Well, the story goes...
System:
1.2 Athlon
ABIT KT7A-Raid
60gig WD Caviar
etc...
Well, I hadn't formatted/freshly installed windows in quite some time so it wasnt a shock when things began to go wrong. IE would only open to a 'Sorry Windows must shut down this program' error and a few other short anomalies (sp?). Not a problem. I had the 60gig in 2 partitions, one for system drive and the other as storage/backup.
I back my things up to the storage partition and begin the process of reloading windows.
During the formatting process in WinXP a setup an error occurs (I dont remember what it was) and the setup restarts the computer and continues on. Windows loads properly but upon completion the system begins to hang and lock up for minutes at a time. Chalking it up to the formatting error I reformat and reinstall windows again. This time everything runs perfect, except the system partition is now E:. I use Partition Magic 8 to change drive letters. The system reboots, runs the PM8 process, reboots, and gets an error. PM8 could not open the batch file, its either missing or corrupt. I press any key to continue and windows is unable to load any account. It just sort of sits there w/o an account waiting. OK, one more time, reload windows and deal with the drive letters. Everything is running perfect again and what not. Okay, so I leave and take a short nap. Come back and theres an error and the machine is locked up and my hard drive is CLICKING. Well, I couldn't back anything up, windows was locked up, so I reset it and yup! the drive is gone.
The question.
I do have some somewhat important work files on there that I would have to replace the lost work on. I do have backups, but not the most current versions. What would be the best way to handle this situation? Its not worth spending large amounts of money to recover those 2 files and I can deal with losing my media collection. But is there possibly a DIY solution to recovering the data? If so, it may give me something to do while I wait for the RMA to go through.
If anyone has any advice it would be greatly appreciated!
System:
1.2 Athlon
ABIT KT7A-Raid
60gig WD Caviar
etc...
Well, I hadn't formatted/freshly installed windows in quite some time so it wasnt a shock when things began to go wrong. IE would only open to a 'Sorry Windows must shut down this program' error and a few other short anomalies (sp?). Not a problem. I had the 60gig in 2 partitions, one for system drive and the other as storage/backup.
I back my things up to the storage partition and begin the process of reloading windows.
During the formatting process in WinXP a setup an error occurs (I dont remember what it was) and the setup restarts the computer and continues on. Windows loads properly but upon completion the system begins to hang and lock up for minutes at a time. Chalking it up to the formatting error I reformat and reinstall windows again. This time everything runs perfect, except the system partition is now E:. I use Partition Magic 8 to change drive letters. The system reboots, runs the PM8 process, reboots, and gets an error. PM8 could not open the batch file, its either missing or corrupt. I press any key to continue and windows is unable to load any account. It just sort of sits there w/o an account waiting. OK, one more time, reload windows and deal with the drive letters. Everything is running perfect again and what not. Okay, so I leave and take a short nap. Come back and theres an error and the machine is locked up and my hard drive is CLICKING. Well, I couldn't back anything up, windows was locked up, so I reset it and yup! the drive is gone.
The question.
I do have some somewhat important work files on there that I would have to replace the lost work on. I do have backups, but not the most current versions. What would be the best way to handle this situation? Its not worth spending large amounts of money to recover those 2 files and I can deal with losing my media collection. But is there possibly a DIY solution to recovering the data? If so, it may give me something to do while I wait for the RMA to go through.
If anyone has any advice it would be greatly appreciated!