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Backup problem

post #1 of 9
10/3/05 at 7:37am
Thread Starter 
Got the green light from Sager the other day to RMA my machine. Heck if I can get my HD backed up, though. I had most everything backed up, but not everything. I want everything saved just in case Sager has to wipe it.

I have a USB external case that I just bought recently to replace a previous one that seems to've wonked out on me. Put my 80gig 5400 drive in there and seems to work just fine. Pulled the 60gig 7200 out of the Sager, stuck it in there and I get a "disk structure is corrupted and unreadable." WTH? Tried it on my Sony FX-120 and it was similar in not reading it, just w/o the nasty error msg. Tried a work computer and it acted like I'd connected up a disk drive and I hadn't put in a CD.

I'd really like to get this thing on the move and have been banging my head on this for awhile now. Any clues? (reposted from my Live from Japan review)
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post #2 of 9
10/3/05 at 11:28am
I am assuming that your 80Gigger was not in the laptop and that your 60Gigger was the boot disk in the laptop. If this is so; maybe the MBR (stating it was the boot disk and primary partition) is the culprit. The external USB "cases" generally are good for a new or a reformatted disk; however, not really compatable for insertion of a foreign boot master. I hope this clearer than mud. If not, let me know and I'll try to muddy it up more.
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post #3 of 9
10/3/05 at 6:56pm
Thread Starter 
No, not muddy. Makes sense. But... how do I get around that?
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post #4 of 9
10/3/05 at 11:42pm
I'm not sure. On a desk top it is reasonably simple, just change the partition using FDISK so that it is no longer the primary partition. On a laptopn or on an external USB device, I don't know if this is possible, or if it is; how to do it. Color me "ignorant" on this one. Maybe might try looking into MBR type of utilities (FIX MBR comes to mind). I am reluctant to actually suggest anything for fear that you will loose all of your data due to my misunderstanding or a communications issue.
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post #5 of 9
10/4/05 at 12:43am
Thread Starter 
Sager suggested making sure the external drive is ok. I *just* bought it and it worked fine with the 80gig. However, I had the 80gig in a different external case before and it worked fine. Then one day I took the 80gig out and stuck it in the 2nd drive bay of the 8790. That didn't work (think that's covered in my review from ages ago), so I took it out and put it back in the external case. Didn't work after that. So I let it sit for a long time thinking the HD was wonky. But then I bought the new case thinking What The Heck. And it worked. I'm wondering if it's something similar- the external USB cases get wonky or something switching HDs around. Seems absolutely ridiculous, but at this point, it's starting to sound like a good theory.
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post #6 of 9
10/7/05 at 4:46am
You can't just stick a drive in the laptop as slave you have to go to the disk management tools a initialize it otherwise it will not detect the drive. if you need info on how to do this I will post it.
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post #7 of 9
10/7/05 at 5:01am
Thread Starter 
Ahhhh. Never knew that. That could certainly be the case in why it didn't work. Doesn't matter now that the computer is toast. Thanks, tho'! I will try to keep that in mind.
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post #8 of 9
10/11/05 at 9:01am
Right click on "my computer" and select "manage." Now, assuming you have the Pro version of XP and not the hacked version called Home this next part will work. The resulting window is a MMC (Microsoft Management Console) Window and the current plug-in is called Computer Management (Local). Under the Tree called Storage, expand and select Disk Management. This will start a service and load a topological layout of your disk structure. You may have to scroll down to find your new disk(s). Note that you can also setup your optical drives here too. You should see a new drive or partition that is oddly colored or greyed out. Right Click it and select initialize. Now if you are trying to preserve data on it, don't format it. If you want to integrate it with your computer I'd suggest reformatting it so the MBR is setup correcty and to make sure that the NTFS partition(s) are setup the way you want them.
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post #9 of 9
10/11/05 at 10:52am
Thread Starter 
Thanks for giving it a go, SEMC, but it's a no-go on this one for me. I took it by a shop a few days ago and had them go over it and they came to the same conclusion that I had- it's toast. They tried the Computer Mgmt bit at the shop. Couldn't read it. I tried what you suggested. Couldn't read it. Hitachi HD software could read it and attempted a repair, but that didn't affect anything (only made the drive start clicking).

I'm still in the process of trying to get files off. I've gotten about 15gig off, so it's not a total loss right now. Still a LOT to go, though, so I'm not giving up yet. These data recovery software programs sure eat up a lot of time.
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