Lost Boot Sector info on HD

[Poco81]

Hi if any one can help will be very happy,

I had a system lockup had to reset to get back in and ever since windows sees it as a blank drive even so it has two partitions on it.

I want to try to retrieve my Family Pictures from it if I can, but needs to be done from the dos prompt.
Has any got any good software advice for me not to expensive?

Thanks Poco81

[VIPER_1069]

if you can get it in a working system i would choose format quick then recover with GETDATABACK for what ever o.s. you have either GETDATABACK NTFS or GETDATABACK FAT32 with a bit of luck you may just be able to get all of the data back intact or at least most of it


get a demo here

sure it costs but worth every penny

i got back 20gb of lost files intact


just dont do a full format or defrag the drive that way the data will stay pretty much intact

[scarecrow]

Originally Posted by VIPER_1069

just dont do a full format or defrag the drive that way the data will stay pretty much intact

How can he defrag a drive with "no partitions?"
It sounds like a damaged FAT or MFT (if the drive was NTFS formatted). Get data back won't help since it operates within Windows, and there the two partitions aren't present.
He can try that one:
http://www.partition-recovery.com/
The demo version will show if the partitions and files are still there and recoverable. If they are the unlock licence which allows write operations is rather cheap (30 bucks).

[Poco81]

Thanks guys but I can't get the drive running under windows (keeps crashing) so the data recovery has to be done from the dos prompt.
With a program that will be able to see USB devices.
Have had the drive hooked up internally as the slave on pri. IDE.
Then removed to see if it is possible to get to run as USB.

Thanks but no luck there
Can only see the drive under DOS.

[bionic]

I would recommend putting the hdd back on ide.
You can run Active@partition recovery from dos. You just boot to dos and run the pr.exe from floppy.
If you need a dos boot floppy you can get one here

Heres another partition recovery tool(freeware). Can also run under dos

[scarecrow]

@ Poco81:
It's obvious that you haven't checked my suggestion at all, since it runs from a boot floppy (same program as the first one mentioned by bionic).

[Poco81]

I have tried it before but it couldn't do it.
That’s how I got into this mess in the first place used PQMagic to partition the drive.

Now this is how I managed to get the majority of my files back.

I installed windows on its own with File Scavenger then hooked up the drive via USB and I managed to get my most important data back.

Thanks to all
Poco81