warmbeer

Well I waited too long. I knew this old Dell Inspirion 8000 was not long for this world but I kept putting off cloning the drive and now perhaps it is too late. I had this machine configed for dual boot, orig ME OS or XP Pro. Last weekend I started getting this weird interruption telling me I had a virus, except it was not from the old Norton Systemworks that was actually protecting the machine. In fact it seemed Norton was blocking the notice from connecting to some other system over the net. I think it was some sort of Virus spoofing program. Somewhere along the line I was asked if I wanted to revert to a previous ______. For the life of me I cannot remember the exact phrase used. I think it began with a B, but I could be wrong. And I think I may have accepted that (Yes, i know, i'm an idiot! What can I say)

Since then the system will only boot in ME. And even then it hangs up at the start with a blue screen telling me Windows is unstable but it allows me to choose Y and then it seems to work ok.

So I took it to a shop and asked them to clone the drive so I could continue to run the several specialized software programs that are irreplaceable (single install software, lost disks, company out of business) and are needed for my business. They did their best but they say the HD is about goners and impossbile to clone due to bad sectors in the boot section.

So I have lots of questions:

1. Did ME have a roll back feature like XP and if so is it possible to look somewhere on the drive and find what iterations are available and which one is currently being used?

2. If part of my problem IS actually due to some sort of rollback is there a way to reverse the rollback?

3. If the HD problem is with the boot sector isn't it remotely possible that I could recover the OS and my programs. What I am imagining is getting a new HD, installing a copy of ME and then somehow moving my registry, etc. into that clean version. I realize this could be difficult, time consuming i.e. expensive but is it feasible and is there a service somewhere that does that sort of thing. These programs are truly irreplaceable and also very important to the operation of my business. The shop I tried said they tried using a clean copy of ME and then sector copying but it seems that it might be over their expertise to do it properly/successfully.

4. Any other suggestions for how to recover as much of this as possible greatly appreciated.

TIA
ed

blah789

1 and 2. ME did have system restore, but I've never used ME, so I don't know how it compares to the XP one.

3. data recovery companies can do that. they cost an arm and a leg though. I suspect your HD is small though (prob less than 128GB since you're using Me) so it might not be as expensive.

Do you hear any clicking or screeching sounds? If so that's probably a hardware failure. I wouldn't touch the drive as it would only make things worse. At that stage I think only data recovery companies have the tools to salvage what's on the drive.

If you're absolutely certain it's a software error and not a hardware failure, you could try putting the drive in an external USB enclosure and try to clone it from another working computer (or simply copying data off of it). Do not attempt this if you think the errors are hardware ones.

Also useful might be hardware diagnostic tools
Hard Drive Diagnostic Utilities

raptor_pa

OK so I'm usually a bit more flexible in my advice for home use, but if this drive shipped with ME, and had issues before your issues with what was probably anti-virus2009 or one of it's variants, then it is likely a physical issue. Since this is a business critical system, then quit using it immediately. You need to get this drive to a good data recovery company. This isn't the guys who drive VWs or the local computer/networking shop. It is easily possible to clone a drive with bad sectors, - it does however require specialized hardware imagers. Most computer shops aren't going to spend the $6000 plus for a couple of these since they don't get that much recovery business and try to do it with $100 software, which works on healthy drives. You are looking at probably a minimum of $800 if it is just some bad sectors. It may be a bit more if it is a physical failure. It's just incredibly hard to try to diagnose the issue on a message board in a time frame that you may have left before the drive dies completely or becomes unrecoverable.

Look for an experienced DR company, you will find some out there in the $300 - $400 range, I would avoid those unless you have good independent references. There is no way a company can do complex recoveries at that price. They are doing the simple ones, not putting much effort into the tough ones and calling them unrecoverable.
You should also look for a company that has a 'no data no fee' policy. They may have a $50 - $100 evaluation fee, but will not charge you any more unless they recover data. It also could take a while to get your data back. I've had some tough recoveries that we worked on for 3 - 4 weeks. Continuing to run the drive, and stressing it with recovery software ( some of it is pretty aggressive in the way it works ) could result in a drive where the data is lost to even the best shops - or at least lost in a useable format.

warmbeer

Thanks for the thorough response, especially the information about the specialized hardware imagers. Very helpful. 2 add on questions:

1. Any suggestions on how to evaluate the services out there? Has anyone had any experience with a specific organization? Are there any industry groups for these organizations that membership in might be an indicator of a better org?

2. I think of my need as different/unique, because I need to reproduce the ability to run the programs and not just restore documents or data. Is this as different from basic data recovery or can I assume that an org good at recovery can also clone my OS along with the programs?

raptor_pa

There is no real recognized industry organization for DR, several attempts, but getting something off the ground is rough in any industry unless you have some big players willing to come on board ( Like CompTIA ) and there are no DR companies that come close to the major PC vendors in size. The problem is there are no guarantees. If the data is recoverable intact, then there is a vey good possibility that they will get the data back to you in a form that will fire up. It may not be possible to do however, depending on what damage there may be. This is definitely something you want to make clear to them up front - bootable is critical. I've done several that after taking an image, fired right up. If the image is not clean however it may not be possible to rebuild it. There are several major players ou there that would give you the best shot at a successfl recovery, there are also some excellent smaller shops. It is a tough business to separate the marketing from the facts sometimes. I guess the first question is generally where are you located?