System drive is unbootable but all the data is intact

[CalvinHobbes]

Friend has a laptop that just stopped booting into XP. I tried to run chkdsk which failed to run to to a file system error.

I tried FixBoot and FixMBR which said they were successful but the drive still would not boot.

I removed the drive from the laptop and put it into an enclosure. Windows cannot read the data but does see the partitions on the drive.

Linux cann't access the drive due to a file system problem.

I ran GetDataBack for NTFS and it found everything and all the files are fine. Any way I can recover the MFT, File System or whatever is broken to recover these files without having to use a tool like GetDataBack?

 

[Russwinters]

if fixboot and fixmbr didnt help, then it's probably better to pull the data and reinstall.

 

[sub.mesa]

Check with a SMART viewer if you have bad sectors, watch for:
- CURRENT_PENDING_SECTOR (= unfixed bad sectors that cause a lot of trouble)
- REALLOCATED SECTOR COUNT (= fixed bad sectors that no longer can cause trouble)
- UDMA_CRC_ERROR_COUNT (= indicates cabling problems)

You can check SMART data from Windows on another PC and install HDTune, then click the Health tab and it shows you the SMART data. Look for the last column that is labeled "Data".

An alternative would be to burn and boot an Ubuntu Linux livecd, once booted click the "try out ubuntu". Then open a terminal (applications->accessories) and install smartmontools:

sudo apt-get install smartmontools

then check your drive SMART:

sudo smartctl -a /dev/sda

(also try /dev/sdb or /dev/sdc if you have multiple drives or /dev/sda does not seem to work)


If you have bad sectors you would want to fix these before allowing your filesystem to do more damage. If you don't have any bad sectors (CURRENT_PENDING_SECTOR is zero) then you can proceed with backup & reinstallation. You may also opt to backup first, but you could run into that bad sector and cause alot of trouble potentially.

 

[Seero]

If the disk has bad sector, then the best way to fix it is to buy a new drive and either clone from old or copy important data and reinstall.

Check bios settings as it may prevent the drive from booting. If the disk isn't damaged, just not bootable, then use the window installation disk and repair windows.