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How to retrieve data from an uncooperative HDD?

#1
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8/8/08 at 6:46am
  • Joined: October 2001
  • Location: Rensselaer, NY
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Here's my situation. XP is not booting for me.

When I go to startup all I get after the XP load screen (with blue bar) is a black screen with a white cursor. I get no GUI at all. This happens whenever I try safe mode or "last known configuration."

This happened out of the blue. The only unusual thing I had done was dismantle my PC and all its peripherals to move it to a new computer desk last night.

Some google searches tell me there seem to be few (if any) straight up fixes for the problem. I would prefer to do a clean install of XP anyway.

My question is: how can I copy date files (jpgs, mp3s, docs, etc) from the HDD onto a flashdrive? I would also love to get my e-mails backed up from Outlook Express.

I figure I could always install XP onto a new HDD and then hook up the current one as a slave and retrieve files that way...but I'd rather avoid the expense of a new HDD and just format and start fresh on the current HDD.

Ideas?

There's Jessie the yodeling cowgirl. Bullseye, he's Woody's horse. Pete the old prospector. And, Woody, the man himself. Of course, it's time for Woody's RoundUp. He's the very best! He's the rootinest, tootinest cowboy in the wild, wild west!

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#2
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8/8/08 at 7:18am
  • Joined: October 2001
  • Location: Rensselaer, NY
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Re: How to retrieve data from an uncooperative HDD?

Further on-line investigation has prompted me to consider downloading some harddrive diagnostic tools and/or an XP "repair" installation.

Given, of course, that I can get the PC to boot from the diskette or CD drive!

==================

I should also note that I re-seated all date & power cables to all drives and mobo. I also re-seated the RAM chips and various cards (especially video).

There's Jessie the yodeling cowgirl. Bullseye, he's Woody's horse. Pete the old prospector. And, Woody, the man himself. Of course, it's time for Woody's RoundUp. He's the very best! He's the rootinest, tootinest cowboy in the wild, wild west!

Top Ten Ways to Find Good Deals on DVDs and Blu-ray...
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#3
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8/8/08 at 7:52am
  • Joined: October 2001
  • Location: Rensselaer, NY
  • Post Count: 17,681

Re: How to retrieve data from an uncooperative HDD?

I might be in luck. Apparently there is a new trojan/virus out which is causing this to happen. I found this thread which looks promising:

Quote:
I've repaired dozens of these already.



Symptoms are easy enough to spot, system detected a virus, asks for the windows sp3 cd then shuts down in 60 seconds, on rebooting though ends up at a blank screen with just the cursor, booting into safe mode and the task manager don't help.



The files this virus infects is LSASS.EXE in the C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32 and C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DLLCACHE folders.



The SOURCE of the virus is strange, turns out certain downloaded copies of the SP3 installer for windows (including the one from the windows update site) were pre-infected, no way microsoft would admit to this though.

The way to repair a downed machine is fortunatly very simple:

1. Boot off a Windows XP Home or Pro CD (Doesn't seem to matter which one).
2. Start Recovery Console

(In the next step, D is my CDROM, change the letter if neccessary)

3. Type : copy d:\i386\lsass.ex_ c:\windows\system32\lsass.exe
4. Type : copy d:\i386\lsass.ex_ c:\windows\system32\dllcache\lsass.exe

5. Reboot system



Windows should start fine.

There's Jessie the yodeling cowgirl. Bullseye, he's Woody's horse. Pete the old prospector. And, Woody, the man himself. Of course, it's time for Woody's RoundUp. He's the very best! He's the rootinest, tootinest cowboy in the wild, wild west!

Top Ten Ways to Find Good Deals on DVDs and Blu-ray...
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#4
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8/8/08 at 3:17pm
  • Joined: October 2001
  • Location: Rensselaer, NY
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Re: How to retrieve data from an uncooperative HDD?

Well, I didn't quite get to the step above...but I fixed my problem! I'm even typing from my home computer right now!

I downloaded a a copy of Seagate SeaTools (v. 2.07) and used it to do a diagnostic scan of my Maxtor 160gb drive. It found nine errors and fixed them. Then on my next boot, windows did a checkdisk and it looked like it fixed a bunch of .dll files.

...and the next thing I know I was looking at my desktop of my faithful labrador retriever--who passed away a few years ago now.

Woohoo!

Now I just have to keep my promise to myself and do all my back-ups and do a fresh install of XP.

Really...I will.

There's Jessie the yodeling cowgirl. Bullseye, he's Woody's horse. Pete the old prospector. And, Woody, the man himself. Of course, it's time for Woody's RoundUp. He's the very best! He's the rootinest, tootinest cowboy in the wild, wild west!

Top Ten Ways to Find Good Deals on DVDs and Blu-ray...
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#5
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8/8/08 at 5:26pm
  • Joined: December 2006
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Re: How to retrieve data from an uncooperative HDD?

Try using SyncToy from Microsoft to do your back ups. It's free and works great. Also, next time try slaving your defective drive onto another computer and scanning it that way. It could save you a lot of time. Also download Tune up utilities 2008. It comes with a 30 day trial and will fix a lot of those problems as well.


Don
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#6
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8/8/08 at 6:35pm
  • Joined: October 2001
  • Location: Rensselaer, NY
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Re: How to retrieve data from an uncooperative HDD?

Don: Those sound like great suggestions...and just the sort of things I need. I will DEFINITELY check them out.

Thanks!

Plus...I was getting a little lonely talking to myself!

Mike

There's Jessie the yodeling cowgirl. Bullseye, he's Woody's horse. Pete the old prospector. And, Woody, the man himself. Of course, it's time for Woody's RoundUp. He's the very best! He's the rootinest, tootinest cowboy in the wild, wild west!

Top Ten Ways to Find Good Deals on DVDs and Blu-ray...
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#7
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8/9/08 at 1:25am
  • Joined: June 1997
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Re: How to retrieve data from an uncooperative HDD?

Mike:

I was going to say did that other Mike Frezon help out any or was it just Mike Frezon that found the fix you needed.

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#8
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8/9/08 at 8:14am
  • Joined: October 2001
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Re: How to retrieve data from an uncooperative HDD?

And guess what, Parker? Fixing the HDD "problems" and having XP's Checkdisc then re-fix itself has also fixed my printing problems! Woohoo!

I'll be posting into that thread when I get a chance tomorrow. I think a bunch of .dll files must've gotten messed up somehow. That must be what that print spoller business is all about.

There's Jessie the yodeling cowgirl. Bullseye, he's Woody's horse. Pete the old prospector. And, Woody, the man himself. Of course, it's time for Woody's RoundUp. He's the very best! He's the rootinest, tootinest cowboy in the wild, wild west!

Top Ten Ways to Find Good Deals on DVDs and Blu-ray...
Export to Wiki
#9
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8/10/08 at 1:46am
  • Joined: June 1999
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Re: How to retrieve data from an uncooperative HDD?

Last week, both my desktop and laptop registered a W32.Spybot.Worm virus when I did my weekly virus scan using Norton Internet Security. NAV automatically fixed the problem and life went on without a hitch.

Back to the trojan problem: I have not seen it on either on my computers but apparently now Microsoft is saying the trojan isn't a real trojan, just an incorrectly targeted file in the first SP3 release. Apparently, they have already released a fix for it.

Mike, I'm curious as to what antivirus you are using.
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#10
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8/10/08 at 11:27am
  • Joined: October 2001
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Re: How to retrieve data from an uncooperative HDD?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Clinton McClure
Mike, I'm curious as to what antivirus you are using.

Well, here's something embarassing to have to admit...but I own a copy of Norton Anti-Virus and have it installed. But, I find it to be a HUGE resource hog for my rather limited PC and I had disabled it when I ran into a slew of problems recently--including the above-mentioned print spooler difficulty which completely disabled my ability to print. So, whatever happened to me (virus/trojan/corrupted file) hit me while my shields were down.

BTW, I don't have SP3 installed...just SP2.

There's Jessie the yodeling cowgirl. Bullseye, he's Woody's horse. Pete the old prospector. And, Woody, the man himself. Of course, it's time for Woody's RoundUp. He's the very best! He's the rootinest, tootinest cowboy in the wild, wild west!

Top Ten Ways to Find Good Deals on DVDs and Blu-ray...
Export to Wiki
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