W3K HDD on WXP system?

[DanKH]

Hi Folks

Dan -
A few more questions -

Have you tried the device manager "Troubleshooter" ?

Yes, no problems detected anywhere

Does the disk require a driver ?

I don't think so, Maybe, I didn't install originally

Is the XP box Home or Pro ?

Pro

Was the w2003 disk "dynamic" or "basic" ?

Basic

What size is the disk ?

40 GB

What SP is the XP box ? (pre SP1 size limit 137GB)

SP3

How is it displayed in the MMC Disk Management snapin ?

Volume - Layout - Type - Filesystem - Status - Capacity - Free Space - % Free - Fault Tolerance - Overhead
D: - PARTITION - BASIC - N/A but it is NTFS - HEALTHY - 33.26GB - 33.26GB - 100%free (liar!) - NO - 0%

On the w2003 server -
were you using "Norton GoBack" (previously known as Wildfile GoBack, Adaptec GoBack, and Roxio GoBack)
or possibly "Acronis Image For Windows",
as these modify the MBR.

Nope, none of them

[DanKH]

Is that W2003 disk bootable?

Yes

Start it up in the home PC and copy files to a USB drive of some sort?

Good idea, I'll try that if anything else fails (Have to set it as master though)

Or you could try some of the Linux tools to see if they see both disks :o

Which?

[steve p]

Hi Dan,

I had the same problem with one of my drives a while ago. It turned out that my power supply was not suppying enough oomf for it. Of course I only realised that there was nothing wrong with the drive after I had formatted it. :@

Best wishes
Steve P

[DanKH]

My PSU is more than capable, Actually I just replaced my normal second HDD with this one temporarely, to sneak out the files.... so unfortunately thats not the problem either....

[basys]

Hi Folks

Dan -

Volume - Layout - Type - Filesystem - Status - Capacity - Free Space - % Free - Fault Tolerance - Overhead
D: - PARTITION - BASIC - N/A but it is NTFS - HEALTHY - 33.26GB - 33.26GB - 100%free (liar!) - NO - 0%

Filesystem
N/A

i.e.
It's not a system ID that XP recognises,
or the MBR is damaged.

For NTFS volumes, the system ID is 0x07.

Did the w2003 server's PSU fail whilst running,
or during boot up ?

NTFS can move the MFT if there is a bad sector in the current location of the MFT.
However, if the data is corrupted,
the MFT cannot be located,
and the OS assumes that the volume has not been formatted.

This may explain what you are seeing.

Was it by any chance a compressed or encrypted disk ?



EDIT
Is the disk actually mounted ?
If so,
from a DOS prompt
have you tried chkdsk d: (that's test & report only).



HTH
ATB
Paul

[TSR2]

Think we might be missing a trick here chaps. Dan you say that its XP SP3, but what SP was Win2K3?

[DanKH]

Win2003-SP2

The server crashed as I plugged in the net-cable, that's what you get for plugging in a cable with the switch turned on!

The disk was partly compressed but not encrypted....

I tried to reformat it, but it didn't complete.... stalled at around 70-80%...

But after that opreration I'm pretty sure that if I had a chance before to recover any data, that chance is most certainly gone now...

Anyway, It was just my id-file (We use Lotus notes at work :roll: ) I wanted to recover, for the rest of the files, I would just format it and use it a spare HDD.

All I wanted was to try to avoid helpdesk ;-)

[TSR2]

We use Lotus notes too mate... Satan's email system.

You wont be able to get anything off a partially formated drive without special tools mate. If the drive is OK, it should format though. What you might find is that (assuming its sata) you disconnect your own main drive, connect up this one. Boot from the XP CD, and tell XP to do a full format of the drive (not the quick option.)

Then switch it off, put your original drive back in, connect the newly formated one as a secondary, and bobs your uncle.