Corrupted partition table

Horst Franke nospam@invalid wrote
Rod Speed wrote

Hi Plenn, an A: drive cable has nothing to do with the HD!
A: stands for a Floppy drive/connection!

He appears to be saying that it was indeed the
floppy drive/connection that was behaving like that.

OK Rod, but this has somewhat nothing to do with a HD problem!

You dont know that either if that was the
symptoms he saw when the system was dying.

Also there is a Bios option to disable a Floppy recognition.

Irrelevant to whether it may well be the symptoms of the system dying.

Horst Franke nospam@invalid wrote
Rod Speed wrote

Hi Plenn, what was You looking for?
On a Re-Install there's no need for any other tools.

Not even possible if the drive doesnt appear anymore.

Hi Rod, then the PC is "dead"!

But not necessarily permanently. It may well be possible to
fix the problem that prevents the install from seeing the drive.

You will never be able to set up a system, when the HD will not be recognized by the
BIOS!

Wrong, as always. There are plenty of situations where the drive cannot
be seen by the bios but where the booted XP CD can see the drive.

For a repair most of the tools looked useable.
So it looks like You should provide more details on Your specific problem.

He doesnt appear understand the system well enough to be able to do that.

Ok, then we will provide him with detailed infos what to do.

We already did, long before you even showed up.

And that is an absolutely classic example of the problem with your
stupid approach to quoting. You left out the first para in that set of
quotes and my comment made no sense without that.

In Rod Speed typed:
Hi Plenn, an A: drive cable has nothing to do with the HD!
A: stands for a Floppy drive/connection!

He appears to be saying that it was indeed the
floppy drive/connection that was behaving like that.

Hi Rod, yes it lookes like he saw that.
But a floppy is somewhat different to a HD drive.

You dont know that either if that was the
symptoms he saw when the system was dying.
ACK. But the interface is very different = Floppy NE hard drive.
Even the busses/IRQ are different.
Horst

In Rod Speed typed:
Not even possible if the drive doesnt appear anymore.
Hi Rod, then the PC is "dead"!
But not necessarily permanently. It may well be possible to
fix the problem that prevents the install from seeing the drive.

Hi Rod, ACK but not for the bootable device seen by BIOS.

You will never be able to set up a system, when the HD
will not be recognized by the BIOS!
Wrong, as always. There are plenty of situations where the drive
cannot be seen by the bios but where the booted XP CD can see the
drive.

Sorry, but I learned this is only true for "other" drives.
But the bootable drive must always have to be seen by the BIOS.

[Use of other tools]
He doesnt appear understand the system well enough to be
able to do that.
Ok, then we will provide him with detailed infos what to do.
We already did, long before you even showed up.
Ok and why did this question then reappear?

And that is an absolutely classic example of the problem with your
stupid approach to quoting. You left out the first para in that set of
quotes and my comment made no sense without that.

Sorry that's true.
But I answer only current postings - not any somewheres.
If the question on extra tools arose again, then what?
Please do not expect me to have read all others.
This is valid only for a support man but not for a by time reader.
Horst

Horst Franke nospam@invalid wrote
Rod Speed wrote
Horst Franke nospam@invalid wrote
Rod Speed wrote

Drive C: cannot ever be seen as secondary drive when You want to use it as System
partition ie. bootable drive!

Wrong.

An OS needs an "bootable drive"!

No it doesnt.

Please explain Your objections.

Plenty of boot managers can boot non bootable drives.

Hi Rod, now I see what You mean.

No you dont.

You mixed up bootable devices against bootable partitions!

Wrong, as always.

What boot managers can do is a totally different thing.

Wrong, as always.

The NT/2K/XP family is quite happy to boot
a logical drive inside an extended partition.

Respectively the "bootable flag" is the triggering event as bootable device.

Repeat in pure engish.

This is HW matter!

Wrong, as always. Its actually a file system detail.

Boot-Flag is common knowledge!

Pity you mangled the story completely. Plenty of boot
managers can boot partitions that dont have a Boot-Flag.

And you're just plain wrong there too with modern
bios that can boot secondary drives fine.

No doubt, but only ONE drive can be selected!

Wrong, as always. Most modern bios allow you to specify a boot
order and the bios will go thru the list until it finds a bootable drive.

ACK. But these drives must have the "bootable flag".

Wrong, as always.

BIOS will never boot any other partition -
like a boot manager might do.

Irrelevant to your stupid pig ignorant claim that you
carefully deleted from the quoting and I have restored.

You never said a word about the BIOS.

What should the Bios select on multiple choices?

What has been specified in the boot order list.

Only ONE can be valid! This is a NOGO!

Wrong, as always.

I have also tried using Phoenix FAT & NTFS to repair the partition
table - ran for a few hours but came up with no results

Win XP gives a repair function by "fixmbr" via System recovery
console. But if You ever planned to reinstall XP then there should
be no need for this.

The Reinstall will reestablish the Boot partition and recognize other partitions.

Wrong again if the reinstall cant see the original install.

Rubbish. A NEW-Install reflects *no previous selections*!

Depends on what you mean by an reinstall. Many use
that term to refer to what MS calls an install in place.

Sorry, I reflected NEW, which means "first" format the C-drive.

No it doesnt.

Thus there will be no other other partitions on the BOOT drive.

Wrong, as always.

Please differentiate between boot devices and boot manager selectable partitions.

Go and **** yourself.

That's the difference I mean.

Never ever could bull**** its way out of a wet paper bag.

Horst Franke nospam@invalid wrote
Rod Speed wrote

Hi Plenn, an A: drive cable has nothing to do with the HD!
A: stands for a Floppy drive/connection!

He appears to be saying that it was indeed the
floppy drive/connection that was behaving like that.

Hi Rod, yes it lookes like he saw that.
But a floppy is somewhat different to a HD drive.

Irrelevant to your stupid pig ignorant claim.

OK Rod, but this has somewhat nothing to do with a HD problem!

You dont know that either if that was the
symptoms he saw when the system was dying.

ACK. But the interface is very different = Floppy NE hard drive.

Irrelevant to your stupid pig ignorant claim.

Even the busses/IRQ are different.

Irrelevant to your stupid pig ignorant claim.

Horst Franke nospam@invalid wrote
Rod Speed wrote
Horst Franke nospam@invalid wrote
Rod Speed wrote

Hi Plenn, what was You looking for?
On a Re-Install there's no need for any other tools.

Not even possible if the drive doesnt appear anymore.

Hi Rod, then the PC is "dead"!

But not necessarily permanently. It may well be possible to
fix the problem that prevents the install from seeing the drive.

Hi Rod, ACK but not for the bootable device seen by BIOS.

Wrong, as always.

You will never be able to set up a system, when the HD will not be recognized by the
BIOS!

Wrong, as always. There are plenty of situations where the drive cannot be seen by the
bios but where the booted XP CD can see the drive.

Sorry, but I learned this is only true for "other" drives.
But the bootable drive must always have to be seen by the BIOS.

Wrong, as always. Its possible to have the install install
NTLDR etc on a drive that can be seen by the BIOS and
have that boot a drive that cannot be seen by the BIOS.

[Use of other tools]

For a repair most of the tools looked useable.
So it looks like You should provide more details on Your specific problem.

He doesnt appear understand the system well enough to be able to do that.

Ok, then we will provide him with detailed infos what to do.

We already did, long before you even showed up.

Ok and why did this question then reappear?

The thread continued after you showed up.

And that is an absolutely classic example of the problem with your stupid approach to
quoting. You left out the first para in that set of quotes and my comment made no sense
without that.

Sorry that's true.
But I answer only current postings - not any somewheres.

You have always been, and always will be, completely and utterly irrelevant.

You aint called Horst**** for nothing.

If the question on extra tools arose again,

It didnt.

then what?

You get to make a spectacular fool of yourself all over again.

Please do not expect me to have read all others.

You shouldnt have commented unless you had done,
and that is another reason for including the context in
the quoting, so fools like you wont ignore the context.

This is valid only for a support man but not for a by time reader.

Repeat in pure english.

While you two appear to be enjoying yourselves i'd just like to add that i
took the HDD to a professional shop to get a quote and they ran some tests
and said they couldn't recover my data from it cheaply. They recommended a
hardcore corporate data recovery place that charges upwards of $1000 or
more. I threw the disk away.


"Plenn" wrote in message
...
Unfortunately i tried all of the tools in this thread and none worked.
Most wouldn't even let me select the drive for repair, it simply didn't
show up in the select drive lists.

"Rod Speed" wrote in message
...
X wrote

Hi, my hard disk crashed in the middle of Windows one day. I have
multiple partitions so i tried to format and reinstall Windows to C: so
that i could retrieve my data on the other partitions, but the hard disk
will not even boot up from the Windows XP CD because the partition table
is corrupt. What can i do?

The first thing to do is decide why it crashed in the first place.

If the hard drive is dying, what you can do is different to when
the problem was just software thats corrupted the partition table.

Also, I have considered using a 3rd party program to overwrite the
current partition table with a new one (i know the approx sizes of the
old partitions), will this work

You need to know more than just the approx sizes, you
need to know them much more accurately than that.

or will the data still be innaccessible?

Depends on whether the hard drive has died or not.

See what
http://www.diydatarecovery.nl/DiskPatch.htm
says about the drive.

Its a lot safer to do it with the drive as a slave in a working system.

If there is a better newsgroup for me to be asking, please let me know

Nar, csiphs is fine.

Plenn wrote:

While you two appear to be enjoying yourselves i'd just like to add that i took the HDD
to a professional shop to get a quote and they ran some tests and said they couldn't
recover my data from it cheaply. They recommended a hardcore corporate data recovery
place that charges upwards of $1000 or more.

Doesnt mean that they got it right, thats unlikely.

I threw the disk away.

Mad, you had nothing to lose if you were going to do that.


Plenn wrote

Unfortunately i tried all of the tools in this thread and none
worked. Most wouldn't even let me select the drive for repair, it
simply didn't show up in the select drive lists.


Rod Speed wrote
X wrote

Hi, my hard disk crashed in the middle of Windows one day. I have
multiple partitions so i tried to format and reinstall Windows to
C: so that i could retrieve my data on the other partitions, but
the hard disk will not even boot up from the Windows XP CD because
the partition table is corrupt. What can i do?

The first thing to do is decide why it crashed in the first place.

If the hard drive is dying, what you can do is different to when
the problem was just software thats corrupted the partition table.

Also, I have considered using a 3rd party program to overwrite the
current partition table with a new one (i know the approx sizes of
the old partitions), will this work

You need to know more than just the approx sizes, you
need to know them much more accurately than that.

or will the data still be innaccessible?

Depends on whether the hard drive has died or not.

See what
http://www.diydatarecovery.nl/DiskPatch.htm
says about the drive.

Its a lot safer to do it with the drive as a slave in a working
system.
If there is a better newsgroup for me to be asking, please let me
know

Nar, csiphs is fine.

In Rod Speed typed:
Wrong, as always.

Hi Rod, Do You also have another statement
and append/reflect to the pure matter?
Horst