[edge2022]

There are a couple more options here. You could alternatively get a hard drive enclosure, or a SATA to USB adapter to plug your hard drive into another computer. Also, you could plug in your computer's hard drive into another computer directly (as in into the motherboard) and try transferring the data that way.

If you have the hard drive make/model for this computer can you give it to me?
Do you have another computer that you can use the enclosure or adapter with? Do you have another computer so that you can directly attach your hard drive to it?
If you don't know the hard drive make/model, give me the male/model of your computer (ex. Dell Studio XPS 'some model number'). It should be on the case/tower of your pc.

O, and were you able to mount your drive in Ubuntu? Were there any problems?

Edited by edge2022, 12 November 2010 - 01:19 AM.

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There are a couple more options here. You could alternatively get a hard drive enclosure, or a SATA to USB adapter to plug your hard drive into another computer. Also, you could plug in your computer's hard drive into another computer directly (as in into the motherboard) and try transferring the data that way.

If you have the hard drive make/model for this computer can you give it to me?
Do you have another computer that you can use the enclosure or adapter with? Do you have another computer so that you can directly attach your hard drive to it?
If you don't know the hard drive make/model, give me the male/model of your computer (ex. Dell Studio XPS 'some model number'). It should be on the case/tower of your pc.

O, and were you able to mount your drive in Ubuntu? Were there any problems?

Its an HP Pavillion. not sure if the model number. and i pulled this number from the computer, not sure if its the hard drive though: ATA ST3400820AS. I have a laptop to transfer the files. Will that work? its a HP Pav DV7-3165dx.

and i just realized my computer is not XP. its Vista. wooooow. hope that didnt mess anything up.

Was not able to mount the drive because i dont even know what that means or how to do it. I looked at that video u posted and it was just showing where to find the About Me of Ubuntu. I dont know what partition means. it was just very confusing for me.

[nms6454]

There are a couple more options here. You could alternatively get a hard drive enclosure, or a SATA to USB adapter to plug your hard drive into another computer. Also, you could plug in your computer's hard drive into another computer directly (as in into the motherboard) and try transferring the data that way.

If you have the hard drive make/model for this computer can you give it to me?
Do you have another computer that you can use the enclosure or adapter with? Do you have another computer so that you can directly attach your hard drive to it?
If you don't know the hard drive make/model, give me the male/model of your computer (ex. Dell Studio XPS 'some model number'). It should be on the case/tower of your pc.

O, and were you able to mount your drive in Ubuntu? Were there any problems?

Its an HP Pavillion. not sure if the model number. and i pulled this number from the computer, not sure if its the hard drive though: ATA ST3400820AS. I have a laptop to transfer the files. Will that work? its a HP Pav DV7-3165dx.

and i just realized my computer is not XP. its Vista. wooooow. hope that didnt mess anything up.

Was not able to mount the drive because i dont even know what that means or how to do it. I looked at that video u posted and it was just showing where to find the About Me of Ubuntu. I dont know what partition means. it was just very confusing for me.

[nms6454]

Is there a way to open control panel from Ubuntu? that way i could tell you what the model number is for the computer

[edge2022]

ATA ST3400820AS is indeed a hard drive. Specifically it is a Barracuda 7200.10 SATA 3-Gb/s 400-GB Hard Drive.
This is all the info I needed, you don't need to find your computer's model. It shouldn't matter whether the computer was running XP or Vista since chkdsk reported unrecoverable errors, and the operating system wouldn't have changed that.
Since you have a laptop, you cannot directly connect your Barracuda to your laptop's motherboard. You will have to use a hard drive enclosure or a SATA to USB adapter. The other option would be Linux with an external hard drive. Before you go out and buy an adapter, I want to make sure the data can be recovered through Linux. Otherwise, there is no point in buying an adapter.

Now, I will try to provide step by step instructions for Ubuntu. If you need any clarification or help, quote the step and ask your questions.
First, make sure that you have an Ubuntu desktop running. Your monitor should look like this: http://files.cyberci...ick-Desktop.png
Next, click on System (on the top bar, to the left), then go to Administration, then click on GParted. It should look something like this: http://fei.abba.cz/u...974/GParted.png
Next, look down the column that says size. Click on the size that you remember your drive was. It should be close to 400GB. If you have trouble with this step, maximize GParted, and hit Prt Scr on your keyboard. It should be near the Scroll Lock. In the window that appears, click on Save and save it in 'Desktop'. Then go online to this topic on Geeks to Go, and attach the file to your reply.
Let me know once you have gotten through this. If you have any problems, post back .

[nms6454]

Found it. ill post a pic in case you need info from it.

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[edge2022]

Excellent, so far, so good.
GParted indicates that this drive is already mounted. Go to Places -> Computer. Then double click on File System -> media -> HP
You should find the contents of your drive in the HP folder. Try opening some documents, music, and pics. Let me know if all your data is good.

[nms6454]

I dont see any of my files in there. nothing looks familiar. I really only need to save my pics which they were in the pictures folder (that was created by Windows) and i was able to find them on ubuntu and was able to open them ok.

So what are we going to do after im able to save the files that i want? is this computer pretty much done with?

Edited by nms6454, 12 November 2010 - 04:24 PM.

[edge2022]

Were you able to find all your pictures? Can you post a picture of the files that look weird/ that you cannot recall?

[nms6454]

Yes i did find all of my pics.

I guess i just never looked in that HP folder. I usually put everything on my desktop. even a shortcut of the Pictures folder. which i dont see (but thats not a problem) i updated the previous post. not sure if u saw the question i added.

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Edited by nms6454, 12 November 2010 - 04:31 PM.

[edge2022]

A lot of those .log files and the System Volume Information folder were hidden by Windows. Under Linux, you can see everything.
The first task is the save all your files. When we restore your computer, we will have to partition it because the file system was corrupted. After that we can try to restore your computer.

HP computers usually have a recovery partition. Looking at GParted, I see another NTFS partition of about 5 GB (that looks like a recovery partition).
Look here: http://h10025.www1.h...e=bph07145#N288
Under 'Recovering During Startup' there are instructions on how to go about a system restore (basically a reinstallation of Windows).

Your previous picture just confirmed that there is a recovery partition on your computer.

Edited by edge2022, 12 November 2010 - 04:34 PM.

[edge2022]

One thing you could try after you backed up your files is to:
Go to Gparted, and right click on the big partition (the 364Gb one) and click on Check. Then click on Apply (the green checkmark). GParted will try to do the same thing as chkdsk and will try to repair the file system.

Also look here: http://h10025.www1.h...e=c00814731#N70

[nms6454]

A lot of those .log files and the System Volume Information folder were hidden by Windows. Under Linux, you can see everything.
The first task is the save all your files. When we restore your computer, we will have to partition it because the file system was corrupted. After that we can try to restore your computer.

HP computers usually have a recovery partition. Looking at GParted, I see another NTFS partition of about 5 GB (that looks like a recovery partition).
Look here: http://h10025.www1.h...e=bph07145#N288
Under 'Recovering During Startup' there are instructions on how to go about a system restore (basically a reinstallation of Windows).

Your previous picture just confirmed that there is a recovery partition on your computer.

by saving the files, do you mean using the SATA to USB adapter? I will have to go buy one tomorrow then.

[edge2022]

You could use the SATA to USB adapter, but it would mean connecting the Barracuda to your laptop. And just now, you found out that Linux could read your drive fine, but Windows was not able to. I'm not too sure if Windows will recognize the drive on the laptop. I would advise you to get an external hard drive, and backup your data onto it. You should have one around to use as a general purpose backup device anyways.

[nms6454]

Ok, then i will wait until my husband brings it home from work on wednesday... hate to wait that long, but i dont want to buy another one. alright. i will let you know when i get it! Thanks so much for your help so far!

[nms6454]

Ok i got all my files copied over. Whats next?