Computer will not boot OS on hard drive!

Hi I am working on trying to fix an internal hard drive in this old machine. It is an IDE drive 40 gb. I also do not have any other computers that have a IDE interface on the motherboard, only ATA. So it’s kind of difficult for me to test the drive on another machine because it’s incompatible. I also bought a new HD just in case this old HD is not able to be fixed. I have to kind of go over what processes I have taken so you can completely understand what I been through already. First of all this is my sisters computer and it’s a very old one. Not extremely old, but I will get to that in a sec and give you specs. She wanted me to fix her computer, she had a power outage and after that she told me her computer was very slow, the internet was slow and copying files, installing programs, etc. She is very computer illiterate so their was nothing she can do.

So naturally the first thing I checked were drivers. Low and behold I found that the video drivers were not installed correctly or corrupted. There were two Yellow Question marks in the disk manager. They were for the integrated graphics drivers and one other drive that was “unkown”. First I used the disk that had the drivers supplied on it and tried to install them, it didn’t work at all. Brough up a pop message that said “some of the drivers may not of installed correctly” So I checked the drivers and they were still not installed. I rebooted the machine even and still, no drivers. The next thing I tried to do was do a repair recovery console on the partition table. After doing so, it would not boot to XP AT ALL! This is what caused a major problem to the computer making it pretty much in operational. I tried everything I could possibly do. Including reformatting the drive, tried to repair the OS, and then as a last resort I deleted the partition table and formatted the hard drive with a NTFS file system potentially losing all data.

After I formatted the HD, I tried reinstalling windows XP Pro with Sp3. It still would not boot. I could get to the “setup” screen, install windows on the OS and it would come up with an error saying “that you cannot install windows on this partition” I could not get past this screen no matter what I tried. I then tried to check to see if hard ware was the issue. I re swapped different IDE cables with some brand new ones, nothing changed, I plugged it into a different power source, and that was not the issue either. I checked to see if the jumper on the HD was in the proper place; it was because when I changed it. I got another error stating that it had a missing boot file right when I turn the pc on. So I put the jumper back into its rightful position and I was back to square one. So my only other conclusion at this point was to use a CHDSK scan to see if it found any bad sectors or clusters in the drive, it didn’t. I then ran a memory diagnostic test, it came up fine, no problems with ram. Everything came out fine. So I really didn’t know what was the problem, considering the HD would actually boot to the set up screen, and actually show the partition table, indicated that the HD must have been still working somehow. Because when an HD is fried completely it just won’t boot simple as that, usually a STOP error message which was not the case. So my last option at this point was to buy a new hard drive. So I did, a 160 gb IDE drive. I have not tried using it yet, because I am still convinced that this drive can be repaired somehow. So I want to try and work on that now.

The specs of this machine are:

Intel CeleronR
CPU 2.7 GHz L1 Cache 8 Kbytes
Motherboard
TriGem Computer Inc.
Model – Glendale Motherboard
Memory (Ram) – DDR 2GB
Brand - Gskill
Dram Frequency – 133.2 MHz
Graphics – Integrated Intell graphics chip (Not sure on the specifics of the graphic chip since that is not showing up. Could be due to the missing drivers.

These results came from CPU-z software.


The problem I have right now is that I can’t send you any logs, information, or anything, on the conflicted machine. I have to use another computer to comment to you because the current machine will not boot to windows.
In addition to terry guide of recovery data
http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distri…upu-528.005.iso
http://forums.whatthetech.com/index.php?showtopic=120830

Is there a way I can check the disk drive for possible defects or damage to the drive in a save way, so I can determine if the drive has a physical problem. Because if it does, I do not want to use it in the conflicted machine. I rather just trash it after recovering the data.

Ok so now that I have went over everything, to summarize, I am trying to fix this computer’s HD and recover the data files, IF it can’t be recovered, I want to try the new HD and see if I can install windows XP back on the machine so its operational again, if the hard drive was the issue. I am hoping it’s not a motherboard issue but I doubt it.

So if you got any information, help or anything of the matter, please respond as soon as you can, I really need some expertise help in this matter, with installing the new drive, recovering the drivers and possibly recovering the data on the old drive. thanks!

I also wanted to add that i do not have the serial code for this particular windows OS disk. SO that does kind of pose a problem of activating the product. I guess i'll have to get it at a later date. But for now i just want to get a working OS on that machine. Either on the old HD or the new HD. I checked the bios and i noticed that the old HD currently installed in the machine is not being recognized, but yet it still is able to show the partition table and boot to windows set up. After setting the bios prority to boot from the HD, its clearly skipping it and going directly to the windows set up. So something is wrong with the HD. Btw do you think windows Vista would work with this specifications of this machine? Or should i stick with XP. I have windows 7 disks as well that i bought, but i don't think the system will run windows 7 that well.

Well i unplugged and plugged in the ribbon cables and now it shows clearly that the HD is recognized by the bios. Strange how things are just touchy like that. So now i am re installing windows again and this time it seems as though that was the entire problem all along, because its installing windows and ive successively been able to get to the windows XP desk top screen. I am now installing the drivers on the computer and the network drivers work correctly, as well. So i am able to get online on the machine. Now i want to try and figure out a way to salvage the important data that was on the drive before i deleted the partition and formated it. Once i do that, my plan was to erase both partition once again, and intall the new HD as a primary and use this HD as a slave. Just in case this HD causes further issues in the future, only the slave drive will stop working, but the computer will still be operational due to the new primary 160 gb drive. Anyways now that i have windows installed, will terry's solution of salvaging the data work, or is their an easier of way doing it now. Things are definitively looking good and its quite apparent now that this drive not damaged, it just had an issue being recognized by the bios, could be a ribbon cable or something. I might consider using new ribbon cables.

my suggestions.

1:- keep using the 40gb for your os and use the 160GB for a slave data drive.
2:- create a backup image of your new clean installed os and save it on the slave drive.
3:- you can now use photorec from your windows install, and i suggest you look for your lost files from the image you created and saved on your external hard drive earlier and not the actual hard drive. i think there's more chance nothing was over written with the image than the hard drive you just installed the new os on, so with any luck you'll find every file.

download photorec for windows from here. :- http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec
photorec step by step guide :- http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec_Step_By_Step

To recover files from a media image, run

photorec image.dd to carve a raw disk image

I have the puppy linux thing installed as the OS, booted from a CD, but i also have windows XP on their as well. I am thinking bout just switching to windows to try this, because linux is confusing, its already saying i can't extact the files because of some handler not set right or something. I have no idea what they are taking about. I can probably do the same thing with windows right?? I do have the .DD image file on the other external hard drive, i just need to figure out how to use photorec to retrieve the files.

Ok im at the part where it shows that i have 3 partitions on the disk drive. But i am not sure one contains the lost files. How do i determine that, they are as follows HPFS - NTFS E Extended L Linux Swap I used HPFS - NTFS, i am pretty sure thats the one cause it shows the most clusters on the drive. Then it says to select a filestyle type, which one do i pick. thier is ext2/ext3 or "Other" I selected other. Now it says choose a destination for the recovered files Their is a long list of different directories, with names started with drwx, what the heck is that? I have no idea based on the names which one is my external hard drive. How do I hook the image file that i already created on my external into photorec. Righ tnow it shows up as a unknown file format type.

Choose the directory where the recovered files should be written.

dos.png win.png os2.png To get the drive list (C:, D:, E:, etc.), use the arrow keys to select .., press the Enter key - repeat until you can select the drive of your choice. Validate with Yes when you get the expected destination.

Ok i right clicked the image file and browsed to the photorec and i think it loaded it into their now. Now my issue is, which partition is it. Linux, Extended, Linux swap or Should i just select no Partition (Whole disk)

Ok yeah i think is see what you mean, it shows the directory as E, so i selected E for extended file system. Now it just brings me to the options like Paranoid brute force enabled, keep curropted files expert mode, low memory. Ok i got to the point where it says choose the directory, now i can clearly see all of the dir from the HD, including my documents, pictures, ICDC, etc. Ok its doing it, its going through the recovering process.

just take things slowly, read the instructions, re-read if necessary, take a good look at what's on your screen, read and re-read that too if needed. i can't really help you, because i don't know what your seeing. all i can do now is quote from the guide that's already in front of you.

holy carp** it recoverd 813 files. I am assuming it worked based on that many files. But the problem is now, is that all of the files have been renamed and thier for most of exe programs that were working on here before i guess are notepad documents now. How do i change all of the files back into their original state. These files do not seem to be the files that i lost. i have no idea what is what, but to me it looks like just ordinary XP dir32 files. Is their a possibility that the image that i burnt didn't contain the recovered files and if so is thier a way i can check another partition on the drive to see if i can get the recovered files, if not ill just give up, this is just way to complicated to locate them. I know the DIR that they were in, but you can't actually see the DIR, which kind of sucks. So you have no idea which files you are recover and from what partition, i have partition this drive like 4 or 5 times in the process of trying to install windows XP.

When the recovery is complete, a summary is displayed. Note that if you interrupt the recovery, the next time PhotoRec is restarted you will be asked to resume the recovery.

Thumbnails found inside pictures are saved as t*.jpg
If you have chosen to keep corrupted files/file fragments, their filenames will beginning by the letter b(roken).

After Using PhotoRec: Some ideas to sort recovered files or repair broken ones.
win.png You may have disabled your live antivirus protection during the recovery to speed up the process but it's recommended to scan the recovered files for viruses before opening them - PhotoRec may have undeleted an infected document or a trojan.

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/After_Using_PhotoRec

Ok considerd it recovered CPU-z setup, that can't be the right partition. Thats probably a fairly new partition that after deleting the partition and formatting XP. I need the oldest partition before i even started working on the computer in order to recover those files.

i'm sorry jeff, but i just don't know how i can be of more help to you.

don't search by partition tell it to search all of drive "c" the 40GB drive for any and all files, tell it to save them on your external drive "e" or tell it to search the .dd image you made of the drive yesterday and save any all files to your external hard drive. i would expect it to find thousands of files not 800. what ever you do stop writing to the 40gb hard drive, the more you write to it the more chance you have of losing the files your trying to find. for example i really have no idea why you installed the puppy linux on the drive.