Hard drive corrupt how can i recover? (DELL INSPRION)

J

j4gg4

New Member
Where do i start. right,
My 120gb ide 2.5" hard drive started to run PAINFULLY SLOW after installing blackberry software onto it. I mean the desktop took 25 mins to load anything, i tried to goto system restore but it was so slow and failed.

I then stuck my xp cd in and began to repair windows it got to the page where it says 39 minutes left..ect, then asked for language for keyboard..ect and DOH my battery died.

Now whenever i try to load xp cd from booting it doesnt detect a copy of windows on my hard drive so i dont have the option to repair anymore. Only fresh format.

Its vital i retreive information from this hard drive or better still get it back running to normal state BEFORE installing the rubbish blackberry software.

Any help on how to do this would be greatly appriciated, some pointers to free hard drive recovery software maybe?
 
S

Sean89

New Member
j4gg4 said:
Where do i start. right,
My 120gb ide 2.5" hard drive started to run PAINFULLY SLOW after installing blackberry software onto it. I mean the desktop took 25 mins to load anything, i tried to goto system restore but it was so slow and failed.

I then stuck my xp cd in and began to repair windows it got to the page where it says 39 minutes left..ect, then asked for language for keyboard..ect and DOH my battery died.

Now whenever i try to load xp cd from booting it doesnt detect a copy of windows on my hard drive so i dont have the option to repair anymore. Only fresh format.

Its vital i retreive information from this hard drive or better still get it back running to normal state BEFORE installing the rubbish blackberry software.

Any help on how to do this would be greatly appriciated, some pointers to free hard drive recovery software maybe?
Click to expand...

can always try file recovery with linux live cd
 
Michael

Michael

Active Member
j4gg4 said:
Where do i start. right,
My 120gb ide 2.5" hard drive started to run PAINFULLY SLOW after installing blackberry software onto it. I mean the desktop took 25 mins to load anything, i tried to goto system restore but it was so slow and failed.

I then stuck my xp cd in and began to repair windows it got to the page where it says 39 minutes left..ect, then asked for language for keyboard..ect and DOH my battery died.

Now whenever i try to load xp cd from booting it doesnt detect a copy of windows on my hard drive so i dont have the option to repair anymore. Only fresh format.

Its vital i retreive information from this hard drive or better still get it back running to normal state BEFORE installing the rubbish blackberry software.

Any help on how to do this would be greatly appriciated, some pointers to free hard drive recovery software maybe?
Click to expand...

That sounds to me like you accidently selected the fresh install option, or maybe format disc.

I'd download Ubuntu 9.10 and burn the image to CD. Boot to it from your computer (the one with this issue) and select 'Try Ubuntu'. Then mount your XP partition and see if the files are still there. If they are, grab a USB stick or external HDD, plug it in, mount it and move your important files to the USB stick or external HDD.

Someone else will chime in with a more in-depth tutorial, I simply don't have time right now, sorry.. if nobody posts by the time that I come back on, I'll throw together a guide for you.

-Michael
 
johnb35

johnb35

Administrator
Staff member
Since you lost power while the computer was on, it could be as simple as donwloading the hard drive makers disk diagnostic utility and burning it to a cd and running a scan on your drive by booting to this cd. This may or may not fix the issue. Your drive could be damaged beyond repair. However, you might be able to hook this laptop drive into an external case and copy data from it. Try the disk diagnostic first and see if it can repair any damage done caused by the battery going out.

Whenever installing or repairing an OS (or updating the bios), always make sure the power adapter is plugged in as installing uses a lot of power from battery. This maybe a lesson well learned.
 
J

j4gg4

New Member
Hi, thanks for all your input

what is ubuntu? it looks like a windows alternative operating system? if thats the case how will this recover anything? or does it have a built in hdd recovery i can use from boot up??
 
E

elitejp

New Member
Im assuming that the "try ubuntu" method will allow you to open up your hard drive to see the files. The "try ubuntu" method just runs off of the cd so it wont reformat anything and you can still use all the programs (more or less) thats on the hard drive. So this would allow you to open your files and save them to another hard drive, flash disk, etc etc.
 
8

87dtna

Active Member
j4gg4 said:
Hi, thanks for all your input

what is ubuntu? it looks like a windows alternative operating system? if thats the case how will this recover anything? or does it have a built in hdd recovery i can use from boot up??
Click to expand...

Yes unbuntu is a linux based OS that you can install without deleting the windows OS.

You will need to download unbuntu, it's an ISO so you'll need a DVD burner and a blank DVD (I don't think it fits on a regular CD but not 100% positive on that) and then you'll need some image burning software. Image burn is one, and there's another that seems to be escaping my mind right now if I think of it I'll edit my post then.

http://www.imgburn.com/index.php?act=download

Once you install unbuntu you;ll be able to get to the windows files and copy them onto another disk.
 
S.T.A.R.S.

S.T.A.R.S.

banned
Just download the ISO image file of the Ubuntu 9.04.Its about 698 MB.It can fit on the CD with no problems...
Its pity to spend the entire DVD on it :p
 
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