BF2S Forums Computer won't boot

haffeysucks wrote:

I *may* have messed up my boot drive (we'll find out once I can get past this), but to check, I decided to plug it into another computer.  This computer's original drive (which contains a XP installation) is SATA, and so is my boot drive, which I connected to see if I still have my files.

The problem is, the computer won't boot into XP.  It gives me the Last Known Good Configuration page and all of the options don't go past the XP "loading bar" screen.  That screen appears for a split second and then the computer restarts.  I've tried changing the boot order, completely disabling my drive from the boot order, etc.  I've even decided to keep my hard drive unplugged until the computer boots, after which I plugged in the SATA cable on the long shot that it might appear in Disk Management.  No dice.

What am I doing wrong?  This is such a simple task that just DOESN'T WORK.  I am at wit's end and I'm extremely frustrated because I know after this, I will most likely not even be able to recover my data anyway...

haffeysucks wrote:

I have two drives.  One is XP and boots by itself.  The other is Vista but I think I may have formatted over it while trying to install Leopard on it (but that's a different story).

I am trying to recover what is on the Vista drive (basically all I want to do right now is see its contents in Explorer).  So I connected the Vista drive to the XP computer.  The XP computer boots by itself, without the Vista drive, but if I connect the Vista drive via SATA cable, the computer goes to the Last Known Configuration page.

JoshP wrote:

haffeysucks wrote:

Okay I've booted into Linux, but under the file browser in "Computer" there is only a 93.2 GB volume disk...I can see from the file structure it's my XP HD.  My Vista HD isn't showing up.

I don't know ubuntu all that well, but is there an equivalent of device manager? Does it show up there?

EDIT: does it show your HDD when it POSTs or in the BIOS either?

Last edited by haffeysucks (2009-01-10 16:00:08)

JoshP wrote:

Hmm. Ubuntu and BIOS are recognising the drive, but it's not showing up in Ubuntu's file manager.

Try looking in the Ubuntu partition manager thing, see if it recognises it there, and if so, would it let you format it? (don't format it though, ofc )

JoshP wrote:

haffeysucks wrote:

JoshP wrote:

Hmm. Ubuntu and BIOS are recognising the drive, but it's not showing up in Ubuntu's file manager.

Try looking in the Ubuntu partition manager thing, see if it recognises it there, and if so, would it let you format it? (don't format it though, ofc )

One step ahead of you.   I opened it up about 10 minutes ago but it still says it's "Scanning all devices."  My ass.

Hmm Can you hear any activity coming from the drive indicating that it actually is scanning devices?

Otherwise, you probably have 2 options - play around in Ubuntu and try and get it to recognise and mount the drive

or

Buy an enclosure (i actually did this when I had a similar problem to you, infact it sounds almost exaclty identical to what i did, lol, strange) - only about £10, so probably about $10 - $15, and put your drive in that, boot into XP, then use the drive like an external hard drive. If you can get the data off the drive like that, format it as soon as you've got the data off it, then you'll be able to get it back inside your PC.

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/136250 is the sort of thing you want.

JoshP wrote:

haffeysucks wrote:

Okay it finally finished.  It shows the Vista HDD!  Hooray.  Although this seems pretty disheartening: "Unallocated 149.05 GB".  I know I might be able to recover my data but how?

All i can think of is that the drive structure is corrupted

Try mounting the drive in linux if you can. If you can't, I'd strongly suggest using an enclosure, it worked when i had a very similar problem, so it'll probably work for you

CrazeD wrote:

So, after skimming the thread, XP restarts upon loading?

Repair install.

haffeysucks wrote:

JoshP wrote:

haffeysucks wrote:

Okay it finally finished.  It shows the Vista HDD!  Hooray.  Although this seems pretty disheartening: "Unallocated 149.05 GB".  I know I might be able to recover my data but how?

All i can think of is that the drive structure is corrupted

Try mounting the drive in linux if you can. If you can't, I'd strongly suggest using an enclosure, it worked when i had a very similar problem, so it'll probably work for you

how do i mount the drive?

JoshP wrote:

Erm... I don't know Sorry, i don't know enough about linux I think you do it using the terminal, but i can't remember the exact command.