[Broni]

I can't find any info about SD Manager.

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If I try to load with my main drive it gets as far as asking for password - this I don't have as I chose not to use one. I also tried just hitting the enter key but this failed as well. It does momentarily flash with - 'loading settings' - 'saving settings' then defaults back to asking for password.

Seems you are reaching the boot loader.

If you prompt to load from the CD drive when you are in the screen asking you where you want to load from and have the windows disc installed, it will then start to load windows, it will get so far and then ask you if you want to install or press 'r' for repair. It runs and then ends up at the C prompt asking you to type 'exit' to exit the load programme.

This is telling us you have an Unmountable Volume. Windows' System is not available.

I have just been looking in the logs in admin tools, event viewer, system and a repeating error (always in batches of 3) states the following:

The following bootstart or system start driver failed to load. SD Manager.

How is this possible if you are unable to boot?

Boot with the CD. At the C: prompt type the following and press Enter:

CHKDSK /R

Let us know the outcome.

[JSntgRvr]

If I try to load with my main drive it gets as far as asking for password - this I don't have as I chose not to use one. I also tried just hitting the enter key but this failed as well. It does momentarily flash with - 'loading settings' - 'saving settings' then defaults back to asking for password.

Seems you are reaching the boot loader.

If you prompt to load from the CD drive when you are in the screen asking you where you want to load from and have the windows disc installed, it will then start to load windows, it will get so far and then ask you if you want to install or press 'r' for repair. It runs and then ends up at the C prompt asking you to type 'exit' to exit the load programme.

This is telling us you have an Unmountable Volume. Windows' System is not available.

I have just been looking in the logs in admin tools, event viewer, system and a repeating error (always in batches of 3) states the following:

The following bootstart or system start driver failed to load. SD Manager.

How is this possible if you are unable to boot?

Boot with the CD. At the C: prompt type the following and press Enter:

CHKDSK /R

Let us know the outcome.

[george01]

I have two sets of drives. Main drive which is the one playing up and my back up which is as it says. I am presently running on my back up drive and now I come to think of it - if I go into Admin and look at the event viewer I am viewing events for the back up drive not both (I presume). Sorry! I do have Acronis on my system and have tried to get it to do a recovery but it defaults from running as soon as you specify the main drive.

[JSntgRvr]

I have two sets of drives. Main drive which is the one playing up and my back up which is as it says. I am presently running on my back up drive and now I come to think of it - if I go into Admin and look at the event viewer I am viewing events for the back up drive not both (I presume). Sorry! I do have Acronis on my system and have tried to get it to do a recovery but it defaults from running as soon as you specify the main drive.

I am not familiar with Acronis. If you wish to restore your backups, then the issue is different. I will have someone with knowledge n Acronis to help you, but as far as the drive with problems, if running CHKDSK does not resolve the problem, only a re-format is your way out. If both drives are in the computer, you may be able to see each. Backing up your documents, then restoring, or using the sick drive as a backup after a re-format is what is called for, if possible.

Someone will return to assist you.

[george01]

I have just ran chkdsk. Unfortunately it only ran it for the backup drive. The disk i want to access is there as I can go into admin - storage and both disks are listed. However, if I try to boot from my main drive it gets to the windows (black screen) opening after booting up then goes to the screen asking for a password. I don't use a password, so if i just press enter it defaults back. It does very quickly flash 'loading your settings - saving your settings - closing network connections' then goes back to asking for a password. I have tried everything to access the drive but there is no way I can get to the information on the disk. If I could save the information on the disk in any way I would, then reformat the disk and start again. Is there any way I can go into c and specify which drive to chkdsk on?

George.

[Broni]

I think, you have to backup your data, when booted to D, format C, and put Acronis image on it.

[makai]

If you go to Computer management (Disk Management) and right-click on the C drive, and choose "Explore" from the dropdown menu, does it display the C drive contents in Windows Explorer?

If it does, check the boot.ini file to see what's specified for boot up. You might copy and paste the boot.ini file here so we can look at it... if you can get to it.

[wannabe1]

Hello george01...

What type of raid do you have set up...or did you have set up? Was it a concatenated array (spanned or jbod) or a striped array such as RAID0?

wannabe1

[Troy]

Another random thought...

Have you tried a linux boot disc to try and access the files?

[george01]

To the second question, the discs are set up in raido striped.

[george01]

No, I haven't tried a Linux boot disk as this is a new thought. How would I go about that. Thanks - George

[george01]

Broni, if I format my main drive then I have lost everything. I am running on my back up drive which has most of the info on it I need including Acronis true image. However, I have tried using Acronis to copy my main drive to an external drive but it won't do it. It's as if the drive has completely locked itself shut and not allowing anything in.

If I go into computer management, highlight the drive - right click the explore option is not available only Change Drive Ltr, Format, Delete, Properties.

[george01]

I was going to ask if BartPe would help or Knoppix, but as a pre empt to any answer tried to make a Bart disk, unfortunately, got as far as building but it would not write to disk. I did notice in the errors that copying from Windows OEM disk was doggey! Still no further forward.
George

[makai]

To the second question, the discs are set up in raido striped.

You might be out of luck. Raid 0 has no redundancy, therefore after the data is striped, if one disk fails, then more than likely you end up losing all your data. I'm not that versed in raid and truth be told, I don't use it just for the reasons you're experiencing... not to mention the loss of disk space just for using it.

Hopefully someone with more experience with raid can help with recovering your data as I can no longer offer any help in this effort.

If you ever get out of this, and I hope you do, I strongly suggest you never set up a raid array again. Just my personal opinion, so take it with a grain of salt.

[Troy]

RAID is fine, just don't use RAID 0 or JBOD as they have no redundancy. RAID 1 is a complete mirror of the data so if 1 drive fails, the second one still has all the data. Then you just replace the faulty hard drive and rebuild the RAID array and walaa - back at step one again.

Knoppix is what I would call a linux boot disc.