WTF HDD?

NYSpeed Automotive NYSpeed Off Topic
1

I shut down my computer and pulled the DVD drive out to borrow for use in an old box I had laying around the house. When I turned it back on I got boot loader missing or whatever that error is. Can’t boot Vista. FML. So I grabed the Vista disc, booted it, it doesn’t find a windows installation. Fufufufufuufu. Of course my back up HDD died a long time ago so my pictures weren’t backed up.

When I get home from lunch I’m going to boot an ubuntu USB and hope to God I can see the files even though Winblows somehow got effed.

If that doesn’t work what are my options?

2

Spinrite

3

OK. Install windows on a seperate drive, install spinrite, ???, profit? Is that basically how it works?

---------- Post added at 09:25 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:20 AM ----------

Nope, looks like you make a bootable spinrite disk, boot it, select recover data, pray, profit. Y/N?

4

Yes

Honestly before you try any of that you try scandisk??? built into windows??? Boot up a vista CD goto recovery console and run scan disk against the drive

5

does the BIOS recognize the disk? Maybe you F’ed up a cable when you were swapping the drives around.

---------- Post added at 09:31 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:30 AM ----------

is the drive sata or ide?

either way, if it’s not being recognized by the bios, nothing will see it

6

SATA. Yes BIOS recognizes it. Scan disk eh? OK maybe I’ll try that before spinrite.

7

err reading your original post pwns me

+1 on make sure the drive is plugged in and bios see its

If you multiple HDs make sure the boot order is selected correctly if you unplug a drive and reboot then plug the drive back in it may have pulled your primary drive from the boot order I had this happen a few weeks ago.

Spinrite is the shit btw I have had it fix 99.9% of all issues like this

8

Yeah the boot order’s cool. I triple checked bios settings, unplugged unnecessary shit, etc. All the basics. Sounds like I’ll be praying to the spinrite Gods. I’ll see if I can get at the files with linux first to back them up, then let spinrite have at it.

9

Do you need a copy or did you find a “free” copy?

10

+1 on checking all the boot settings in the bios. I seriously doubt anything is wrong with your hard drive. Sounds more like your Bios isn’t setting your hard drive as a boot device.

EDIT: Looks like we were typing at the same time.

Before you start f’ing this up even more with disk repair utilities why not simply slave the drive off on another computer and see if it can see the drive. That’s the first thing we always try here at work and 95% of the time you can copy off any of the data you need.

11

Found a free one. Thanks though.

I’m pretty sure it’s not the BIOS. I checked it a couple of times.

12

before you go all nutzo try to to boot using the cd into the recovery console and try the commands fixmbr and fixboot.

They usually are pretty good at rebuilding your MBR so you can start your OS again.

EDIT: reading your original post, you installed a DVD drive and now you cant boot your PC?

13

If the vista install isn’t recognizing the partition, but the drive itself IS recognized by he PC, then something has gone wrong with the filesystem on the hard disk.

definitely try a linux boot cd.

14

Removed one. Now I can’t boot it. Put it back, still can’t boot. The only thing I can think of is a static discharge or something while I was moving stuff around scrambled it?

Like Tom said, the bios recognizes the device but the Vista install DVD doesn’t see an OS to repair. I’m going to start with the linux boot USB so that if the files are there I can back them up before doing anything else, then try fixboot and fixmbr, and if that doesn’t work spinrite and pray.

15

This.

16

when you get it up and running again, pay for carbonite or similar service. Automatic backup for those home users who are too lazy. I have about 200gb of data on carbonite for 50 per year.

17

It’s not the drive, something got corrupted in the bootloader. Pop the Vista disc in, Go to Repair Windows >> Command Prompt >> Type Bootrec /fixboot

18

if it’s the bootloader, then why would the vista install disc not recognize the partitions?

19

I am still voting MBR is messed up and just needs to be rebuilt. My Vista laptop used to do this shit all the time.

20

Why would it? There is nothing telling it that there is anything installed.

in that case bootrec /fixmbr

Sometimes you can copy the required files from a known good Vista Install with the Same Service Pack level and OS.

CHKDSK C: /r might also be handy. If you can access safemode then an sfc /scannow would be better.