ones thats not showing up wont go past the blue HP screen

the other machine that had the power problem still isnt working

ok from the machine thats not working, i took out the hard drive and loaded it with Puppy, it can read everything perfectly so theres something definatley wrong with the other hard drive that has weird file names

Edited by Frustrated05, 04 June 2007 - 12:01 PM.

[happyrock]

I'm lost now...

from the machine thats not working, i took out the hard drive and loaded it with Puppy, it can read everything perfectly

you don't load puppy to it...and how can puppy read it if you took it out of the computer..???