My hard disk died. New one, same make, same model ordered. All data on a Seagate external USB hard disk. Can I restore the data? I have no Windows XP Pro disks. The original hard disk was partitioned into a C: and D: drives.
Poliss,
You're going to be in a bit of trouble then, unless you've done System Recovery disks, which Windows normally asks you to do after you've installed it, then I'm afraid if you haven't got any XPPro Disks or access to them you're going to have to buy it from somewhere, or buy a copy of Windows7.
Or dare I say this borrow a copy from someone ;) ;)
regards
Neal.
Hi poliss,
Sorry to hear about your hard disc. As your old one was partitioned into C & D Drives am I correct in thinking that the 'C' Drive contained programme and the 'D' Drive contained data which is, in turn, backed up onto an external hard disc ? However, when you say "backed up" do you mean the data was simply copied across or was it transferred using a backup utility ? I'm a little concerned that you don't have the XP Pro Programme discs though as you will certainly need them to set up your new hard drive.
Once you get the XP Pro discs you should partition and format the new hard drive, as before, into C and D drives, load XP Pro onto Drive C and either copy your data to drive D or 'restore' it using the utility within XP Pro, depending on how it was backed up in the first place.
Let me know if you need more help.
If all else fails you can always get someone to download an ISO copy of Linux Mint 11 or 12 for free and have trouble free computing for the rest of your life. :thumbsup: closest thing you can get to WinXP.
The computer was one that someone built. It was empty apart from XP Pro on the C: drive. Everything was backed up using the Seagate backup utility.
I'm not really worried about getting windows back, but I don't want to lose all my programs. My Yard Office inventory data is all on there. Do other programs work on Linux?
Hope you can get your yard office back Poliss as the guy there doesnt have any record of what youve kept as i asked him & it's all on your PC
If it's backed-up it is probably just zipped. nice n easy to get back.. a good idea to have C and D as you have done. Data is the stuff you really need to protect, programs are easy to replace. I don't bother with back-up utilites they are not needed.. Just copy the data files every week or month, what ever you prefer on your D AND off line disk.. USB is easiest for non-techy guys..
Cudders
Hi again poliss,
You haven't really answered the question as to whether your data was on the C or D Drive and which drive(s) you backed up onto the external hard drive. If you've backed up both drives onto the external hard drive using the Seagate utility then you should be able to restore everything, including XP Pro, using the same Seagate utility.
Quote from: poliss on December 13, 2011, 10:03:33 PM
The computer was one that someone built. It was empty apart from XP Pro on the C: drive. Everything was backed up using the Seagate backup utility.
I'm not really worried about getting windows back, but I don't want to lose all my programs. My Yard Office inventory data is all on there. Do other programs work on Linux?
Yes Poliss I have a couple of Windows programs working in Linux, to do this you just download "Wine", Linux comes with many great programs including Libre Office which is compatible with Microsoft Office, it has everything that Office has.
It also comes with 3 video players, photo software plus Gimp which IMO is every bit as good as Photoshop, you can load Adobe Reader if you need it but it has its own PDF reader, a program for Scanning photos and documents, Music Player, CD/DVD Burner, works well with Google Earth plus lots more, you also have access to over 36,000 yes 36,000 free software programs which enables you to do as much as Windows and all for free.
Best of all there is no need to defragment the HDD, no need to use Anti Spyware or Anti Virus as the system operates different than Windows, the package comes with its own Firewall.
This all adds up to worry free computing the way it should be, I have tried various Linux Operating Systems and found the best to be Linux Mint, it is most like WinXP which I used to use 4 years ago, in that time I have had no virus, very few pop ups and used my computer to the max, sadly because it is all free people get it in their heads that it is no good, nothing could be further from the truth IMO it boots Windows into oblivion, all of this in a fast OS that takes up a mere 4 gig of HDD, quite the opposite to other bloated and slow operating systems.
Forgot to mention the OS also comes with the latest Firefox and Thunderbird Mail Client but you have access to many more browsers and email clients, model railway and amateur radio software
Should you need any further info please PM me.
It's mostly Windows on the C: drive. Seagate automatically backed up everything from both drives every week. I couldn't see anything in the BIOS that allowed a restore from a USB port. The options were floppy and CD as far as I could see.
The two programs I really want to keep are Paint Shop Pro 7 and Yard Office.
What type of files did the backup utility create ?
XP Pro Backup Utility creates ***.bkf files but I don't know what Seagate does.
If the files are ***.bkf type then XP Pro also has a Restore utility which will put everything back where it was.
However, it sounds as though your biggest problem is the lack of XP Pro Discs.
Not sure what type the saved files are. Documentation is not good. They looked like normal files, the same as you'd find on your PC.
Here's the user guide if you're interested. http://www.seagate.com/staticfiles/support/freeagent/fa_win_ug_en.pdf (http://www.seagate.com/staticfiles/support/freeagent/fa_win_ug_en.pdf)
Looking at the Seagate site I'm not even sure if the operating system was backed up. I wish I had created a mirror drive now.
Looks like bad news poliss. Judging by the Seagate handbook, unless you specifically set it to backup your Programme files it will have just backed up the 'My Documents' folder.
Have you got another PC that you can hook the Seagate up to and see exactly what's on it ?
Yes, but I'm waiting for my 'new' second hand hard drive to arrive before I look.
Several months ago the Hard Drive failed on my 'second' computer and there were a few files that I hadn't backed up! Whilst they weren't vital they were a 'would be nice to have'.
I remembered reading somewhere that popping a defunct drive into a fridge overnight sometimes works so gave it a try and, to my surprise, managed to get it back to life for long enough to recover the files.
If anyone is going to try this make sure that the drive is sealed tightly inside a plastic bag (try to get as much air as possible out of the bag) whilst in the fridge and also watch out for condensation forming on it when you bring it out of the fridge.
This is probably a last resort but if there is no other way of recovering your data might be worth a try?
Quote from: EddieA on December 17, 2011, 02:28:44 PM
Several months ago the Hard Drive failed on my 'second' computer and there were a few files that I hadn't backed up! Whilst they weren't vital they were a 'would be nice to have'.
I remembered reading somewhere that popping a defunct drive into a fridge overnight sometimes works so gave it a try and, to my surprise, managed to get it back to life for long enough to recover the files.
If anyone is going to try this make sure that the drive is sealed tightly inside a plastic bag (try to get as much air as possible out of the bag) whilst in the fridge and also watch out for condensation forming on it when you bring it out of the fridge.
This is probably a last resort but if there is no other way of recovering your data might be worth a try?
Just remember Which bag has got your hard drive in and which one has got your butties for work.....look a bit daft trying to eat your hard drive for lunch..... ;D
Welcome to the forum Eddie....... :thumbsup:
Hi Eddie :thumbsup: Welcome to the forum, and thanks for the helpful first post :thumbsup:
The fridge trick only works once though, so you need to have everything ready.
I lost a hard drive a while back. The boot sector was toast and the PC wouldn't boot up at all, and when plugged in to another PC showed nothing. I got a guy round to see what could be done and he told me it was fried (and didn't charge for the visit).
I downloaded "getdataback for NTFS" free demo (www.runtime.org (http://www.runtime.org)). The whole disc was visible on the second PC and all the data was recoverable. I then promptly bought the full version.
No idea how it works but it's bl**dy brilliant.
If you have another pc with a windows why not just slave the knackered one onto the operating one, in most cases you can use the fully functioning one to read the knackered one and retrieve some/all data.
New hard drive, new operating system. It's only taken me from midday to now, 9.30pm, to finally get on the forum. Another few days and it will be finished. ::)
Congratulations poliss. Good to see you up & running again.
My C: and D: drive is now F:? Loads of updates. Even the updates had updates which needed updating. :o :o
I HATE puters!!
You mean your old C: and D: is now F: ? Or ... ?
The computer calls my new drive F:. Still having problems *booting the thing. Needs booting out and replacing with a new puter, but having just bought my missus a new laptop I can't afford one. :-(
*Had to press reset three times today to get it to start. :thumbsdown:
Your new drive is F: ? This is the one with Windows installed to it ? If so - something screwed up somewhere !
Did you unplug all other drives when you added this new one & installed Windows ? As all I can think of is you didn't, hence when you installed a new copy of Windows it saw the old drive, read C: & D: there (and E: for your CD/DVD, yes ?), hence F: was allocated for the new unit ...
But - it's only a logical name. You can remap drive letters very easily should you so wish. But ... if my guess above is right, personally I'd bite the bullet, remove the old disk & re-install everything again from scratch ... :computerangry: and only after Windows has gone in cleanly (and updated) add the old drive & let the fresh install see it.
One reason for this is you may have installed the new drive as a slave drive (assuming you're using IDE, not SATA). If so, then the base boot info is still on the old disk. Setting the new one to master and the old one to slave (but unplugged) and re-installing Windows (maybe you can get away with a repair install ? Think this option is under F8 on booting) would put all the bootcode onto the new drive for certain.
Mike
PS - you said earlier that this is a second-hand drive (new to you). Did you give it a format yourself ? You should have had the option early in the rebuild process (about the time when you can define how large the C: and D: drives will be). Frankly - disk drives are pretty cheap these days, I wouldn't want to use a second-hand one myself ...
The C: drive is now the USB card reader, D: is a DVD/CD-RW drive, E: is a DVD RAM drive, which leaves F: as the hard drive.
I bought the identical drive because I was hoping to restore everything from my external Seagate drive with it's Manager program, but they only give you instructions on how to back up, not a lot on how to restore.
I gave my 'new' second hand disk a full format. The old hard drive isn't connected. It's in a box on top of my layout. :-)
Hi poliss,
You certainly seem to be having problems. ::)
There is a tool wthin Windows XP Control Panel that allows you to change Drive letters.
Go to Control Panel and click on 'Computer Management' then ' 'Disk Management' from the left hand side of the split screen.
If 'Computer Management' is not in your Control panel then Click on Start, then Programmes, then Administrative Tools and select Computer Management
Click on Device Manager then Disk Management.
You should now see all of your Drives with their assigned letter.
Now comes the clever bit. You cannot have 2 drives with the same letter so you must start by renaming your current 'C' Drive as 'G'. Only once this has been done can you then rename the 'F' Drive to 'C'. Once you have done that you can rename the 'G' Drive to 'F'. Carry on renaming your other drives to suit your own preferences.
Incidentally, why didn't you partition your new/2nd hand Hard Drive into 'C' & 'D' Drives ?
I agree with Mike abount 2nd hand hard drives though. They're an accident waiting to happen :thumbsdown:
Hope you can follow this. Good luck.
Windows won't let me change the F: drive letter.
Why didn't I partition my new drive? Because on my old hard disk all the windows updates filled it up so much that there wasn't even room to do a defrag. I didn't want the same thing to happen with this one, nor did I want to make a partition so big that it would just be wasting hard disk space.
With the problems I had starting this morning I think the problem really lies with the motherboard.
I get a different error every day. These are just some of them.
Checksum error.
Hard disk not found.
Screen black, nothing happening.
Hangs on the windows starting page. (The activity bar under Windows stops moving.)
Windows loads, but system hangs as it gets to the desktop.
A couple of reboots gets the system going properly and there are no problems with a restart.
I have a spare motherboard, but I really, really, really don't want to mess around taking everything out and putting the new one in. :thumbsdown:
Did you change the 'C' Drive to 'G' first ?
It sounds to me as though the whole thing is on its last legs.
Yep, it allowed that, but not the F: drive.
That's probably because there are processes on the 'F' Drive which are active/in use.
The only other thing I can suggest is to get hold of a programme called 'Powerquest Partition Magic'. I use this to partition, format and rename Drives so I know it works.
I'm not really worried about the drive letter. I was used to saving everything on D: with my old one.
It's the mysterious boot problems that bother me. All the diagnostic programs say everything is fine. Before you ask, I changed the CMOS battery not that long ago.
So many programmes default to looking in the C Drive that I think this may be the root cause of the Boot problem though. Once it actually manages to boot up from F it knows where to look. Until you get F changed to C it is difficult to be sure.
It did exactly the same with the old drive, that's why I think it's a motherboard problem.
My new laptop doesn't like my old USB mouse either. Mouse works fine on this puter. New one runs Win7 home premium. This puter is on the much friendlier XP.
I've run out of ideas ???
Computers are a great way to go bald. lol
Quote from: poliss on December 22, 2011, 02:04:52 PM
It did exactly the same with the old drive, that's why I think it's a motherboard problem.
Time to ditch, methinks, in that case ...
Do you do anything either processor- or graphics-intensive ? If not - you should be able to track down a bare-bones system that you can transplant your new drive into at a low cost ...
Mike
Only YouTube. Yep, I know I need a new puter, but as the guns on my telly are acting up too, I don't think I can afford one. Xmas has been very expensive this year and I won't be getting the DCC controller that I wanted. *sob*
After I had put the new hard drive in, plugged all the USB, speaker, LAN modem, printer, card reader, external hard drive, webcam in and pressed the start button, nothing happened. System was totally dead. ???
I had forgotten to plug the power cable into the back. :-[ :-[ :-[
That'll be a 'no' then ;)
Have a look @ Dabs & Scan - they do some decent barebone systems to transplant your drive into, at low costs ... but good luck with this unit until money permits.
Mike
Hi
Just another quick thought (and I'm not a professional computer expert, I have just found out the hard way by trial and error, usually the latter!). I had a PC which would give various Hard Disk errors on start up or would start up then die at some point. After much messing around I discovered that there was an intermittant fault in the IDE lead. Don't know if the experts on here think it is worth trying?
If so I know that IDE is pre- historic and I don't know if you can still readily get them but I have a box of parts I have rescued from old pcs' and I am sure that I have a cable in it - happy to send it to you for nought if you want to try it. If so just drop me a PM.
regards
Eddie
Thanks for the offer. :thumbsup:
I have another IDE cable somewhere. I replaced it for a cable with two connectors when I installed a DVD writer. If the problems persist I might try putting the old cable back in. Not really keen on doing any more work on the ((^)&** machine till after Xmas. It's not so much replacing the parts that I mind, but unplugging and plugging all those cables back in. I have to pull the computer out from my desk part way to get at the back of it.