Data Are Saved :)

[HeavenShallBurn]

The computer I'd thought fixed, finally kicked the bucket entirely Sunday and in the process did something that corrupted the MBR in such a way I couldn't even access it via slaving to another PC.

BUT I HAVE PREVAILED.
Against all odds I have managed to fix the MBR and extract a full backup of all important documents. Every llast byte restored by the grace of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

All hail the FSM!!!

P.S. right now I am also very sleep deprived.

 

[Relique du Madde]

Awesome!

I wish I had that kind of skill with fixing software and hardware problems.

 

[fba827]

No words other than "Yay!" I'm sure it was a big relief, so congrats on the job well done -- your prayers to the FSM really paid off.

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

No words other than "Yay!" I'm sure it was a big relief, so congrats on the job well done -- your prayers to the FSM really paid off.

Let me put it this way the formatting templates for one book series I'm publishing via Lulu as editor and the text of another I'm writing for future self-publishment were on that drive.

 

[Nyarlathotep]

The computer I'd thought fixed, finally kicked the bucket entirely Sunday and in the process did something that corrupted the MBR in such a way I couldn't even access it via slaving to another PC.

BUT I HAVE PREVAILED.
Against all odds I have managed to fix the MBR and extract a full backup of all important documents. Every llast byte restored by the grace of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

All hail the FSM!!!

P.S. right now I am also very sleep deprived.

Was it Fdisk /mbr (/CMBR x: )?

(those damnable MBRs are nothing but trouble I tell you!)

 

[azhrei_fje]

That /MBR option is gone in some of the latest Windows releases because there is no FDISK any more!

It's easier to just boot a Linux LiveCD and copy your data off using that.

When my wife's WinXP blew up (well, not literally) it couldn't access the NTFS partition data. Apparently there's some area of the NTFS partition that is critical and if it can't be accessed, Windows won't allow access to the partition at all. Enter the Knoppix LiveCD!

I boot the CD and the network is DHCP-activated. So I mount the NTFS partition read-only and start copying the data to a network server. There are a few files that can't be accessed, but fortunately most of them are DLLs or EXEs and not data files. In the end the drive had to be replaced (as a format didn't clean it up, ie. hardware failure). So WinXP was reinstalled and updated and I was able to copy the data back to the wife's machine. It took a while to do because Knoppix uses "generic" drivers that are not tuned for the hardware, hence they use somewhat conservative timings and such, but Dell had told my wife that she would SOL.

Of course, my wife and I have had disagreements in the past about me being her Tech Support, which is why she called Dell. But after this incident, I don't get arguments from her any more so I have once again taken on the Tech Support job. When she goes to Vista, she'll be on her own...