Hi everyone , I am employed as a manager in a firm. I have a problem that I had like to talk about. My system was working fine the other day, but while copying a file by nero….the system hanged and I had to restart it. But I got a disk boot failure error. Then , I tried to run a windows xp installation CD, but that is also showing some error message during installation and the installation fails.I did check the bios settings and the disk fails to show…and had it checked on another system also…but bios cannot detect the hard disk.I think the disk is damaged or something like that.The disk has important data from my company’s point of view…..that I need to recover.
Please let me know if there are any ways to get my data back from this disk!!!!
Full Version: Help me….my hard disk is damaged!!!
Working with CD image files, which can be very large, can take a very long time on older and underpowered machines. The process involves repeated disk accesses - very many of them. This can precipitate disk failures, due to more than one cause.
One would be if the user thinks the process takes so long the user thinks the computer has "hung" and interrupts the process while the system is accessing the disk, especially by doing "hard" or power off shutdowns. A lot of computer damage results from the failure of users to watch the disk access lights, and wait untill they have stopped lighting or flashing before shutting down or initiating new, significant resource load tasks. (The OS is probably better at "multi tasking" than the hardware it runs on is.)
A second would be if the disk was "marginal", that is not in good condition or properly maintained before the disk resource intensive process - in your case a Nero Image processing task - was begun. Such a task should always be preceded by thorough Scandisk or Check Disk testing and and validation of the health of the disk. I recommend staring with a "normal" scan to assess the presence of file system errors, then a scan which repairs those errors found, assuming the number is not so great that it indicates an emergency need to do a complete backup of data on the disk. The next scan should check for and attempt recovery of bad sectors.
Once the health of the disk has been validated, the disk should be defragmented. This process is especially crucial if the files on the disk are fragmented and not contigous, before attempting work with a very large file like a Nero Image file. The many disk accesses required, especially on an underpowered machine, for a large file will increase in geometric scale if the disk is significantly fragemented.
There are many ways to attempt recovery of data on a disk which is recognized by the bios, and accessed at a physical level by the machine. If the machine cannot attempt access of the disk at all, then you have a problem that is beyond my ready expertise.
I would suggest that you pay for and attempt to use the Gibson Research Corporation "SpinRite" recovery tool, available at http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm
It may or may not work for you - but it's a good first step, as best I can assess from the limited information you have provided.
Best wishes, and good luck in your recovery efforts. Keep us posted on your progress, and do not hesitate to provide more information or ask more specific questions as needed.
One would be if the user thinks the process takes so long the user thinks the computer has "hung" and interrupts the process while the system is accessing the disk, especially by doing "hard" or power off shutdowns. A lot of computer damage results from the failure of users to watch the disk access lights, and wait untill they have stopped lighting or flashing before shutting down or initiating new, significant resource load tasks. (The OS is probably better at "multi tasking" than the hardware it runs on is.)
A second would be if the disk was "marginal", that is not in good condition or properly maintained before the disk resource intensive process - in your case a Nero Image processing task - was begun. Such a task should always be preceded by thorough Scandisk or Check Disk testing and and validation of the health of the disk. I recommend staring with a "normal" scan to assess the presence of file system errors, then a scan which repairs those errors found, assuming the number is not so great that it indicates an emergency need to do a complete backup of data on the disk. The next scan should check for and attempt recovery of bad sectors.
Once the health of the disk has been validated, the disk should be defragmented. This process is especially crucial if the files on the disk are fragmented and not contigous, before attempting work with a very large file like a Nero Image file. The many disk accesses required, especially on an underpowered machine, for a large file will increase in geometric scale if the disk is significantly fragemented.
There are many ways to attempt recovery of data on a disk which is recognized by the bios, and accessed at a physical level by the machine. If the machine cannot attempt access of the disk at all, then you have a problem that is beyond my ready expertise.
I would suggest that you pay for and attempt to use the Gibson Research Corporation "SpinRite" recovery tool, available at http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm
It may or may not work for you - but it's a good first step, as best I can assess from the limited information you have provided.
Best wishes, and good luck in your recovery efforts. Keep us posted on your progress, and do not hesitate to provide more information or ask more specific questions as needed.
QUOTE (maggi99 @ May 23 2008, 02:35 AM) 
Hi everyone , I am employed as a manager in a firm. I have a problem that I had like to talk about. My system was working fine the other day, but while copying a file by nero….the system hanged and I had to restart it. But I got a disk boot failure error. Then , I tried to run a windows xp installation CD, but that is also showing some error message during installation and the installation fails.I did check the bios settings and the disk fails to show…and had it checked on another system also…but bios cannot detect the hard disk.I think the disk is damaged or something like that.The disk has important data from my company’s point of view…..that I need to recover.
Please let me know if there are any ways to get my data back from this disk!!!!
Please let me know if there are any ways to get my data back from this disk!!!!
The firm you work for most likely has staff who are responsible for the management of computers which have important data on them. If they don't, they should employ such system experts to handle user problems like yours. If normal user maintenance procedures permitted by your firm do not work for you should contact that specialist staff for support. If there is not such a staff, your manager or senior management in the firm should be consulted about what procedures should be followed to recover the data.
QUOTE (Jim Pivonka @ May 24 2008, 04:02 PM)
The firm you work for most likely has staff who are responsible for the management of computers which have important data on them. If they don't, they should employ such system experts to handle user problems like yours. If normal user maintenance procedures permitted by your firm do not work for you should contact that specialist staff for support. If there is not such a staff, your manager or senior management in the firm should be consulted about what procedures should be followed to recover the data.
Nice advice, dude.
And if that "some error message" said a thing like MBR, that's not good. So if one or the other posters above ideas don't work, you're down to about 2 options depending on the value of the data:
Send the drive to a professional data recovery service. (Yuck - mucho danero (sp.)
Boot your machine with a linux disk and use that to make a small linux partition at the beginning, then format the rest to windows and you *might* be able to salvage it. (Windows will ignore the partition and think the drive starts "later") I knew a guy once that would actually take the sticker off the right hole and adjust the screw to move the heads out a bit. What a hillbilly! But that smart man always had the most MEGABYTES (Like 80-160 MB) because at that time I found a drive in computer shopper (when it looked like a NY phone book, anyone that old around here? :-) ) I paid $269 for a 40 MB and everyone I knew got one too, it was so cheap.
Good Luck!
-Cy
Send the drive to a professional data recovery service. (Yuck - mucho danero (sp.)
Boot your machine with a linux disk and use that to make a small linux partition at the beginning, then format the rest to windows and you *might* be able to salvage it. (Windows will ignore the partition and think the drive starts "later") I knew a guy once that would actually take the sticker off the right hole and adjust the screw to move the heads out a bit. What a hillbilly! But that smart man always had the most MEGABYTES (Like 80-160 MB) because at that time I found a drive in computer shopper (when it looked like a NY phone book, anyone that old around here? :-) ) I paid $269 for a 40 MB and everyone I knew got one too, it was so cheap.
Good Luck!
-Cy
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