Same old problems! hard disk error. "laptop" Please help, dont want to lose files....

Adam Senior

Adam Senior

Adam Senior

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Hi all, my laptop basicaly was out of battry running of the mains...my girl freind turned of the power at the wall, resulting in the Laptop turning of during an install...I turned the laptop back on to get a hard disk error msg...press Ctrl+alt+del to restart. this just looped round and round. I then used my windows XP disk to fix the boot ect.... i also did chkdsk /p which got to 50% then said there were problems that could not be fixed.... though after fixing the boot the laptop went past its original fault and i was in the windows load screen.
I have tried booting in safe mode...last good configuration ect ect. As the windows load screen is up "a blue screen flashes for about half a second" i dont get time to actualy read the error. Does any one have any tips for me to fix windows without losing everthing...this has so many photos on from recent trips that i do not have on back up...

"i have also tried a partition table doctor disk and fixed through that on boot, still same problem"

Any help would be wonderfull.
 
take the drive out and put it in as just a slave drive in another computer. That way the files on it should be accessable as another hard drive. I have a 2.5" to 3.5" IDE adapter in the post to do this exact thing.
 
OK...iv booted up using the cd... but when trying to access the harddrive [hda1] i get this error

$MFTmirr does not match $MFT (record 0)

Failed to mount /dev/hda1' input/output error

NTFS is inconsistent. Run chkdsk /f on windows then reboot TWICE!

what to do?
 
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iv just done CHKDSK /f and its not recognised in the repair mode from booting of the windows disk

Also. Why dont i have the option to repair windows..... i follow these steps and at step 8. i dont have the option to repair it. only Install, Delete, and Quit.
Repair the Windows XP installation. To do this, follow these steps:
1. Disable any antivirus program and BIOS-level antivirus protection. For help, see the relevant software manual or online Help.
2. Make sure that the CD or DVD drive is the first priority startup device. See your computer documentation for information about how to do this.
3. Insert the Windows XP CD into the CD or DVD drive, and then restart your computer.
4. When the instruction to "Press any key to boot from CD" appears, press a key. Your computer starts from the Windows XP CD.
5. When the computer starts from the CD, the system verifies your hardware, and then prompts you to select one of the following options:
• To set up Windows XP now, press ENTER.
• To repair a Windows XP installation using Recovery Console, press R.
• To quit Setup without installing Windows XP, press F3.
6. Press ENTER.
7. Press F8 to accept the Licensing Agreement.
8. A box lists your current Windows XP installation, and then the computer prompts you to select one of the following options:
• To repair the selected Windows XP installation, press R.
• To continue installing a fresh copy of Windows XP without repairing, press ESC.
9. Press R. After you repair Windows XP, you may have to reactivate Windows XP if you changed some hardware.
 
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If it's the same version of Windows that's installed on the machine. IE: SP2 or SP1 & OEM or Retail. :)

Take the drive out. Back up the photos then reformat, that would be much easier. :)
 
when u say take the drive out u mean???? this is a laptop harddrive...does that mean i need to get an adapter? but there may still be a problem with the hard drive as it was inacessable via linux boot cd as it said it was corrupt
 
I would say ,if your intending to fix/over write /install windows on this drive you stand a good change of losing your data already installed on the drive .I've done many a data recovery on drives both 3.5" & 2.5" and it is allways better to remove the hard drive and as already suggested link it to a PC , it is also a faster way of doing this too .Once you've retrieved your data you can format the drive and replace back into the laptop ready for a fresh install .
 
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