lcurran59

Had HD in another maching and needed to move to new machine.

I believe the old machine used EZBIOS to support larger capacity. The drive is recognized in the new machine, but the OS asks to partition and format the drive. The drive has data on it that I would like to recover. Is there a way to load ezbios on the new machine so it will recoginize the drive as it was originally partitioned?

Advice please. LCnormal:

OldGrayGary

Hi lcurran59


Some questions:
1) What operating system was the drive originally partitioned and formatted in?
2) What operating system is running on the PC in which you've placed the older drive?
3) Can we assume that if the current operating system asked to partition and format the drive --- it didn't recognize the existence of any partitions on the drive at all?
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If:
a) The older system ran Windows 98/98se/Me, and
b) It is only on the older system that EZBios was used, and
c) The older drive's full capacity shows in the new PC's bios setup screens

Then:
You may be able to use the fdisk/mbr command to write a new mbr onto the older drive, which should allow the new PC to see and access the data without EZBios being present.

I advise using the fdisk/mbr command only if you are an advanced user, and aware of how it works. There are systems for which using this command is not advised --- for such systems other steps have to be taken. Some such situations:
1) Some multi-boot PCs [fdisk/mbr rewrites the Win9x bootloader]
2) A PC with "GoBack" active
3) Really-Old Compaqs which have portions of the Bios on the hard drive

For a more complete list of precautions and odd situations --- http://discussions.virtualdr.com/arc.../t-104339.html --- see the list posted by "jtdoom" about five or six replies down.

For Microsoft's article --- http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q69013/

Also -- it is always a good idea to have all other hard drives disconnected, except the one which needs the new mbr, to avoid accidentally overwriting the mbr on the wrong drive.
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All this said, I've used fdisk /mbr hundreds of times, and never had any trouble at all.

To use the fdisk /mbr command in your situation -
1) Have only the older hard drive connected.
2) Boot the PC from a bootable Win9x/Me floppy or CD (if from CD, choose "with CD-ROM support")
3) From the command prompt, type fdisk /mbr - and press Enter.
4) Shutdown & power off the PC.
5) Reconnect the other hard drives.
6) You should now be able to see and access the files on the older drive.
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Best of luck
. . . Gary

lcurran59

Gary, I believe the drive was origionally installed in a windows ME system using ezbios. That system was upgraded to XP. The system became corrupted for some reason (virus) which forced a reload of the OS. I have since tried the drive on an XP maching where it sees the drive, but not the partition information or data. I went back to an ME OS in an attempt to restore the system. It may be a lost cause. The system is an old HP PII.

Thanks for your feedback.

LC

OldGrayGary

Hi again


Try fdisk /mbr
I believe that so long as the EZBios "drive-overlay" or "drive-translation" software remains in the mbr (Master Boot Record) of the troubled drive, it will not be read correctly by other systems. Try putting the troubled drive into a system, and disconnect any other hard drives except the troubled drive (do all of this taking proper anti-static precautions, and of course with the power off & the PC's power cord unplugged). Then boot from a bootable floppy to the A:> prompt & use the fdisk /mbr command to write a non-EZBios mbr onto the hard drive (fdisk /mbr will write a normal, run-of-the-mill Win98 mbr). Once complete, remove the bootable floppy, reconnect the other hard drives, reboot, and see if the data is now visible. If it is, you may also want to scan it for malware before saving it to a removeable media like CD-R/DVD-R.

If the data is still invisible:
You mention going back to a WinMe system in an attempt to restore . . . do you mean that you tried attaching it to another WinMe system? Or that you tried to reinstall WinMe onto the troubled hard drive?

If you've run a proprietary restore procedure using an Hp Recovery Disk, you may have overwritten some or all of the previous data --- it depends on whether or not you ran a complete restore or a partial restore (complete restores tend to reformat the hard drive, and write a factory-original disk image back onto the drive). Partial restores are less destructive.

Even if you've run such a disk, you might still be able to recover any data that hasn't been directly overwritten (factory-original disk images, after all, contain less data, and take up less space --- so it's possible some of your older data hasn't been completely erased yet). Your best bet for recovering data in this situation is to install a DataRecovery tool on a good Windows 2000/XP/Vista machine, then connect your troubled drive (as a 'slave'), and have the Data Recovery program scan the troubled drive to see what files it can find for you. Sometimes you might be surprised at how much survives, even when a drive has been reformatted and repartitioned. A fairly good, and free, Data Recovery program is "PC Inspector File Recovery" --- http://www.pcinspector.de/Sites/file...htm?language=1

Once your personal data has been saved, you might want to completely erase it using the diagnostics utility from it's manufacturer (such complete erasing is often called a "zero-write") --- http://www.tacktech.com/display.cfm?ttid=287 --- This procedure will also re-certify if the drive is free-from-defects or not (it will give an error message if the drive is failing).

Then you can use the drive for whatever purpose you'd like: as extra storage, or as a system drive for one of your surplus OS licenses, or for a Linux PC (Really -- Linux is too easy nowadays [especially Ubuntu] ... and it's still free in most respects).

Best of luck!
. . . Gary