URGENT: Please help, all partitions are gone!

[zhiyung]

This is actually my friend's problem. After the disaster, he is unable to do anything, so i help him.
I will start the story from the beginning:

System Spec:
Pentium III 733MHz(coppermine)
Intel 820 mobo
256MB PC800 RDRAM
64MB Winfast GF4 MX440
Creative SB Live Value
80GB Western Digital 7200RPM (8MB)
40GB Maxtor DiamondMax 9 7200RPM (2MB)
28GB Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM (2MB)
Sony CD Writer and CD-ROM
Windows XP Pro(without SP1)

After setting up the newly claimed 40GB Maxtor DM9, he decided to run HD Tach 2.61 to test the performance. He started with Maxtor DM9, with write test enabled. After all the writing test warning, the test finished without any *visible* problem. Then he went on with the WD800JB. Things are seemed fine, no visible problem yet, partitions and data were fine, can play MP3s and videos.

But after that, he wanted to view a picture, but ACDSee can not be started, an error about something wrong about system32/mfc42.dll was prompted. After that, ICQ, System Restore, Jet-audio and many more apps failed to run too, all with the same error message. By that time, that was the only problem, so after replacing with a new mfc42.dll from his old machine, everything was ok, except:
1. The ‘General’ tab of ‘Drive Properties’ is missing, only ‘Tools’, ‘Hardware’ and ‘Sharing’ are left.
2. When running Partition Magic 8, it prompted that no drive is detected.

Then, he rebooted the machine and saw the scaring message - ‘Invalid System Disk’! He used a boot disk, all hard disk partition are inaccessible, seems that they are all gone. Then, start Fdisk, the drive is detected but with no partition (however, it indicates that 100% of the space of the drive is partitioned already). Finally, he used the Windows XP CD, also, seems like no partition is detected, ‘fixmbr’ can’t help too.

How can all those partitions be recovered? There are many valuable data inside, any loss of data will be most vital. What is actually wrong? MBR? Master FAT? Master partition table? FAT? Or anything else?

Can anybody help me with this? You are welcomed to email me.

Thanks in advance.

[poursoul]

to adress your problems in order:

1. he was unable to run his programs most likely because he installed th HD as the master on the primary channel. This will cause a lot of programs (mostly older ones (more than a year)) to look at the HD that was primary when they were installed (C: most likely) for important system files and program files that are needed.

2. You screwed up in replacing that file(MFC42.dll). Don't know exactly what it does, but A LOT of programs require it (if not every program). You are right, replacing that file most likely did change the pc in the way you described, and most likely other ways too.

3. I do not know why you got invalid system disk. Was there a floppy in the floppy drive? ;)

4. He was unable to access the partitions because he booted with a win98 or winME boot disk which are unable to read NTFS partitions, which is the default for all OS'es with an NT core.

5. It seems that he was looking at the new 80GB drive when he booted from the XP CD. Unless there is something you're not telling us about your adventure into fdisk land.

6. To solve your problem take out the new drive, configure(hardware wise) the PC the way it was before, check your IDE cables, boot the PC, and pray that everything is ok.

PS sorry if i have fingered you in any wrong doing (if you didn't do it). GOOD LUCK!!! ;)

[zhiyung]

Sorry, but i mentioned some info in the wrong way, but anyway, it was due to HDTach's write test.

My friend(and me) doesn't know that HDTach's write test is in such way - overwriting all data, i thought that it will run the same way as SiSoft does.

Upon viewing the MBR(of the two disks) in hex, the damn HD Tach overwrite all content to '0', purposely remain the last two byte as 55 AA. Also, seems like, it purposely targeted all the partition table (or the partition table is just right on the location HDTach will work on?).

I recommend him to use 'Active@ Partition Recovery', well, it works.

Maxtor DM9, despite suffers heavily damaged MBR (totally 99% filled with 0) including the partition table, all the data is still in tact. With the basic scan, it manages to detect all partition.

For WD800JB, it is less lucky. It manages to detect some, but not all. The first partition, the one that install WIn98 is heavily damage, a lot of sector is filled with total 0. Luckily it still manages to detect Windows XP, XP Prog, NTFS, VCR Tape 1. After detecting 4 partition, it stopped due to some limitation in software, no license problem.

Seems like my friend will need to spend big bucks.

[zhiyung]

Now that i know if i can fix the MBR, the problem can be solved.

The first sector of the disk = MBR + partition table + sector signature (512 = 446 + 64 + 2), right?

For my friend's case, not only the first sector, even the second, third, tenth, and the first thousand of sectors are all '0'.

So, i wonder if the 'fixmbr' command can create the MBR, and along with the partition table?

I want to confirm this before i tell my friend to do that.

By the way, do you guys have any suggestion about those recovery softwares, which work and are free?

[ALobpreis]

HD Tach clearly tells you that the write test is destructive!!!
I only did it with empty disks. If your OS reads NTFS, it won't allow you to do it to a full disk. But if not (like Win9x), it will warn you but LET you make a write test to a NTFS disk.
But your friend has WinXP, so it CAN see NTFS partitions... it's weird HD Tach let the write test be performed.
Anyway, I don't understand exactly what happened with the other disk... In which disk is WinXP?

To recover lost info in a drive, this is an excellent program:
GetDataBack (1.5 Mb)

Another cool program, but a bit less effective when I used it:
Final Data (4 - 10 Mb)

A program recomended by some people but I didn't like:
Tiramisu (211 Kb)

[lvsheng]

Hai, it was actually me. The friend zhiyung refering to is me. Despite with so much trouble, I still manage to get online using the old hdd which I "transplant" to newer rig.

The hdd config is as follow. In the WD800JB, I have
Win98 FAT32 5GB Est
WinXP FAT32 5GB Est
XP Prog FAT32 7GB Est
MyDocu NTFS 4GB Est
VCR Tape 1 FAT32 15GB
VCR Tape 2 FAT32 15GB
VCR Tape 3 FAT32 15GB
VCR Tape 4 FAT32 10GB

Est is "estimate" because these drive seldom running low on space, so I didn't go and remember them for VCR Tape, they always running low of space, so I can remember them.

For Maxtor Diamond Max Plus 9
System Temp FAT32 1GB
Backup FAT32 10GB
Program FAT32 8GB
Eng Mp3 FAT32 5.5GB
Mp3 FAT32 5.5GB
VCR Tape 5 FAT32 10GB

Basically Maxtor acts as a backup drive. Windows doesn't need this drive to operate if required.
The other Seagate Cuda is basically same with Maxtor, just with a smaller partition and is safe because Write Test doesn't been performed on it.

Yup, HD Tach does warn me, but I never though the damage is so severe. Furthermore, i heard that XP protects MBR from being accessed by other prog, eg virill. Then the system file protection also works together to prevent dll damage. However, dunno why, all these protection doesn't work. I also dunno why HD Tach allow me to do the write test to the entire hdd.

Not much progress, just that I fixmbr and try to partition exactly the same space using fdisk. Hoping that can access the drive, but, oh no, the space is few byte unmatch (because originally it is partitioned by Partition Magic). This render the first partition in Maxtor unaccessible, even cannot be detected by partition unrecover software. But since that partition is basically used for pagefile, so it is not important. But all other partitions are important.

Now I am trying those new software, eg GetDataBack, see what they manage to do. Thanks for the recommendation.