[alaskalivedotnet]

RUNNING MEDIA CENTER EDITION OF XP
ON HP Media Center Computer
2 gigs of ram
SATA Hard Drive

Last night I clicked on a page on a website.
A bunch of screens popped up. I closed all.
Usually I keep my computer running all night, last night I turned it off... big mistake.

This am, rebooted... OS not found.
I have another drive running Vista, that is what I am on now.

The drive effected is partitioned, by HP, and when I look at the drive using VISTA I can see the secondary partition, but not the primary.

If I boot to the Media Center Drive, it clicks, click, click, click... and says, NO OPERATING SYSTEM FOUND.

I downloaded Puppy, and am going to see if I can see the drive using Puppy.

If I boot to the XP install cd, it starts to run setup... then says... no drive found.

I am a computer technician. For years now...

Usually when a drive is clicking, it it toast.
However,,, this is different.
It is partitioned, and using vista as primary drive... I can see the secondary drive partition on the XP drive. But Not the Primary. NO CLICKING, NONE.

I hope I have not been too wordy.

Any suggestions?

Since original post, I have gotten PUPPY, and I am on puppy now. It does not see either partition on the Media Center Drive.

Edited by alaskalivedotnet, 17 June 2009 - 05:00 PM.

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you might want to try testdisk...
one of the staff here was going to write a step by step for using it but you may be able to figure it out
yourself...instructions are at the link

Edited by happyrock, 17 June 2009 - 05:30 PM.

[happyrock]

you might want to try testdisk...
one of the staff here was going to write a step by step for using it but you may be able to figure it out
yourself...instructions are at the link

Edited by happyrock, 17 June 2009 - 05:30 PM.

[alaskalivedotnet]

you might want to try testdisk...
one of the staff here was going to write a step by step for using it but you may be able to figure it out yourself

Thanks, you are the one who recommended PUPPY, in another post.. I followed your instructions... got it, love it. Thanks for PUPPY and the little ISO burner.. works like a charm.

I will now go get what you said... thanks... you guys are great.!!!

[alaskalivedotnet]

I am going to have to re boot into vista, to open and see how to run the testdisk utility.
I do not know if I can run it in puppy, and do not know what linux version puppy is.. i have limited knowlege of linux... love puppy though...
If I knew which version of Testdisk worked with this version of Puppy, I would try to use puppy to look at tesdisk, testdrive... will be gone for a little while while go start up Vista...

[happyrock]

you have to mount the drive using puppy in order to see the drives contents...puppy runs completely in ram..
BTW...you can run TestDisk from a floppy diskette

Edited by happyrock, 17 June 2009 - 07:49 PM.

[alaskalivedotnet]

you have to mount the drive using puppy in order to see the drives contents...puppy runs completely in ram..
BTW...you can run TestDisk from a floppy diskette

Well, puppy is awesome, so first of all, thank you for that.
I also downloaded and burned the new, 4.something version of puppy. Have not tried it.

In puppy, cannot see the drive at all.
In vista, can see the drive, running TestDisk, the drive shows up as 7megabytes.

Testdisk says, : Drive size must be accurate or do not run.
So, it says, like... update drivers... check bios for settings to see if that drive is showing correctly in bios.

NOTE: It is a 200 gig, wd SATA drive.
If I boot to another drive running vista, and try to look at the MEDIA CENTER drive.
In vista, it shows the secondary partition, works, can write to it, everything.
But the primary partition, with the OS, is not there. If I go to Admin tools, It recognizes it, but gives a Hardware Failure when you try to make it active.
When you buy an HP, hp already has the drive partitioned and the little one has the recovery info on it.

Some thing ate my friggin drive.

I have TestDisk, but like it said, it is NOT showing the actual size for the drive, Media Center, that I need to repair.

[happyrock]

verify that the computer's BIOS detects the hard disk...

go here..download the following file: rc.iso....then run chkdsk /r
from the rc.iso cd...be sure the bios is set to boot from the cd drive first...

if you don't have a burning program that will burn .ISO files go here and get burncdcc ..a small FAST no frills iso burning program...

NOTE...do not put a blank cd in until burncdcc opens the tray for you
1. Start BurnCDCC
2. Browse to the ISO file you want to burn on cd/dvd ....in this case its rc.iso
3. Select the ISO file
4. click on Start

make sure in the bios the cd drive is the first boot device....put the cd in the cd drive..boot your computer....

boot from the rc.iso cd....
when you boot from rc.iso you will get a blue screen and it will say setup is loading files...
then it will say its starting windows...
you will get to a screen that says ...do you want to install windows or 2nd choice it to repair windows..
press r to repair...you will get to a ...C:\>.......this is where you type in chkdsk /r

type in chkdsk /r press enter
note the single space before the /

While chkdsk is running, you will see a light blue window with a dark blue band at the top and bottom. Chkdsk will display the specific stage it is checking as well as the percentage of completion of the stage. You cannot do anything else on your computer while chkdsk is running. When chkdsk is finished, it will automatically reboot your computer.
NOTE this can take a long time to complete..it may even appear to hang or get stuck at a certain % for a couple of hours...then complete...it may even back up and go over the same area...this is normal...let it run...there are 5 stages
DO NOT TURN OFF YOUR COMPUTER WHILE RUNNING CHKDSK or you can have severe problems...
nojoy...
boot from the cd again...
then type fixmbr press enter...reboot
no joy ....boot from the cd again...
type in fixboot press enter...reboot
nojoy...boot from the cd again...

Type in bootcfg /scan and press Enter

if it says total identified window installs: 1

Type in bootcfg /rebuild and press Enter...

It will identify your XP installation...type Y once you see this prompt.

You will be prompted to enter the load identifier...type in Microsoft XP Home Edition or Microsoft XP Professional depending on whichever version you have...press enter

You will be prompted to enter the load options...type in /fastdetect and press Enter

Type in exit and press Enter

remove the cd

Reboot

Edited by happyrock, 18 June 2009 - 07:24 AM.

[alaskalivedotnet]

verify that the computer's BIOS detects the hard disk...

go here..download the following file: rc.iso....then run chkdsk /r
from the rc.iso cd...be sure the bios is set to boot from the cd drive first...

if you don't have a burning program that will burn .ISO files go here and get burncdcc ..a small FAST no frills iso burning program...

Reboot

OMG, you did a lot of typing, and all the steps... perfectly laid out...

Thank you for your efforts....

I will do all and I understand all you said, will have to do it tomorrow.
I have another drive setup with bare essentials to work. Web Design... for today, have clients screaming about their work not getting done.

What an idiot, I should of backed up more...

O have a program that copies the hard drive in case of stuff like this, but was not using it.
lol
Now I will.

Thanks again, once I do all you outlined in the next few days... I will report back.

Also, I have this nasty lung infection... got me down... man, this crap is nasty.
I took nyquil and it knocked me out!!! I feel like I came off a drunk this am.

Thanks again.

PS, You are the one who showed me Puppy and the ISO burner... both awesome... Thanks again.

[happyrock]

your welcome...and thanks for letting us know...
take your time and when your caught up...come back and let us know where we are at..

[alaskalivedotnet]

I checked the bios. The drive is not showing up in the bios.

But the secondary partition does show up in vista.

[happyrock]

try what I asked in post # 7...

Edited by happyrock, 19 June 2009 - 09:35 AM.

[alaskalivedotnet]

try what I asked in post # 7...

Ok, note, I do not have any Blank CDs, but I have blank DVDs going to try the process with that. Thanks.

[alaskalivedotnet]

Well,... I was very hopefull... but..
I must report.

The program found NO HARD DISK FOUND

The BIOS found no hard drive as well. So I understand that.
I was hoping this would find it though.

When ever the computer is started now, that drive is clicking.

This sucks.

3 year old HP Computer Hard Drive dead.

Hey, but thanks a LOT for the help!
We tried our very best!!!

Edited by alaskalivedotnet, 22 June 2009 - 05:26 PM.

[happyrock]

hopefully you have some of your stuff backed up...I recently had to replace a 6 year old hard drive with a new drive only to have the new one fail after only six months...I am good about backing up so it wasn't that big a deal but drives do die...

[alaskalivedotnet]

hopefully you have some of your stuff backed up...I recently had to replace a 6 year old hard drive with a new drive only to have the new one fail after only six months...I am good about backing up so it wasn't that big a deal but drives do die...

Actually.. even though I am a computer technician...
And have like tons of hard drives...
I lost about 2 months of various things.

No big deal. But I wish I had not.

All my info from windows gets stored on other drives, and now, all that is being backed up daily.
Live is a bizatch at times... but,

My bad! I knew better.

Glad to know you are here if I have problems.
lol