XP and adding Sata discs with data already on

[999tigger]

Hi

I have several sata drives that I wish to add to my computer .
They have existing data on them which I do nto wnat to lose.

Please could I have instructions as to the exact method of mounting or a link- is it just through disk manager and making them dynamic. I am keen to avoid wiping any of the disks.

many thanks

[mark19632]

You can just plug them in and windows will see them along with the data as long as they are in a format windows can read like FAT or NTFS.

You defiantly do not need to make them dynamic.

HTH

Mark

[999tigger]

have done this before, will recognise the drives, but not the fact they are full of data and wnats to reformat them.

[peterb]

What operating system was used to write the data to disc?

[Splash]

Were the disks part of a RAID array or another dynamic volume?

[sleepyhead]

If its anything similar to my scenario, the partition is gone. Data there, PC knows the HDDs but wants to format it. I forgot what program I used...and I can't find out as all my pc bits are at SCAN for fault finding.

Anyhow, if you did what I did, that is reinstall windows with all your HDDs hooked up and for some reason, during installation it deleted your partition, then that maybe a reason why your PC does not recognise there is data there.

[CrazyMonkey]

I know what he means i have had similar problems.

I believe he means he has a drive with Windows and data already on it, and he wishes to view and extract data whilst on another windows drive.

When i tried this Winblows would recognise the drive, recognise that it has data on it but would not for the love of god let me view/extract the data.

[Splash]

Originally Posted by CrazyMonkey

I know what he means i have had similar problems.

I believe he means he has a drive with Windows and data already on it, and he wishes to view and extract data whilst on another windows drive.

When i tried this Winblows would recognise the drive, recognise that it has data on it but would not for the love of god let me view/extract the data.

That sounds like a duffed FAT to me - should be a piece of cake to recover data in that situation.

[999tigger]

Nope guys it is NTFS and not FAT 32
XP used and not raid.

It can see the drives but wants to reformat them and they are fukll of hundreds of gb of data.

I guess I will have to juts mess around with a HD I can lose the data on.

Annoying it wont simply just recognise the drive and data as soon as connected.
Thanks for your suggestions.

[madman045]

This is the problem with Dynamic disks and adding them to an different pc from when they were set up, XP tags the disks, so any new machine treats them as foriegn disks.

When you plug them in, what does the disk management show you, dynamic/foriegn?

This may help you, HOWEVER I take NO responsibility for your actions and this is where having backup's become important, I know this as I have had the same situation before and it was an expensive lesson

http://thelazyadmin.com/blogs/thelaz...sic-Disks.aspx

[Splash]

I already asked if the disk was part of a dynamic volume, but realised that no answer was given.


To be clear - Dynamic Disks are the work of the devil - either use RAID or don't.

[peterb]

Originally Posted by Splash

I already asked if the disk was part of a dynamic volume, but realised that no answer was given.


To be clear - Dynamic Disks are the work of the devil - either use RAID or don't.

That might be true in Windows (although I know people who do use dynamic disks with server 2003 etc - however the Linux equivalent (LVM - Logical Volume Management) does work extremely well.

[999tigger]

Thanks Splash. I didnt avoid answering deliberately. I am unsure now.

Windows crashed, then my mb decided to die as well.

I have bought a new mb whilst I wait for a new one from asus.

As the disks just have data on them, then I thought a new install of windows and just adding the hds would be seen automatically and fine. This is not working and there is a lot of data on the disks.

Not a problem i was expecting to add, as have never had it before. Thanks for the potential solution madman, but it looks hit and miss.
I think maybe the best way will be to wait for the replacement mb and use that.

Thanks all

[Splash]

LVM and Dynamic Disks are not the same. They have some similarities, but also many differences.

As for Tigger - how much data are you looking at? Can you take an image and try some sort of data recovery on it?

[peterb]

If the system crashed while writing to disk, that could cause corruption ofthe disk, but from the symptons it sounds as if either the master file table structure and/or the partition table has been corrupted. However those are not areas that Windows normaqlly writes too (the MFT is duplicated - and the structure isn't changed - only the entries) so that is unlikely. Windows also writes a unique disk signature to a drive the first time it is mounted on a system - that may be corrupt (although in that case, I would expect Windows to write a new one)

The good news is your data is almost certainly intact. The options open to you to make it accessible again are (pretty much in order of preference)

Carry on trying with your existing set-up - although you seem to have exhausted possibilities so far)

to do as you have suggested and try with te replacement mobo - although I'm not sure it will make any difference

Try mounting the drive in a USB caddy and accessing the drive that way - again it is a long shot

Try mounting the system under a linux live CD (such as Knoppix) and see if the filesystem is recognised by that system, if it is, then you can copy it off onto another drive. (Knoppix and other Linux live distros will read NTFS file structures)

If those methods fail, you are looking at more complex data recovery.

You can attempt it yourself using something like the tools from runtime software and others (Google is your friend) , At best one of the tools will recover the data pretty much automatically (takes time though - the disk has to be scanned and analysed).

At worst case you are going to be looking at the disk at bit level (raw data) so you should clone (image) the disk to another drive first - and work on the cloned version - if you make a mistake you still have the original and can start again. It will be very time consuming.

Or you can use a commercial data recovery company - who will use similar techniques that you would use - but are experts at it. It is still time consuming and therefore expensive. Expect to pay £300 upwards.

I hope it won't come to that and the earlier solutions will get your data back.

[Shooty*]

*shrug*
I just plug them in usually and they work. Only problem I've had was taking a dynamic from XP to Vista. I used File Scavenger and got everything back, having done a quick format when prompted.