Urgent HDD Failure Help Please.

Degas

Degas

Degas

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Joined
17 Mar 2004
Posts
138
Ok, this is p***ing me off big time, I am trying to fix (another) laptop and am having major problems, first of it is pretty old and has Win XP installed, however it was working until yesterday, I was meant to be just formating it, giving it a spring clean and ****. All cool and the gang, I boot into Windows and start back up all the pictures and docs she wants to keep, however it crashes mid back, restarts, and now wont boot into WIndows, it stops on bootup and kicks out a pci.sys error (missing or corrupted).

Now I have tried every damn thing to fix it including.

Using a Win XP disk and restoring the file to windows, it wont allow this cause it wont allow me to right to the windows folder and the "Set" command wont work.

Using a Win XP disk and reinstalling windows over itself without formatin thus keeping all the pics and docs she wants, it wont allow me to do this either cause it says the HDD has no FAT system on it so must be formatted first.

Using an external USB HDD to try to install Windows to and then give me access to the other drive, it wont let me do this cause it says it can't access the drives MBR cause it is an external drive.

Using an Ubuntu Boot disk and trying to use it in "Try Me" withouit installing it to the HDD, however it stops at a command line.

Halp I only wanna get access to the damn drive to back up the My Docs folder!!

Thanks guys, sorry for the dramtic title, I need to get this sorted by the morning.....:confused:

PS. I have had the RAM out and given it a good clean and the slots too as I know that can kick out pci.sys errors.
 
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If you have another machine just pull the drive out and plug it into another machine where you can back-up the files. Then format the drive and reinstall windows, etc.
 
I have had my share of drive corruptions or file corruptions as is your case and I reckon this is the easiest way. Let us know how you get on.
 
Grrrrr, not great so far, taken as much of the case off as I dare without snapping something and can't find the damn thing yet......The laptop is a TINY (yeah I know) 775CI0
 
any links to one that might work, I tried a ubuntu one, but that just seemed to get me to a command line, I could really do with a GUI of some kind?
 
I am a bit of a Linux cretin tho, so I have probably ballsed that somehow, I just tried Knoppix, it didnt boot from the CD, I may have downloaded the wrong ISO tho, I dunno anymore, just trying debian now. FML.
 
Pea0n said:
OP says he's tried that. Looks like MOBO/RAM failure

- Pea0n
Click to expand...

I got the impression he tried to do something similar, but not quite the same.

Degas said:
I am a bit of a Linux cretin tho, so I have probably ballsed that somehow, I just tried Knoppix, it didnt boot from the CD, I may have downloaded the wrong ISO tho, I dunno anymore, just trying debian now. FML.
Click to expand...

Do you have a PC with internet that works? If so google for a guide to make a bootable Ubuntu USB stick. Once you have done that, you can boot into to that to try and bypass windows all together and get the data back. Or you can make a 'live CD' with Ubuntu on and try the same. Failing that you would have to take the drive out and connect it to a caddy connected to a different PC if the data was that important :(

I'll have a look for a guide :)

Here's one for a 'Live CD'

http://www.linuxfortravelers.com/ubuntu-live-cd-guide

Also one for the USB Linux:-

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/linux/create-a-bootable-ubuntu-usb-flash-drive-the-easy-way/

This is the version of Ubuntu you need:-

http://www.mirrorservice.org/sites/releases.ubuntu.com/jaunty/ubuntu-9.04-desktop-i386.iso
 
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