Data recovery or retrieve partition

[two4trippn]

Ok, I've got an Uncle with a hard drive that had him in a non-booting looping and when we went to attempt an XP repair, it wasn't an option. The drive was recognized, showed his proper partition, but something was hosed. Somewhere between him trying to get around a fresh install onto a different drive, he lost that partition. Are there any d/loads to retrieve the original partition or is he screwed. He's willing to send this drive out for data recovery services if needed due to tons of pics and vital info for his disabled 3 year old. The drive is in the mail to me to see what I can do to it other than formatting and losing everything, which I realize is the most likely situation.

Is this an option and has anyone attempted this before?
http://xtreview.com/review103.htm

Thanks

Chris

[Merc]

I'd recommend he use PC Inspector available free here http://www.pcinspector.de/Sites/file_recovery/info.htm?language=1 to get the data off the drive and then reinstall windows.

[two4trippn]

I'm on it tonight - thanks for the heads up Merc. I noticed in their FAQs that it does not "repair" the partition table though. I'll see what my Uncle's done to this thing and go from there.

[two4trippn]

Success with pcinspector
Thanks Merc!!!

[Merc]

That's great news! Glad it worked. Now make sure that the hard drive is healthy before loading windows and your data, back on it. If there is the least bit of suspicion, dump it and buy a new one from Newegg.com. They are dirt cheap.

[nehemiah]

i know you solved it already, but check this out:

Few moments in computing are as heartbreaking as when you turn on your trusty PC only to receive that bone-chilling message: "Boot sector corrupt. Config.sys missing. Disk cannot be read."

In other words, "You're screwed."

Or are you? Just because your computer can't boot up Windows from your hard drive doesn't mean you can't boot it up with another operating system on another disk just long enough to rescue your important files. Today we'll use the completely free Knoppix Linux Live disk to safely move your files on a failing hard drive to a healthy USB drive - no Windows required.
http://lifehacker.com/software/disk-recovery/geek-to-live--rescue-files-with-a-boot-cd-192982.php


lifehacker is the great blog in the history of the universe.

[Merc]

First save the data.
Second figure out what is wrong.
Third save the data.

I hate dell and the likes because they sell these POS PCs that fail and people save all their memories and data on the thing. Don't get me wrong, Dell used to be great but i have a PC business and most of my work is cleaning up the nightmares these terrible piles of garbage leave. BYO with quality parts and forget about the tech support lifeboat, it is gone. I have never had a call on one of the PC's i built from a part failing, I make my side money from fixing Dells and HP's with their $15 power supplies. Linux will never save you from a PSU that catastrophically fails.

Rant over. Sorry mate.

[dasaybz]

Buy a new harddrive, install the OS on the new harddrive. Take the old harddrive and slave it. That way, you don't need to boot to the OS, just grab the data. Many times all you have to do is run a scandisk on a slaved drive and it fixes many problems.