File or Directory is Corrupted and Unreadable

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by Fergal1982, Apr 2, 2008.

  1. Fergal1982

    Fergal1982 Petabyte Poster

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    My mum has dropped her lappy off at mine to take a look at. Apparently it was fine one day, then the next it wont boot. It boots to the 'Windows didnt boot correctly screen', but any of the options selected (safe mode, LKGC, etc) just kick it right back to that screen.

    I have a 2.5" IDE to USB drive, so I ripped the HDD out, and plugged it into my machine, it has two partitions on it, and HP recovery partition, and another partition.

    However, whenever I try to open the other partition, I get the above error. I tried running chkdsk on the drive, but that fails too.

    Anyone got any suggestions for getting the data off the drive?
     
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  2. greenbrucelee
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    greenbrucelee Zettabyte Poster

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    is it XP or Vista & do you have the CD?, can you get into BIOS settings?
     
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  3. Fergal1982

    Fergal1982 Petabyte Poster

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    I can get into BIOS without an issue, its XP, but it doesnt really matter, since im trying to access it outside of the laptop, and a non-bootable drive. I cant even access the partition that way
     
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  4. greenbrucelee
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    greenbrucelee Zettabyte Poster

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    I was just wondering if any changes had been made to it, but it does seem to me that the hard drive is fooked. How about running CHKDSK?, the reason I mention the Windows CD that if its saying missing or corrupted file etc then running the recovery console from the disk you may be able to repair installation or fix the MBR.
     
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  5. Fergal1982

    Fergal1982 Petabyte Poster

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    tried to fix the mbr.

    Im not entirely sure whats causing it to be honest. It seems to be able to read from the drive, as it at least attempts to boot to windows, and just errors (theres a blue screen, but its far too fast to see), and reboots.

    Slightly concerned that I cant see into the drive on another machine. But the other partition on the drive seems to be functioning fine.
     
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  6. Fergal1982

    Fergal1982 Petabyte Poster

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    if it helps, disk management is listing the partition as RAW
     
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  7. greenbrucelee
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    greenbrucelee Zettabyte Poster

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    Is the BSOD too fast to pause, maybe you could try that write down the stop error and gp the MS site to see what it says.

    Another thing you could try is download the Hard driver manufacturers diagnostic utility and run that, but if your other comp can't see the drive then that might not work.
     
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  8. NightWalker

    NightWalker Gigabyte Poster

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    Have a bash with 'Partition Table Doctor', there is probably a trial version. Solved a similar issue for me a while back.
     
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  9. greenbrucelee
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    greenbrucelee Zettabyte Poster

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    Doesn't it show RAW for the type if it can't see a partition on the drive. you need something like partition doctor then as mention above as it seems like its screwed.

    Did your mum mention anything to do with dropping it or leaving it the car loose whilst she was driving?
     
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  10. hbroomhall

    hbroomhall Petabyte Poster Gold Member

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    One of the options on the boot menu is something along the lines of "Don't reboot on error". Use that to see what the BSOD message is.

    It sounds as if you need either recovery software, or take it to a repair guy who has such.

    Harry.
     
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  11. Fergal1982

    Fergal1982 Petabyte Poster

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    I tried to run PTD, but it seemed to think that it was going to lose all the data on the drive, am i using this wrong?

    I have vmware if anyone know of any way to hook it up to the partition and boot through that. not really caring much about the os, once I have the data, i'll just hose it anyway.
     
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  12. NightWalker

    NightWalker Gigabyte Poster

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    Are you using the 'rebuild partition table' option?
     
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  13. Fergal1982

    Fergal1982 Petabyte Poster

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    I think i've managed to sort the immediate issue.

    Connected the drive to my lappy, running (a newly reimaged) debian, it could see the contents fine. Im in the process now of copying them across to a second usb drive, then i can sort the dross from the important files. once thats done, i can rebuild the machine. although I might suggest a new HDD.
     
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  14. NightWalker

    NightWalker Gigabyte Poster

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    So Linux saves the day.... glad you got the data back, and getting a new hard drive is a must!
     
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  15. ThomasMc

    ThomasMc Gigabyte Poster

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    Nice one, Freddie will be so pleased :p
     
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  16. Fergal1982

    Fergal1982 Petabyte Poster

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    shhhh. Dont tell him that! :biggrin

    She's decided not to get a new HDD for now - but she is going to back up the files she wants to keep onto online storage. That way, if/when it fails again, we can get a new one, and not have to worry about data recovery.
     
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