PLEASE HELP!! NO FRICKIN SYSTEM DISK AGAIN ****!

[tberk at sbcglobal.net (T Berk)]

Marc_Scirocco_Qu?bec wrote:

> Which windows version are you running?
> 
> FAT32 or NTFS?
> 
> What I'd do is this:
> Get a new hard disk.
> Unplug the old hard disk.
> Plug in the new hard disk.
> Fresh install on the new hard disk, 5GB partition for windows is a good
> idea.
> Once everything is all up and working on the new hard disk, plug back the
> old hard disk as a secondary drive, better yet on the secondary controler,
> instead of the CD drive.
> Copy every important data from the old hard disk to the new disk.
> You should then be safe, until the next failure.
> 

What Marc said.

At this point _do_nothing_ to the HD, but boot from another known good 
disk. You can poke around at the 'bad' drive without overwriting the 
data, etc.

If it still is looking bad there are data recovery utils & services 
(although sending it out to a service = a hefty non-refundable fee up 
front).

1st thing is don't make it worse, which usually means don't follow 
Windows directions on what to do.

Report back with more info, off list if you like.


TBerk