Hard Drive (SATA) Problems

chakotha

When I tried to turn on my PC (XP) yesterday it was making unhealthy creaking noises and the screen showed only a black screen with the white "Intel Inside" logo in the center. I powered off using the main power button and re-booted. It wasn't making much sound then and went as far as the Windows XP Loading screen then jumped to the Safe Mode options screen. When I tried to load using any of these options it just hung for a moment then then a few lines of text were added to the Safe Mode options screen saying

Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: System32\DRIVERS\pci.sys. You can attempt to repair this file by starting Windows Setup.
Select 'r' at the first screen to start repair.

Last backup wasn't too long ago but there is some stuff, email etc on it I would like to recover.

I have a SATA to USB adapter so I now have the HDD connected to another PC and it seems to be reading most of it like an external HDD.

I can get at some files but am having problems accessing some of the folders inside C:\Documents and Settings. Message box says

C:\Documents and Settings\...\Foldername is not accessible. Access is denied.

Also some of the folders in My Documents are inaccessible. I can get at some of these folders which is odd. Is there any way to get at the folders with denied access??

Was thinking of replacing the corrupt/missing pci.sys file but I cannot access the System32/Drivers folder. I get a message box saying

E:\Windows\System32\Drivers is not accessible. The request could not be performed because of an I/O device error.

It does let me rename this folder though eg. to drivers_old. I could put another similar drivers folder in here from another PC. Might this work?

Does it sound like the HDD has failed? ie. physically wrecked or just corrupted windows files? It didn't get a knock and I don't think it was a virus. Last scan was last Wednesday and it was fine then and when I powered off on Thursday before the weekend.

I didn't get a proper Windows XP disk with the PC and I can't find the XP recovery disk.

Thanks

PapaQuebec

Did you have a windows password set on the machine in which the drive was originally running?

chakotha

Good point! There was a Windows login password on the original machine. Can this be used to access the folders in Documents and Settings?

Can the windows password be removed?

PapaQuebec

To put it simply, the use of a password has made certain files and folders inaccessible when the HDD is connected to another machine. you cannot "directly" access these files via windows on any other machine (even if you set up the same password on that machine). I come across this several times a week when recovering data from crashed systems. There is specialised SW available to get access to these files, and/or recover all data from the disk!

mp22

If you were to put the hd back into the pc, and boot the pc from the cd/dvd drive with trinity rescue kit cd, you might be able to blank the passwords and gain access to your data

PapaQuebec

There are many utility CD's that you can use to remove passwords - I wont name them here as people have been known to use them to remove PW's from stolen machines - but most, if not all, wont remove access-restrictions. Windows removes the restrictions as it boots. If the OS isn't booting then this cant happen!

mp22

did you try the answer to you question that is posted on the proc?

chakotha

Spotted my post on the PROC!

I did and that worked.

He said to disable Simple File Sharing in the folder options > view list.

I'm on XP home (not professional) which doesn't allow disabling Simple File Sharing but the way around it is logging into Safe mode as administrator and right-clicking on the folders, then clicking the Security tab, then advanced then changing ownership of the folders and managed to recover everything.

Looks like the hard drive is a goner.

Have noted trinity rescue kit for future.

Thanks for the replies all.