Disk Boot Failure

Uverman

Member
I have 2 hard drives,(80GB Maxtor & 320GB Hitachi).
Here's what happen:
I recently tried to install Windows XP on my slave drive(Maxtor 80GB HDD).On the blue installation screen the 320GB is shown as 130GB instead of 320GB,which I'm confused about,the 80GB is fine.The 320GB is my master drive containing my only OS,Vista Ultimate.I deleted the partition on the 80GB,and it shows 78.6GB available.Then I proceed with the format on the 78.6GB and chose the full format(NTFS).But to my horror the screen shows formatting on the 130GB (which is the 320GB Hitachi) instead.I immediately halted the format(it is at the 0% mark)by pressing the restart button.During the bootup,it display this message:disk boot failure,insert system disk and press any key].I insert the windows vista CD-ROM,select "repair my computer" then "repair startup''.
It took over an hour.It shows:

Diagnosis and repair details:

Statup Repair diagnosis and repair log
----------------------------
Number of repair attempts: 1

Session details
----------------------------
System Disk = \Device\Harddisk0
Windows directory =
AutoChk Run = 0
Number of root causes = 1

Test Performed:
----------------------------
Name: Check for updates
Result: Completed successfully. Error code = 0x0
Time taken = 31 ms

Test Performed:
----------------------------
Name: System disk test
Result: Completed successfully. Error code = 0x0
Time taken = 16 ms

Test Performed:
----------------------------
Name: Disk failure diagnosis
Result: Comopleted successfully. Error code = 0x0
Time taken = 359 ms

Test Performed:
----------------------------
Name: Disk metadata test
Result: Completed successfully. Error code = 0x0
Time taken = 748 ms

Root cause found:
----------------------------
The system does not have a valid partition.

Basically it shows repair is successful,but then during bootup disk boot failure appears again,insert system disk and press any key to continue.

I'm in danger of losing all my data as I my other backup(the 80GB Maxtor HDD) is also without without a valid partition.

Can someone please save me.Help me please,I'll be truly grateful from the bottom of my heart.PLEASE!Anyone,anything
 
Previously(disk boot failure).Now(a disk read error occured)

I tried step 3 & step 4 of wiki on repairing the Windows Vista bootloader.Here's what happened:

bootrec.exe/fixmbr
The operation was completed successfully

bootrec.exe/fixboot
The operation was completed successfully

D:\boot\bootsect.exe/nt60 all/force
The directory name is invalid

C:\boot\bootsect.exe/nt60 all/force
The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable.

So I cannot proceed any more to the deleting and rebuilding of BCD data.I looked at other posts in the forum and tried these:

chkdsk
Successfully executed,no bad sectors on my Hitachi 320GB HDD but indicated cannot log report to something something 50,can't remember.

chkdsk c:/f
The type of the file system is NTFS.Unable to determine volume version and state.CHKDSK aborted.

cd/d C:\boot\bootsect.exe/nt60 all/force
The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable.

cd/d D:\boot\bootsect.exe/nt60 all/force
The system cannot find the path selected.

Not giving up,I looked at this post http://neosmart.net/forums/showpost.php?p=23191&postcount=5 by Computer Guru and tried his method.Here's what happened:

Type:
diskpart
sel disk 1
sel part 1
detail part

got stuck at the (sel disk1).Looked at help and tried this:

Type:
SELECT DISK=1

This appeared:

Microsoft DiskPart Version 6.0.6000
Disk -Shift the focus to a disk
Partition -Shift the focus to a partition
Volume -Shift the focus to a volume

Type:
SELECT PARTITION=1

You have not selected a disk.Please select a disk first before selecting a partition.

Type:
SELECT DISK

This appeared:

Microsoft DiskPart Version 6.0.6000
Disk -Shift the focus to a selected disk
Partition -Shift the focus to a selected partition
Volume -Shift the focus to a selected volume

Tried a few times the same commands to and fro but with no progress.Finally tried this:

Type:
select volume=1
detail volume

These appeared:

Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt
-------------- ---------- --------- ---------- ------ ------
* Disk 0 Online 298GB 170GB

Read-only :No
Hidden :No
No Default Drive Letter :No
Shadow Copy :No
Dismounted :No
Bitlocker Encrypted :No

Volume Capacity :128GB
Volume Free Space :128GB


Then I type:
active

followed by typing:
detail part

Finally these appeared:

DISKPART> detail part
Partition 1
Type : 07
Hidden: No
Active: Yes
Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info
---------------- ----- -------- ------- ------------ ----------- ----------- ------
* Volume 1 C RAW Partition 128 GB Healthy


Type:
exit

and quit the command-line partition manager.


Reboot the computer and it stopped at the verifying DMI pool data.Tried rebooting a few times still the same.So I use startup repair in the Vista ultimate CD-ROM and the details of the startup repair are as follows:

Statup Repair diagnosis and repair log
----------------------------
Number of repair attempts: 1
Session details
----------------------------
System Disk = \Device\Harddisk0
Windows directory =
AutoChk Run = 0
Number of root causes = 1
Test Performed:
----------------------------
Name: Check for updates
Result: Completed successfully. Error code = 0x0
Time taken = 0 ms
Test Performed:
----------------------------
Name: System disk test
Result: Completed successfully. Error code = 0x0
Time taken = 15 ms
Test Performed:
----------------------------
Name: Disk failure diagnosis
Result: Comopleted successfully. Error code = 0x0
Time taken = 234 ms
Test Performed:
----------------------------
Name: Disk metadata test
Result: Completed successfully. Error code = 0x0
Time taken = 47 ms
Root cause found:
----------------------------
System volume on disk is corrupt.
Repair action: File system repair (chkdsk)
Result: Completed successfully. Error code = 0x0
Time taken = 16 ms
----------------------------
----------------------------


Tried rebooting a few times,still the same error message (A disk read error occured.Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart) appear.Cannot access this HDD from my other 80GB Maxtor Windows Vista Ultimate HDD,which I'm using at the moment.

Anyone who knows what to do,please kindly advice.
 
It sounds like a bad partition table - most likely you're going to have to delete the partition and create a new one in a partition manager like Acronis or GParted.
 
Hi Computer Guru,
Does that mean there is no hope of me getting back my data since the original partition is gone?
Can I still retrieve the loss data after creating a new partition?
I have neither Acronis nor GParted software,can I create the new partition in the windows vista installation instead?
Any other solutions?

Heart bleed,I swear that I'll backup all my stuff from now on,everything and anything
icon9.gif
 
Last edited:
Well you could go looking for data recovery toools, but for the most part nope. The data is pretty much lost... good reason to start backing up stuff in the future.

Try booting to a Vista dvd and enter the command prompt:

cd /d C:\
dir

If nothing appears or you get errors, its gone.
 
kairozamorro,
I just tried booting to a Vista CD and enter the command prompt:

cd/d C:\dir
The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable.

So I guess its the end,gone,gameover.:x
Does recovery tools help?Do they really recover anything?Where can I download them?
Please enlighten me on everything about recovery tools,for I know nothing about them.
 
They were two seperate commands... try using "cd /d c:\" and then "dir" do you now see anything in a list or is it continuing to give you errors? Also with your explaination of the commands you tried. You might be getting errors there because you are not adding spaces between the commands and thier parameters (ie. <command>/<parameters>... where it should be <command> /<parameters>...

Most of the recovery tools I know of assume the partitions are still intact and readable. All they simply do is recover deleted files by re-adding the file header to the filesystem's file table so it is visible again. I personally haven't had much success with data recovery, but there's a few tools (TestDisk which is free and dos based and probably a little too advanced and didn't work for me one time when I screwed up a disks mbr and lost the partition table). Or if you happen to own a copy of Acronis disk director 10 it comes with Acronis Recovery Expert which is probably a bit easier to use.
 
Last edited:
If you want to recover data from your damaged vista directory you better install vista on the other harddisk, install recovery software (for instance R-studio (look at e-mule for a cracked version)), then create a single full disk ntfs partition with acronis disk director on the 320 GB disk and unleash R-studio.
I bet you will find back your data. It is an elaborate operation but your data may be worth the trouble.
 
If you can, it might be worth disconnecting your hdd and connecting it to another pc to see if you can recover the data.

When my son's Motherboard fried (due to a poor/cheap fan) his hdd was also damaged. My pc "fixit" guy was able to clone the hdd (using xclone, I think) when he connected it to his computer.

Don't know if that will work for you, but may be worth a try.
 
First of all I like to thank all you people out there for the various ways that I can try to salvage the situation.Really thanks alot.

I tried using the "cd /d c:\" and then "dir" command according to kairozamorro,but nothing else came out other than this (The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable.).I tried inputting the commands with the spaces,also tried without the spaces,as well as with other drive alphabets.But all give the above message.

I'm getting disillusioned.This problematic 320GB Hitachi HDD is now connected to the 80GB Maxtor HDD which I'm using at the moment,I only have this 2 internal HDD and another 100GB Samsung HDD.

Following what eekie said,I looked for recovery software on the internet.But they all give trial versions.So I went to this website (www.vpsite.ru) to download some recovery software with keygens&cracks included.
But beware and take note,this (www.vpsite.ru) has at least 3 tracking cookies which my Norton Antivirus 2008 detected,while the Zango software which must be installed in order to download anything from (software.emule.com) is a trojan horse which is detected by windows security.
I've now got Boomerang.v1.0.5.CRD which is very similar to VirtualLab,R-Studio_4.5_Build_127467 and DiskDirectorSuite10.0_d_en but uncracked downloaded directly from Acronis.com.
If anyone got any idea where to get keygen for the Acronis Disk Director Suite 10 please let me know.

Previously I used trial version of VirtualLab,I got a peek at some of the data in the 320GB HDD.They appeared to be totally intact with all their file names correctly displayed,just that I'm required to pay to buy space to retrieve them,and its very very costly,furthermore I have about 50GB of data I want to retrieve.

Currently the 320GB HDD is inaccessible from my computer in windows.But due to no formatting being done on it,I believe that the data are all still right there intact as evident in the scan results using VirtualLab.

So eekie,now if I were to create a single full disk NTFS partition with Acronis Disk Director on the 320 GB disk,will the data be really unaffected?
Then after the single full disk NTFS partition,can I use cloning software e.g.XClone,to clone a copy of the HDD instead?Or is manually recovering using recovery software the only way out?
Experts out there please kindly advise,thank you very much.
 
Creating a new partition on the disk won't bring back the data. The formatting proccess might even lessen the chance of recovering any data at all from the disk. However, I know that TestDisk requires that a partition on the disk be present as you haft to select one to identify the disk you want to work with. You might also want to try chkdsk from the recovery disc: chkdsk c: /r and see if that finds anything or fixes it (note: this proccess well take awhile). I'm not a supporter of pirated software so if the copy of Acronis Disk Director you obtained somehow works for you than great. If that's the tool of your choice, see if the recovery expert can get the disk back with data intact before procceding with a new partition and then other tools such as TestDisk to actually get back the old partitions.
 
Hello Uverman
In order to recover your data with software like R-studio you have to create a s\disk covering partition with acronis or just with windows disk manager. But mind you! use quick format! Your chances are 99 to 1 you will recover most of your data to to say all of your data.
Cracks for acronis disk director are in cluded if you search in emule.
 
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