OT - recovering files with Linux

[P. J. Alling]

I had a similar problem on my Win2k box.  (I partitioned the partitioned 
the phisical drive into 4 virtual drives).  The system partition became 
scrambled, but the others remained readable.  A PITA but I was able to 
backup all the data from the other partitions.  Ran the manufactures 
system diagnostics on the drive as well as windows.  Everything came 
back as copacetic.  I figured it was a software glitch, so I 
re-partitioned the HD and reinstalled Win2K, (and all the software from 
scratch).  However I had an old 8GB drive sitting around collecting dust 
so I ghosted the new system partition onto it, to get a live backup.  
I'm glad I did.  The installation functioned for all of two weeks and 
failed in much the same way.  I backed up any new data and attempted a 
to re partition the HD, it's unreadable, there was a failure in the 
drives on board electronics,  none of the diagnostics tools picked up 
the problem until after the catastrophic failure.  It makes a nice 
paperweight though. 

Scott Loveless wrote:
> Mark Roberts wrote:
>   
>> Scott Loveless wrote:
>>
>>   
>>     
>>> Last night the laptop shot itself in the foot.  I'm surfing along, 
>>> reading my mail, whatever, and explorer crashed.  Then my other apps 
>>> started shutting down.  Then windows tells me that it's encountered a 
>>> critical error and must shut down.  Now it won't boot.  At all.  Safe 
>>> mode doesn't work either.  Compaq was nice enough to install a few 
>>> recovery utilities on a separate partition.  No luck.  Seems the only 
>>> option I have is restoring the laptop to its original condition.  20 GB 
>>> of photos and other files are located on that machine.  At least 6GB 
>>>     
>>>       
>> >from GFM.  I really didn't want to lose this stuff.  I hate Vista.
>>
>> Sounds like a hard drive going south
>>
>>
>>   
>>     
> That's what I thought, too, but the recovery partition is still 
> working.  One of the tools is a hard drive diagnostic.  No errors 
> found.  The file backup utilities on that partition need a drive large 
> enough to copy to - it's not smart enough to let me swap out usb pen 
> drives or burn to CD.  System restore (also available from the recovery 
> partition) wasn't enabled.  I'm not sure if it wasn't on by default or 
> if I turned it off at some point.  Right now Ubuntu is reading the drive 
> just fine.  I'm beginning to think it's a software issue.  Perhaps the 
> crash corrupted a startup service or something like that.  We'll see.
>
>   


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