Data Recovery Problem

[Jack Bruss]

My daughters laptop has crashed somehow, and it won't boot to windows. I
have a recovery cd, but it will format the drive, and she has many files on
the drive that are not backed up. I can boot in DOS and see the files in
DOS, but there are too many to copy to the floppy drive effectively. Is
there some way I can back up her data files or maybe reload windows without
formatting?

Thanks,

Jack

[Al Dykes]

In article <vOgBd.167016$ye4.97179@twister.rdc-kc.rr.com>,
Jack Bruss <jbruss@wi.rr.com> wrote:My daughters laptop has crashed somehow, and it won't boot to windows. Ihave a recovery cd, but it will format the drive, and she has many files onthe drive that are not backed up. I can boot in DOS and see the files inDOS, but there are too many to copy to the floppy drive effectively. Isthere some way I can back up her data files or maybe reload windows withoutformatting?Thanks,Jack



Don't panic.

I'd yank the disk out and put it in a good desktop PC as a secondary
drive and copy all the files off. If you can't do this, or don't know
a friend that can help, any small storefront PC shop will do this for
about an hour's labor charge. Burning them into CDs may cost a little
more depending on how many CDs you need to hold your files. Don't
overwrite or discard the original disk until you've recovered
everything on a new machine, just in case.

There is a small adapter cable that you can get at a place that sells
PC parts (about $15) that hooks a laptop disk to a standard IDE cable.
PC repair shops have one.

There are several other ways to do this.

If the OS is an OEM copy of XP you'll not be able to put the disk in a
new laptop and have it activated, unless it's an absolutly identical
model from a big name brand like Dell and they have a way of calling
it a warranty replacement under their Microsoft master agreement.

At least you've got your data.


--

a d y k e s @ p a n i x . c o m

Don't blame me. I voted for Gore.

[cquirke (MVP Win9x)]

On Fri, 31 Dec 2004 18:23:23 GMT, "Jack Bruss" <jbruss@wi.rr.com>
My daughters laptop has crashed somehow, and it won't boot to windows. Ihave a recovery cd, but it will format the drive, and she has many files onthe drive that are not backed up. I can boot in DOS and see the files inDOS, but there are too many to copy to the floppy drive effectively. Isthere some way I can back up her data files or maybe reload windows withoutformatting?

Yes. I'd use Odi's LFN Tools; specifically this syntax...

C:
MD \BAD-HD
LCopy D:\* C:\BAD-HD /A /S

....assuming the sick HD is dropped into another PC as D:

Download Odi's LFN Tools from here:

http://lfntools.sourceforge.net/

Other clickfood:

http://cquirke.mvps.org/pccrisis.htm

http://cquirke.mvps.org/whatmos.htm

http://cquirke.mvps.org/9x has a section on data recovery from FATxx;
it's quite hardcore stuff, but may help a tech if there's file system
repair to be done, and the tech's cautious enough to take it on.





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