Urgent Help Needed w/HDD. Critical Data needed

[Zambini]

My boss's comp just recently went haywire. It won't boot (gets that good ol' "Can't find HAL.dll")

But I noticed when I booted into Ubuntu Live CD that I can't even get into the HDD. It shows up, so thats a good sign, but when I try to open it it says "Unable to mount the Selected Volume"
/details:
error: device /dev/sda1 is not removable
error: could not execute prompt


but if I try to cd into /dev/sda1 or /mnt or anywhere it says it doesn't exist.

How can I get into this hard drive to copy all the contents WITHOUT destroying the data. This is absolutely imperative that I get the data off this drive.


We may have to go to Fry's or some data recovery center, but we are willing to pay the $.
My boss recently tried to image the hard drive daily to an external but it failed every time, and we have no backup of the data. I had thought it had been working fine but apparently I was misinformed.
(This is why I have 2 separate backups of everything I have on my hdd.)

I have tried accessing the external drive, but I am afraid it has been very improperly set up, and it can't even appear on my laptop.
(its a Maxtor Onetouch II )

How can I get to the failing HDD? or do we need to resort to dropping an a$$load of $ to get the data off?


[edit] UPDATE: I have good news! And no, I'm still with Mercury insurance.
I managed to mount his external in Ubuntu (windows just didn't recog it for some reason)
and now (lucky for me) because he kept everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) on his Desktop (yea, I read that article too :P) I have a backup from July 17th, and I'm copying it all to my hd and my flash drive. He's in Tahoe now but he will be back on the 7th and look and see if 20 days of work is worth the $80-300 risky price tag to get it back.

[gvblake22]

So have you managed to recover all the data you needed?

[halutzparilla]

Originally Posted by Zambini

My boss's comp just recently went haywire. It won't boot (gets that good ol' "Can't find HAL.dll")

i'm right here why cant you find me...



hal

[Zambini]

well, luckily he used Nero (*sigh) to back up everything, but the good thing is its a C: drive backup, so.... we aren't royally fuc|<'d.

But its still from only July 17th. It would still be good if we could get the past 20-so days' worth of stuff.

[gvblake22]

So have you actually tried putting the drive in another Windows XP machine to read it?

[Zambini]

I didn't want to haul my compy down there and I couldn't find a spare IDE => USB converter from an old external drive, so no.
But the fact that Ubuntu actually detected it and knew what its capacity is something to behold.
lol

[MantaBase]

I don't know forsure, but Ubuntu Live may not let you mount an NTFS drive for security reasons. Try Knoppix (the CD version). Do not write to the drive if at all possible - just move the data off.

Otherwise, yeah - slave it in an external enclosure or try it as a slave in another computer. If that doesn't work, the drive is most likely pretty fried.

FYI: This error is cause usually by:

Borked boot.ini, missing NTLDR file, Missing HAL.dll file (duh), failed drive. Hope its one of the first three.

[Zambini]

K, well I bought a 160gb hd from frys (not joking. 40 bucks.) and reinstalled windows, and I'm restoring stuff right now (yay for LogMeIn.com). Hopefully Nero also copied the registry, so all the progz and stuff are there. doubt it though.


I don't know if he is gonna want to try and recover those ~15 days or just go with it.

w/e

ps: I had to download the Network Controller driver from dell's website. so +1 to dell for having it very very VERY easily available for me to download. but -1 for it not installing with their XP disk.... =/

[Locus]

If your hard disk is detected by BIOS then can recover your data by using data recovery software. You can try Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery Software, it has the ability to recover the data from even from inaccessible hard drive.
Download the demo version (Partition Recovery Software recovers windows data and provides NTFS & FAT file recovery) scan your hard drive and see if it does shows your data or not. If the demo shows the preview of your recovered data then save it by getting the full version.

Hope it does provide help to you.

[Yellowhello]

Originally Posted by Locus

If your hard disk is detected by BIOS then can recover your data by using data recovery software. You can try Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery Software, it has the ability to recover the data from even from inaccessible hard drive.
Download the demo version (Partition Recovery Software recovers windows data and provides NTFS & FAT file recovery) scan your hard drive and see if it does shows your data or not. If the demo shows the preview of your recovered data then save it by getting the full version.

Hope it does provide help to you.

Wow, nice info! Welcome to HL! You might want to introduce yourself in the Introductions section.