Windows Boot Disk Lost

[Gert Terhaar]

Can anybody help me with the following.

Since a few days my three year old Presario Desktop can't start Windows XP anymore. I googled the internet (with my notebook) and found out it may be because of power failure while installing windows update. I tried fixboot and fixmbr after starting the PC with the emergency disk.
As the problem persisted I used Disk Management of Winternals ERD Commander and noticed that the second partition D: of disk0 was RAW. I have two physical disks in the PC both partitioned.
The first disk0 57,27 GB used to have disk partitions named
PRESARIO_RP C: of 3,79 GB (FAT32) and
??????????? D: of 53,46 GB that were mainly used used for Windows etc.
The second disk1 149,05 GB had disk partitions named
GAIA G: of 21,04 GB (NTFS)
FEMTASTIC H: of 20,55 GB (NTFS)
DOCUMENTEN I: of 20,5 GB (NFTS) and finally
MEDIA J: of 86,96 GB (NTFS)
Disk Management now shows
Disk0
- PRESARIO_RP H: FAT32
- D: Unknown Type (Active)
Disk1
- GAIA C:
- FEMTASTIC E:
- DOCUMENTEN F:
- MEDIA G:

I think I will have to use ZAR to have the D: partition fixed, but I am not sure what will happen because of the changed Drive Letters
Also I don't know if ZAR needs an installed Windows somewhere on Disk to be able to run it.

Can you please advise. I really need some important documents that where on the desktop of one of the users and where unfortunately not backed up or put into the DOCUMENTEN partition

[Alexey V. Gubin]

ZAR needs installed Windows, and to be installed itself into some location OTHER THAN a drive you are recovering from.

The most straightforward thing to try would be
1. Get the 57.27 GB disk out of the machine.
2. Attach it to the other (working) machine. Install ZAR onto that (working) machine, so you do not write to the damaged drive.
3. Run ZAR and copy the files of interest to the drive of the working machine.
4. Also, make a backup copy of whatever worthwhile may be on the original C: volume.

Alternatively, if you have an appropriate USB enclosure, you can get the 57.27GB disk out of the machine, put it into the enclosure and attach it to your laptop. This option is somewhat less desirable because it adds an enclosure into equation.

ZAR does not know about a drive letters; it does not care if the drive letters change.

[Gert Terhaar]

Hi Alexey,

Thanks for your prompt reply to my mail. I am travelling rest of the week and will not be able to try your solution until the weekend. I will keep you posted about the result. Hope I will manage to fix it.

Rgds

Gert