Hi,

Can I use a bootable OS to access the files on the HD and recover them, and then do a fresh install of Windows?

Can someone please help!

Thanks

Hi Sulaman

I'm assuming you haven't formatted your drive yet? As doing so can make the task a little more difficult (and potentially more costly).

I highly recommend Winternal's ERD Commander. The unfortunate thing is that it does cost money. The upside is that it provides a Windows XP like desktop and runs right off of the CD. I myself have it and it's worth every penny.

More information on it can be found by clicking here..

Unfortunately I'm not aware of any other OS like bootable programs that will read an NTFS volume as no version of Linux or MS-DOS I've ever seen are directly compatible...though hopefully someone will correct me on that.

Another option you may want to try is to physically remove the hard drive and set the jumper on it to slave (in most cases you can simply remove the jumper altogether to do so) and pop it into another computer running Windows XP. Then you may have to have the administrator of that computer take ownership of the volume in order to access it. Then you should be able to copy the files you need to another medium (another hard drive or to a set of CDs or DVDs depending on the amount of data you need to preserve).

For future reference. I recommend making 2 partitions on your hard drive, or better yet, adding a physically seperate hard drive altogether, that way you have a bit of a safety buffer for your data in case you ever need to format again.

Essentially you would want your first partition to be large enough for Windows XP and whatever programs you want to install since if you do have to format, most programs will have to be re-installed anyway. Otherwise, important documents and other irreplaceable files can be placed on the second partition. Since you can format one partition while keeping the other one intact, a re-installation of Windows won't be so much of a disaster. If you have a physically seperate hard drive, on the other hand, your data will even be preserved if the drive with Windows on it fails completely.

Another technique that is very effective, but more costly, is to have two identically sized drives. You can then run a daily or weekly backup of your whole system to the other drive even if the first one is nearly full. That way if you ever lose functionality in Windows you can simply restore the backup (or backups depending on your backup strategy) after a re-installation of Windows and have your machine setup with all your programs and settings intact.

The process is less complicated than you might think too.

try this it is free.

read complete instructions for burning your copy of have a friend do it from your windows install cd.

there are piracy concerns in distribution so do not distribute it once burned from your windows cd, but this is what its made form .... system recovery.

it uses your windows cd to create a bootable windows operating system run from a cd.

the instructions are long and complex, but it does work well for system recovery.

UBCD for Windows

Thanks for the replies guys.

I haven't formatted the HDD's yet, I just want to boot in, copy the files and then reinstall Windows. The computer doesn't turn on normally anymore, it keeps saying, "Disk Read Error. Press CTRL + ALT + DEL to restart."

I'll try the UBCD one first, otherwise I'll see Winternal's ERD Commander.

If I don't want to use the software, can I just connect the HDD to another computer as slave? They are in RAID configuration though, would that make a difference?

Thanks

AFAIK-- Raid uses different file-storage methods (striping of data across several discs)-- whether it would affect a recovery-- I am not sure. I will PM our tech leader-- and do some looking.

Thanks for that. Looking forward to your reply.

Hopefully, just because it's in a RAID config doesn't mean I lose all the data.

I wish I knew that before I got it set up that way!

I've PM'ed our Tech Team Leader re your issue-- I am afraid I have not been able to find much on this yet-- except for Computer Forensic Firms adverts-- he is the best at RAID issues I confess to not being all that familiar with it-- it is faster-- but the striping-- kind of breaks up your data and spreads it across all those discs... the exact method for each type of controller is often "proprietary" meaning not for public eyes.

Exactly how many drives ? And which type of RAID is it ?