If you ever lose a HD partition table...

emeritus

Beware the Monkeys!!!
Joined
21 Jan 2004
Messages
326
I had some fun yesterday. Playing Rallisport Challenge, the game crashed. No big deal, until I reset the machine, and I got 'missing OS'. Needless to say I was a little upset!!! SO, anyway took a 4GB drive and installed Xp on it after I installed it in my system. Did many searches to find something that recovers partition tables. Well, to make a long story short, I found TestDisk at:

http://www.cgsecurity.org/index.html?testdisk.html

It worked great, its as if my system never crashed. So, if you ever run into the same problem, or anything that kills the partition table, use this program. Its free!!! Just read the websit instructions.
 
It's now part of my support arsenal emeritus. Nice find.
I'd like to add to your resolution though - I quite often have clients report the same thing, that the OS is missing.... or non-system disk messages.

My solution - Unplug the PC from the wall/power bar. Not a restart, not a shutdown. Shut it down, and unplug the bizzatch. Wait about 10 seconds, and plug her back in. Then power it up. I still have no idea why it works, all I can think of is that all residual power, if there is any, leaves the box. Same trick worked on my toaster oven in college... go figure.
 
Next time it happens I will give that a try. As for why it works, who knows. I have had stranger things work. I've had Windows 95, (when it first came out), working on a 386SX with 4MB of ram, go figure.
 

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Also Hi EP and people. I found this place again while looking through a oooollllllldddd backup. I have filled over 10TB and was looking at my collection of antiques. Any bids on the 500Mhz Win 95 fix?
Any of the SP crew still out there?
Xie wrote on Electronic Punk's profile.
Impressed you have kept this alive this long EP! So many sites have come and gone. :(

Just did some crude math and I apparently joined almost 18yrs ago, how is that possible???
hello peeps... is been some time since i last came here.
Electronic Punk wrote on Sazar's profile.
Rest in peace my friend, been trying to find you and finally did in the worst way imaginable.

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