[caiphn]

I have recently reformatted. I have two harddrives, I reformatted the master, and the slave I didn't touch. After reformatted, it changed the G: drive to D:, which is fine. All of the files and documents which were important to me remained on the drive. I did windows updates, D: is fine. I installed Service Pack 2, all of a sudden it wants to reinstall Norton, that fails, and D: is not working now.

Now it says "The Drive in Disc D: is not formatted, do you want to format it now?"

I uninstalled Service Pack 2, restarted the computer, still doing the same thing.

HELP!

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I will try to startup in Safe Mode, and see if this makes the drive available again. Yeah, didn't make a difference. Have tried a system restore, didn't do anything either. Anyone know of any apps that would help? This data is really important to me. There was over a 100 gigs on there, only about a gig of it stuff that I couldn't get back, documents and images and whatnot.

Edited by caiphn, 07 November 2005 - 05:30 PM.

[caiphn]

I will try to startup in Safe Mode, and see if this makes the drive available again. Yeah, didn't make a difference. Have tried a system restore, didn't do anything either. Anyone know of any apps that would help? This data is really important to me. There was over a 100 gigs on there, only about a gig of it stuff that I couldn't get back, documents and images and whatnot.

Edited by caiphn, 07 November 2005 - 05:30 PM.

[caiphn]

Anyone have any ideas at all? I really need to at least recover the photos on the drive else my wife will kill me.

[caiphn]

Sorry to keep this ongoing, ... I won't ask again. Does anyone have any input? I'm at my wits end.

[wannabe1]

caiphn...sorry it has taken so long to get to you...

Try this REPAIR to your installation of XP. This procedure will not damage or change your current files or settings...it will just repair or replace damaged system files. You will be asked for your Installation CD and may be asked for your product key. Follow the instructions carefully...print them out if you can. Note: This option is not always available on OEM Recovery Cd's

Once this repair has completed, you will have to download all Windows Updates again.

Let us know if this helps.

wannabe1

[The Skeptic]

Just as a matter of interest, try to change back the HD letter to G if see it makes any difference. If not, change it back to D. Do the following: control panel > administrative tools > computer managment > mark disk managment > action > all tasks > change drive letter and path.

[caiphn]

wannabe1: Thanks for the idea! I actually did end up trying that, and unfortunately that did not resolve the issue. The drive was still recognized as RAW, and Windows stated that a format was still necessary.

y.a: The G: was already occupied, so I changed to the H:, unfortunately that made no difference. Thanks for the suggestion either way.

I have tried data recovery software as well, nothing is being brought up. I suppose I am truly stuck. Very frustrating considering that all I did was update to SP2.

[wannabe1]

caiphn...

Let me see if I can get some more eyes on this one...there's a lot of talent at G2G and a few more opinions sure wouldn't hurt.

wannabe1

[Fenor]

This happened to a client of mine at work and I used the data recovery tool RECOVER MY FILES. It has worked for me alot in the past. I know you said you tried a recovery tool already, but to get a good recovery tool you need to shell out a little money. I don't know if you paid for the one you used, but this one costs I believeonly $30, which is more then worth it for the pictures you have on it that you will never be able to take again.

Fenor

[The Skeptic]

My idea was to force G: back on the slave drive. If it is occupied now by another drive, free G: by giving the other drive another letter and assigne G: back to the slave disk.

Changing letters is a major change and it is obvious why you have these problems. What I suggest may help and it takes minutes to do. If it doesn't work, change it back to what it is now.


Ami Yogev

[caiphn]

Well it was the G: on the OS previous to the reinstallion of Windows XP Pro. After that it changed to the D:, however was working fine until the installation of SP2, so I don't feel that it is a drive letter issue.

I did however do exactly what you stated to do, I changed my DVD drive letter to a higher unoccupied one and changed my slave hard drive as G:, as it was on the original installation of XP. This unfortunately made no difference and I have since changed it back to D:.

I used various apps, I tried GetDataBack for NTFS, EasyRecovery Professional and Stellar Phoenix NTFS. Only EasyRecovery Pro was an app which had cost anything, the other two being the unregistered versions. All pieces of software came up with slightly different results.

Stellar Phoenix showed a graphical representation of what was on the drive. (white being unoccupied, blue being data occupied, this was true for all three pieces of software) It showed almost no data on the drive, and recovered 150 megs of various gibberish files, starting with $ and varying in size significantly. Rougly 19 files I believe.

EasyRecovery and GetDataBack also had the graphical representations, however during the drive scan (which takes roughly three hours with each piece of software) the bar showed about half blue, half white, which is true. The 250G drive was roughly half full before this incident. However, once you proceed to show the data that is recoverable, it always shows 150 megs of these files, always the same ones.

The app you're refering to, "Recover my Files", is actually 69.95$, which I wouldn't have a problem paying if knew it was going to work. I am going to get the app, the full version, and I am going to try it. Wish me luck. The app I am refering to has the same name as the one you mentioned and I located here, http://www.recovermyfiles.com/

[wannabe1]

Our OS Moderator, Keith, has made the suggestion that you "swap" the drives making your D drive the master and your current C drive the slave. Install XP on the new master and try to recover the files from the new slave. This, of course, would depend on which drive the data you want to recover is stored.

wannabe1

Edited by wannabe1, 12 November 2005 - 07:12 PM.

[The Skeptic]

I am almost sure that your data on D: drive can be recovered by installing the HD on another computer and backing up the data to the other computer's HD or to another storage device. I would strongly recommend that before any attempt to install XP on this drive.

[caiphn]

"Our OS Moderator, Keith, has made the suggestion that you "swap" the drives making your D drive the master and your current C drive the slave. Install XP on the new master and try to recover the files from the new slave. This, of course, would depend on which drive the data you want to recover is stored."

My current master drive is the C:, the drive with the OS on it. It is not the drive with the recovery issue, the D:, or slave drive is the drive with the recovery issue. By making the slave the master, and installing an OS on the slave, aren't I limiting my recovery options? Installing new files on the drive?

y.a: Someone else suggested that too, take the drive out of my machine, bring it to another machine and see if the data is readable from the other machine? At that point if said data is readable back it up to the other machine? I am going to try that today.


I still have not tried the application "Recover my Files" however I will try to use it by the end of today and will post my results. Thanks!

[caiphn]

Well, I installed "Recover My Files", however now when I attempt to run it I get this.

"RecoverMyFiles.exe - Ordinal Not Found

The ordinal 949 could not be located in the dynamic link library KERNEL32.DLL.

OK


So I seem to be running into another dead end. I need to find someone I can bring the drive to to see if its recoverable that way.