Having just recovered my desktop PC from a major hard disk failure, I had to report on my findings in the hopes that others will not have to go through the same painstaking process as I did. First of all, the problem began when windows would simply not boot, stating errors such as "NTLDR is missing" and Windows set-up not even recognising that Windows was installed on this hard disk, giving [Unknown] as the file system. I thought the recovery console might be able to help, but either I couldn't remember the administrator password, or windows simply couldn't read the account properly. Either way, I couldn't even access the recovery console to try anything there.
All seemed lost at this point with thoughts of rebuilding the drive going through my mind, but before I gave up on it completely, I discovered a fantastic little set of tools called TestDisk. Using a DOS boot CD downloaded from freepctech.com combined with a CD containing the DOS TestDisk application, I was able to discover the hidden partition structure of the disk, reset it to NTFS and rebuild the boot sector! After hours of research and allowing the application to scan my hard disks, I was finally able to start Windows XP, as if nothing had changed!
I'm remaining cautiously optimistic, but so far everything is in tact. If you don't have a second PC to work from, I recommend you have this application on a bootable CD, because it just might save you from having to format your hard disk one day.
2 comments:
This just goes to show that two PCs, or even two operating systems on different drives, really are an awesome thing.
Good find, I'll keep this one in mind.
The problem was, even though I had two Windows XP installations on two different drives, it didn't help to change the boot priority for some reason. It was in a real mess to say the least, which is why I was so amazed by this software.
Potentially it could also be used to find data that someone else thought they'd deleted...
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