Hi,
I run a dual boot PC, with Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit as my primary install drive, and Windows XP SP3 as my secondary drive. Win 7 is for most of my gaming and internet setup, with most of my multimedia downloads and initial storage (before moving data to a whole host of back up external drives). The Win XP SP3 drive is my recording studio drive, and I kept it separate because of the sheer amount of data that this requires.
Both the OS drives are WD Caviar Black 640GB drives, and have to this day never given me any issues. I have a PSU connected to the machine, which are both a bit long in the tooth.
However, since all these load shedding incidents, I have tried my best to shut down everything before the scheduled time. But for some reason yesterday, when I was registering software on the studio Win XP OS side, I restarted the machine and received a "Failed Write Error", which listed the Windows 7 drive letter, as the machine was shutting down.
After that, the PC won't even see the hard drive that has Windows 7 attached to it. So which means that my dual boot installation will not startup as it reaches a "NTLDR Missing Error" and it just stops there. My BIOS won't also recognise the primary master drive for the Win 7 drive. So I shut down the machine, disconnected the power and removed both drives and attached them both to my laptop as external drives via an enclosure I have.
The Windows XP drive shows all the files as I remember them.
The Windows 7 drive does not even spin inside its case, and the laptop recognises that a drive is being connected, but the standard notification or autoplay screen do not show up. Then I check it via Disk Management, and it shows unknown disk and nothing else. It does however want to initialise the disk, which I am aware will most likely delete information on the drive, which I am not too keen on.
I have tried a whole host of online recommended free tools (apart from DDRescue which I am about to try), and none of them detect the drive, or anything on the drive if they do see parts of it.
Am just wondering if there is anything else I can safely try myself, before considering the very expensive task of data recovery. I do have some information that I would desperately need on the drive, however all the installed software I can rebuild very easily. But I do need some of my iTunes libraries, documents and other stuff.
And if I have to resort to data recovery, who are a reputable but decently prices company within the Cape Town area, who can either rebuild my drive, or else be able to get most of my data on the drive.
It's such bad timing, as I was busy searching for a new computer now, and I wanted to be able to do a recon of what is installed and make sure the new machine has the same software.
Any ideas are welcome.
Thanks in advance.
I run a dual boot PC, with Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit as my primary install drive, and Windows XP SP3 as my secondary drive. Win 7 is for most of my gaming and internet setup, with most of my multimedia downloads and initial storage (before moving data to a whole host of back up external drives). The Win XP SP3 drive is my recording studio drive, and I kept it separate because of the sheer amount of data that this requires.
Both the OS drives are WD Caviar Black 640GB drives, and have to this day never given me any issues. I have a PSU connected to the machine, which are both a bit long in the tooth.
However, since all these load shedding incidents, I have tried my best to shut down everything before the scheduled time. But for some reason yesterday, when I was registering software on the studio Win XP OS side, I restarted the machine and received a "Failed Write Error", which listed the Windows 7 drive letter, as the machine was shutting down.
After that, the PC won't even see the hard drive that has Windows 7 attached to it. So which means that my dual boot installation will not startup as it reaches a "NTLDR Missing Error" and it just stops there. My BIOS won't also recognise the primary master drive for the Win 7 drive. So I shut down the machine, disconnected the power and removed both drives and attached them both to my laptop as external drives via an enclosure I have.
The Windows XP drive shows all the files as I remember them.
The Windows 7 drive does not even spin inside its case, and the laptop recognises that a drive is being connected, but the standard notification or autoplay screen do not show up. Then I check it via Disk Management, and it shows unknown disk and nothing else. It does however want to initialise the disk, which I am aware will most likely delete information on the drive, which I am not too keen on.
I have tried a whole host of online recommended free tools (apart from DDRescue which I am about to try), and none of them detect the drive, or anything on the drive if they do see parts of it.
Am just wondering if there is anything else I can safely try myself, before considering the very expensive task of data recovery. I do have some information that I would desperately need on the drive, however all the installed software I can rebuild very easily. But I do need some of my iTunes libraries, documents and other stuff.
And if I have to resort to data recovery, who are a reputable but decently prices company within the Cape Town area, who can either rebuild my drive, or else be able to get most of my data on the drive.
It's such bad timing, as I was busy searching for a new computer now, and I wanted to be able to do a recon of what is installed and make sure the new machine has the same software.
Any ideas are welcome.
Thanks in advance.
