I got a call from someone I know today, he tells me his computer quit working.

When he turns it on it say soperating system not found.

He took it to his ISP and they told him there is nothing on the HD, it is like it just came from the factory and needs everything installed.

I haven't had a chance to look at it, like I could do anything about it, but I find it hard to imagine this could happen. I was thinking of pulling the HD out and hooking it into one of mine to see if there is anything on it.

It either had Win 2000 or ME, not sure which.

Any ideas?

I really need to try to learn more about this stuff.

thanks

dave

 

Hard drive is probably going out. The same thing happened to my dad's old computer/hard drive. Sometimes you would boot it up and it would tell you the same thing that happened to that guy.

 

Well Fdisk would do it. A boot sector virus could.

I would try either putting it in as a slave in another computer
or a hard drive utility that will look for partitons, etc and rebuild them

 

send me an email I might have a utility that can help you

 

PSS mag knows of a Utility that will help you

Let me see if I can find the one he used.

edit: yeah, sounds like you lost the boot sector. Most ISP's (tech support) would have no clue what that even means.

 

Ha! found it. That was really easy, wow

http://www.bitmart.net/r2k.shtml

 

I'm with vader 99% that it just lost the boot sector, or OS boot file. The rest is probably there.

But if you cant see it even as a slave on another computer then use that Restore 2000 program to ge twanted files back.
If it was ever on the hard drive then that program will find it.
It wont restore an OS to a working state, but you can pull any deleted files or even files in an unpartioned or curropt area with it.

It's like right at $50 in american dollars for the profesional version.
I got that because it does Fat and NTFS.

The other versions are like $35 each, but they only do Fat (or) NTFS depending on which one you buy. As soon as I downloaded the pro version then I burned it to cd so I can use it anytime anywhere on anything.

Hope I never have to use it again. When I did need it then it got 10 gigs of files back for me after I had accidentally deleted the partition and created another partion on top of it in FDisk.
One file was a picture I didn't have backed up yet and I would have paid $5K with out blinking just to get that one pic back. I was fully ready to send the Hard Drive off to a data recovery lab. I had already contacted a few and got quotes. (You want to avoid that at all cost if you can.)
I tired several data recovery programs trial version and that was the only one that seen the files. So I bought it and it did the job.

 

sent email to Vader, and downloaded the linked program.

May try to look at it tomorrow.

Thanks

dave

 

emailed you back

 

did you download the trial version or did you buy it?

 

Yea I'm probably the only one with a thread that says (AHH CRAP! I deleted the wrong partition! HEEEELP!!!!)

Man I felt so stupid that day. Soon as I did it I got that sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach and desperatly wanted the "I didn't mean that" or "Opps" key.
Then booted and realized my worst fear was true, my stupidity kicked me hard!

 

I've done it too. I've since learned to unhook the drive I definitely dont want to screw with. You aint the only one

 

Downloaded the trial version for now, if it works great, if I need to purchase to get better results, I'll do that.

I am a moron when it comes to these little boxes. I have changed some hardware and things, but I haven't gotten into dealing with program stuff, learn as i go. Thanks to places like this and great people with knowledge, is isn't so bad. problem is i don't do it for a living so I forget more than i learn.

 

The trial version will let you scan and it will show the files that it could get, but it won't retrieve them tell you buy it. Yea I was so mad becasue after 2 or 3 days of data recovery attmepts, then I could see the files, could almost reach out and touch them, but couldn't do anything with them. I was more frustrated than a teenage boy going on a date with the school tease.


Yea except that was the drive I was working on, only I wanted to delete the partition behind it.

 

Man that sound really frustrating. Hope you had a shot at the HS tease, or at least the cute french teacher.

I looked at the program you recomended, but not sure how it would work, unless it will make windows boot. From what i understand i can on get to the dos side.

I didn't get to his place today, have to much crap going on. Unfortunatly he is the kind of person that wants things doen right away, that doesn't usually work well for me.