Some HW help needed...

[yaoxing]

Either your graphic card driver is corrupted or your graphic card is near the end of its life. I faced the same problem before.

 

[Ola]

After reading through all your post, most likely cause is your hard disk circuit board is failing. Beside the hdd light on, did you heard any sound (spinning up and down or clanking) from the hard disk?
If you have not reformat or re-installed your Windows, you should be able to recover your files by swapping the circuit board with one from a same model working hard disk.
Since you have reformated and re-installed Windows, you can try some of the file recovery tools to save those files that are stored in area that were not over-written.
You can check the following links or use google to search for other tools.
http://www.runtime.org/advise.htm
http://www.recovermyfiles.com/

I would advice you to get the hard disk replace if not, the problem will happen again.
Hope this will help.

 

[espn]

R u using a dual display? Mobo + card?

Nope, I'm not that rich to run dual display ;p

 

[espn]

Once you start re-writing over the disk, I doubt you can retrieve the files anymore. Seems like you got a corrupted MFT or MBR. Windows won't load the ntfs.sys file if it detects a corrupted MFT. Hence, being stuck just before the log-on screen.
The only way is to take the drive and use an ATA to USB adaptor.
Then boot-up another computer running Windows 2K or Windows XP and let it finish loading windows before plugging the drive in.

I've formatted the disk and partitioned it, right now am hitting a "asms: the parameter is incorrect error" when installing XP. Seems might be a disc problem. Sheesh.

As for the files, I'm hoping that overwriting with just the OS can still allow me to retrieve certain files, that's 10GB gone for OS, hopefully the 190GB left can still be retrieved after my OS is setup. I mainly want back my nature shots and certain documents that are of importance to me. The rest like MP3s, misc download files I still have a copy on the same 40GB HDD inside.

I'm wondering now if it's the silver braided round cables giving me the problem? I've been using it for years now though.

 

[espn]

try booting to safe mode

Hi, problem is as listed, I can't even get past into the windows progress screen. So that means I can't even press F8 to go into safe mode. Thanks anyway

 

[espn]

Either your graphic card driver is corrupted or your graphic card is near the end of its life. I faced the same problem before.

Hmmm.. you mean the no display output thing? But I cannot understand why boot up in BIOS the screen can remain there for very long, just upon boot into windoze, the screen blacks out and the monitor power light indicator flashing away indicating no source input.

And my HDD just lost all it's partition and data all of a sudden.. I smell a fish. Earlier on sunday when I was using my PC, I noticed that when moving my mouse towards the left of the screen it would suddenly dissappear, clicking whereever it was defocuses the current window. :dunno: Found it weird...

 

[espn]

After reading through all your post, most likely cause is your hard disk circuit board is failing. Beside the hdd light on, did you heard any sound (spinning up and down or clanking) from the hard disk?
If you have not reformat or re-installed your Windows, you should be able to recover your files by swapping the circuit board with one from a same model working hard disk.
Since you have reformated and re-installed Windows, you can try some of the file recovery tools to save those files that are stored in area that were not over-written.
You can check the following links or use google to search for other tools.
http://www.runtime.org/advise.htm
http://www.recovermyfiles.com/

I would advice you to get the hard disk replace if not, the problem will happen again.
Hope this will help.

The HDD is only like 10 mths old, I can get a replacement but am too weary to go through the entire process again. The HDD has not been producing any sounds however.

Windoze is setup halfway, after copying the files the disc seems to be errorneous and I can't proceed further. :cry:

Thanks for the recommendation on the s/w, I've my own commercial ones, now hoping that my serial number and registration information still is inside the 40GB HDD so that I can recover whatever that's left from the 200GB.

I'm now looking at redundancy, probably RAID 5 + 1 hotspare or minimum, RAID 1.

 

[Ola]

The HDD is only like 10 mths old, I can get a replacement but am too weary to go through the entire process again. The HDD has not been producing any sounds however.

Windoze is setup halfway, after copying the files the disc seems to be errorneous and I can't proceed further. :cry:

Thanks for the recommendation on the s/w, I've my own commercial ones, now hoping that my serial number and registration information still is inside the 40GB HDD so that I can recover whatever that's left from the 200GB.

I'm now looking at redundancy, probably RAID 5 + 1 hotspare or minimum, RAID 1.

It quite normal as these day, hard disk QC is not as good.
I have a hard disk that DOA and 2 hard disks that failed within 3 months.
I am running RAID 1 now.

From your descriptions, you should be able to hear some abnormal sound from your hard disk. It is very similiar to a number of cases that I work on.

Setup Windows using another hard disk and mount this "faulty" hard disk as slave drive. Then use your own recovery software to scan the hard disk for whatever files that you can recovered. Do not try re-installing anything on that hard disk as it will reduce your chance of recovering your data.

 

[jbma]

Your problem sounds similar to mine. When I boot up the pc the screen will go as far as the Windows startup screen with the progress bar below and then it will go blank. Have been experiencing this only since Jan. Finally I decided to reinstall Windows and now it is fine. I don't think it is your video card as you are able to go to bios. Still not sure what is wrong with it but at least it is working fine, for now.

 

[erizai]

Haha... You can one..

Nope, I'm not that rich to run dual display ;p

 

[erizai]

I recomment not to reformat first.... buy a second hard disk install os boot up from there, and see if you can link and salvage from there. had encountered this B4. it don't even let you to restore the os... once you reformat. no way back..

 

[tokrot]

espn, sorry to hear that. I can feel what u were feeling then. Imagine I had lost more than 100 gig of data which was kept for the last 10 yrs. Imagine how I felt that time..:cry: So heart pain.. It's not once time but twice! So right now, I am making duplicate backup copies into my DVDwriter as of now... Good luck to your salvage!

need any help about recovering data from partition pls feel free to PM me for the proggie.. :angel:

 

[espn]

It quite normal as these day, hard disk QC is not as good.
I have a hard disk that DOA and 2 hard disks that failed within 3 months.
I am running RAID 1 now.

From your descriptions, you should be able to hear some abnormal sound from your hard disk. It is very similiar to a number of cases that I work on.

Setup Windows using another hard disk and mount this "faulty" hard disk as slave drive. Then use your own recovery software to scan the hard disk for whatever files that you can recovered. Do not try re-installing anything on that hard disk as it will reduce your chance of recovering your data.

Yeah now seriously contemplating to run RAID 1 off my SATA controllers, but that means I need to buy 2 200GB SATA HDDs and what will I do with my current PATA? Sian 0.5 liao. Sigh. I prefer to run HW RAID as I'm afraid SW RAID cannot duplicate the array properly.

There's no abnormal sound, if there is I'd have noticed and avoid booting up the HDD already. Sigh, very sad hor? Just boot up PC to find that I have to perspire, dismantle and troubleshoot at 9.30pm fortunately I still have a PowerBook to come online and post for help. So far people are very helpful :thumbsup:

The HDD's MBR is already gone, bo pian liao, even if can mount it cannot detect a filesystem, gotta format, FDISK again sigh. I'm only planning to reinstall Windows on the HDD as my current 40GB has some other valuable information which I need to keep. So I'm going to risk losing that 10GB+ of data which I hope won't be anything important to me. I'm well aware of the risk of doing it lor, but I don't have a choice. Sigh.

I only want back my duck shots taken from dec till now. Fortunately my other shots from last saturday are still intact on my CF card. :sweat: else I really :mad2:

 

[espn]

Your problem sounds similar to mine. When I boot up the pc the screen will go as far as the Windows startup screen with the progress bar below and then it will go blank. Have been experiencing this only since Jan. Finally I decided to reinstall Windows and now it is fine. I don't think it is your video card as you are able to go to bios. Still not sure what is wrong with it but at least it is working fine, for now.

Yeah, the problem is my 200GB HDD partition all MIA, which is very sad. I normally partition 10GB for windoze alone, so that in any case of problems I can just erase that partition and reinstall leaving my other partitions still alive. :cry:

I'm sure video card isn't the culprit, it's a cheapo 64MB GF4 MX400 anyway, even if i were to change to PCI-Xpress it shouldn't cost much lor I hope.

It's the data I'm saddened. Surprisingly my IBM 40GB bought in year 2002 is still surviving till now! Even the current 20GB Maxtor I have in office since 2000 is still running fine after a few shifts from different office/PCs!

 

[espn]

Haha... You can one..

:kok: :kok: :nono:

I recomment not to reformat first.... buy a second hard disk install os boot up from there, and see if you can link and salvage from there. had encountered this B4. it don't even let you to restore the os... once you reformat. no way back..

Formatting is fine as it's not a low level format, formatting doesn't destroy the data, it just erases the FAT totally, the OS will see the space in use marked as available and will just overwrite with data when necessary. Reconstructing the FAT table will enable the files to be found back.

Buying a 2nd HDD is no problem, but then my data is all missing as I found the partitions all gone liao

 

[wantunn]

Have you tried booting off a liveCD?
I had to do that once to recover data for a friend. Basically get your hands on a livecd (ubuntu or otherwise), boot up, mount the HDD, do the necessary after that.

 

[espn]

espn, sorry to hear that. I can feel what u were feeling then. Imagine I had lost more than 100 gig of data which was kept for the last 10 yrs. Imagine how I felt that time..:cry: So heart pain.. It's not once time but twice! So right now, I am making duplicate backup copies into my DVDwriter as of now... Good luck to your salvage!

need any help about recovering data from partition pls feel free to PM me for the proggie.. :angel:

Thanks dude, you banged balls with me the last time I erased all my wedding images from my HDD on the actual event day itself. Now it's not that bad as I'm not delivering any images but then just saddened that I lost so much data, although immaterial but I still bang balls!!!

I wanted to back up the images from my HDD the other day since Jan, but been too lazy to do so, now I lost about 12GB worth of RAWs (~1500 shots). Fortunately, about 2GB+ are still on my CF cards. But I'll never get around to getting my shots again

Sigh...

 

[espn]

Have you tried booting off a liveCD?
I had to do that once to recover data for a friend. Basically get your hands on a livecd (ubuntu or otherwise), boot up, mount the HDD, do the necessary after that.

I used to have the knoppix, but I can't find the disc now, and it's no use because the partition is gone already, even if I mount it, the filesystem is not complete anymore

 

[wantunn]

I used to have the knoppix, but I can't find the disc now, and it's no use because the partition is gone already, even if I mount it, the filesystem is not complete anymore

Ouch. Too late for that option then. Good luck on the recovery

 

[jbma]

Thanks dude, you banged balls with me the last time I erased all my wedding images from my HDD on the actual event day itself. Now it's not that bad as I'm not delivering any images but then just saddened that I lost so much data, although immaterial but I still bang balls!!!

I wanted to back up the images from my HDD the other day since Jan, but been too lazy to do so, now I lost about 12GB worth of RAWs (~1500 shots). Fortunately, about 2GB+ are still on my CF cards. But I'll never get around to getting my shots again

Sigh...

Eh how come you never post these shots before. Nice shots man. No wonder your heart pain losing all that data.