laptop freezes at boot, trying to recover data

[stevenriz]

Hi everyone. I have a Dell D630 laptop with XP Pro that freezes at boot time. I mean, not even the numlock or caps lock keys work. No error, just a blank screen. The BIOS reads the drive properly. When I try to boot using the Windows XP CD, it says no drive found. I tried looking for the drivers but everything I download and put onto a floppy from Dell fails.

I know the disk is physically good. I am booting with a Knoppix CD and it can read the drive. So great, I put in a USB drive to copy the contents of the failed hard drive to the USB and when I get to the Document and Settings directory of the personal folder, Knoppix reports "input/output error" So it appears to have some pointer issues.

Running the ntfsfix utility in Knoppix runs successfully but doesn't seem to address this error.

Anyone have any ideas on what I can try now? Professional restore services are not an option 'here (no $$$)...

I will post this in the linux forum as well...

thanks!
Steve

 

[BadBigBen]

Knoppix has problems with NTFS, as it is implemented as READ ONLY...

if the USB drive is formatted with FAT32, it should be able to copy files from the installed drive to the USB drive...

if you still have problems, then I suggest instead of Knoppix to try the SystemRescue CD, it has FULL support for NTFS build right in... or create a BartPE CD aka live WinXP...

SystemRescueCD

http://www.sysresccd.org/

Bart's Preinstalled Environment ( BartPE ) bootable live windows CD/DVD

http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[linney]

Can you enter the Bios and set it to the Safe Defaults?

Can you load the Recovery Console and run the ChkDsk /r command or the FixBoot and FixMbr commands?

Is this a multi boot machine or is XP the only operating system?

How to install and use the Recovery Console in Windows XP

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;307654&FR=1&PA=1&SD=HSCH

The hard drive manufacturer will have free diagnostic software that is bootable and can thoroughly check the condition of the hard drive.

How to Use System Files to Create a Boot Disk to Guard Against Being Unable to Start Windows XP (Q314079)

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q314/0/79.asp

Q305595 - HOW TO: Create a Boot Disk for an NTFS or FAT Partition in Windows XP

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q305/5/95.asp

Cannot logon to winxp...losing lots of valuable documents
thread779-975236

 

[BJZeak]

With a simple cable adapter you can mount the dell laptop drives directly into an IDE port on a XP/2000 desktop PC and read the drive as an extended drive. I picked one up from a local noname PC store for $25 ... really handy for backups/reloads, testing, formatting etc. Don't leave home without one. I have, Ghost, Ghost32 and Acronis that I use for image backups/restoral ... these programs work on almost any OS be it MS and or UNIX/LINUX etc.

 

[stevenriz]

Yes BadBigBen, I see that Knoppix has issues with ntfs, I seem to remember in the past I mounted the drive as rw and knoppix fixed my issue... that was the past though....

anyway, the input output error I've seen before from using Knoppix. I assumed it meant I had a bad fat and yes a chkdsk would most likely fix the problem but windows recovery wouldn't see the drive... Knoppix does have a crude ntfs repair tool (ntfsfix /dev/sd#1) but it just wasn't enough. so I went into the system bios and changed the sata operation from AHCI to ATA and the windows boot CD would now recognize the drive. I then did a repair and chkdsk. also a new MBR couldn't hurt I thought. Now the system tried to boot but still got to a point where I received a blue screen, even in safe mode, reading C0000128... either way the disk was physically good, it just seemed that windows was trashed. I then booted Knoppix again and was able to copy the user's documents and settings directory to the network. Ahhh but I noticed now all the copied files had yesterday's date and time on them. I didn't want. I don't know why that happened but again knowing the disk was good, I simply put it in another desktop's sata interface as a slave drive and was able to natively copy the data to the network. All dates and times were in tact. Now that I documented this, 1) I can quickly fix this problem the next time it happens and 2) since it will never happen again to me, it might help someone else haha....