Retrieving files from my hard drive with XP

Retrieving files from my hard drive with XP Hard drive information

#1 timkin

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Posted 27 December 2009 - 07:03 PM

I have an unbootable harddrive that has irreplacable pitures letters, info and movie projects on it. After an automatic update from microsoft it restarted and would not boot. It won't go to safe mode and when I went to the recovery console to fix the boot I realized I no longer remembered my administrators password.
Is it possible to retrieve the aforesaid information from it? Let alone, possibly repair the boot?

#2 Guest_Abacus 7_*

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Posted 27 December 2009 - 07:37 PM

To get your Data off it you could set it up as a Slave Drive on another Computer and Copy them from there or Burn them onto a CD/DVD from there.

If you actually set up a Password for Administrator, you would need to remember it. I always keep a Special Book for all Passwords, Access Codes, etc. hidden, away from my Machine, just in case.

If no Password was actually allocated, then the Default is just press enter, meaning no Password.

Hope that Helps you.

:thumbsup:

#3 keyboardNinja

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Posted 27 December 2009 - 10:17 PM

If you have an install/repair disk and boot off of it, it will let you do repair stuff without logging in (doing it directly from the hard drive requires authentication, for obvious reasons).

If the repair or restore features don't fix it, you can open the command prompt from the repair screen and just copy the whole hard drive to an external one (or set it up as a slave drive like Abacus said).

Good luck. :thumbsup:

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#4 timkin

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Posted 28 December 2009 - 12:30 AM

To Abucus 7 & Keyboerdninja,

It is a SATA system with no lumper on the hard drive. Will the hard drive recognise itself as a slave?

This post has been edited by timkin: 28 December 2009 - 12:33 AM

#5 Guest_Abacus 7_*

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Posted 28 December 2009 - 12:53 AM

If you mount it into a SATA System it should be no Problems.

Otherwise you would need a conversion Card to IDE, IMHO.

Another way, if the Host Machine is SATA? Disconnect the SATA CD/DVD Units and plug it in there. That will make it a Secondary Main Drive, same also can apply with hooking up an IDE HDD into an IDE Computer.

Make sure that it is earthed to the Case.

:thumbsup:

This post has been edited by Abacus 7: 28 December 2009 - 01:00 AM

#6 timkin

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Posted 28 December 2009 - 01:19 AM

Can I put it back in my home built system, (SATA), that it originally came from with the present hard drive. I have my windows key and disk. But, don't want to renew windows due to the info on that hard drive. My system has both IDE and SATA. Mother board is a 7050 M_M with dual core athlon X2 64. And, would the hard drive problem possibly migrate to the master?

#7 Guest_Abacus 7_*

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Posted 28 December 2009 - 01:46 AM

That could well become a Problem, the mitergation. Does the other System have SATA CD/DVD? That could be a workaround it. You will need to Upgrade your Anti Virus and Anti Malware before starting on it.

BTW check out your other Thread? There could be an answer already there? You would be better to keep it all in this Thread, to save confusion?

:thumbsup:

#8 timkin

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Posted 28 December 2009 - 01:57 AM

Thank you. I deeply appreciate any and all help. I will update those programs, as you said, and give it a try. Hopefully, I'll be back. It was several updates from microsoft that caused the crash and I don't know which update caused it.

I apologise for this addition. But, I need to know if the update that crashed our precious 180 Gb could migrate also. I am suspecting it was the SP3 update that did the damage. My fault for not checking the updates before letting them install. . .

This post has been edited by timkin: 28 December 2009 - 02:09 AM

#9 Guest_Abacus 7_*

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Posted 28 December 2009 - 02:28 AM

The Updates wont mitagate across the Drives, but some times Viruses and Malware can.

SP3 is best on a Healthy Drive, Mate. You may have had Problems there that SP3 just made worse?

:thumbsup:

#10 timkin

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Posted 28 December 2009 - 03:36 AM

The boot froze after recognising all but the problem hard drive. It stayed there with my hard drive activity LED Stuck on.

#11 keyboardNinja

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Posted 28 December 2009 - 09:10 AM

^That could be problematic... :flowers:

Quote

The Updates wont mitigate across the Drives, but some times Viruses and Malware can.

That's why I suggested just copying the data off of it, then he could just delete the volume and create a new one using Disk Management when he gets it attached (deleting and creating is faster than just plain reformatting, the result is the same : an empty drive).

That's my suggestion. Figure out how to get it attached (not my specialty), copy the important data off, then wipe it clean (to clear out any malware). You can then copy the data back and just use it as data storage in a new computer. :trumpet:

Or you could even make an external out of it if you go buy a case and cable for it.... :thumbsup:

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#12 Platypus

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Posted 28 December 2009 - 11:27 PM

timkin, on Dec 28 2009, 07:36 PM, said:

The boot froze after recognising all but the problem hard drive. It stayed there with my hard drive activity LED Stuck on.

Two possibilities I see:

1) The problem with the drive may be due to a physical fault, rather than the update, meaning it was just a coincidence that it failed at that time. The most likely way to prove this is to try the drive in another computer, if it does the same thing there too, fair indication it has failed.

2) The BIOS has defaulted back to the SATA drive as first boot device (my ASUS board does this - I have to change back to my IDE boot drive if I connect a SATA HDD) and its hanging trying to load the faulty Windows installation. Check if the IDE drive is still the first boot HDD.

If you do get to access the drive as a secondary drive on any Windows system, you might need to take ownership of the files in order to copy them:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308421

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#13 Baltboy

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Posted 29 December 2009 - 10:27 AM

Download BartPE and create a WinXP disk with it. Then you can start the computer with the disk and see if the drive is accessable. Starting it this way will allow you to access files from NTFS as well unless you have permissions set. Does the BIOS recognize the drive? if so you can also try to load a floppy or CD with Boot.ini, Ntldr, and Ntdetect and use that to try to boot into the operating system.