Help with XP Pro/NTFS

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primea

Supreme [H]ardness
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Dec 25, 2000
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I've got a laptop that has a corrupt OS ... it's on an NTFS partition ... can I install another instance of XP Pto on it on a separate Directory, and be able to access the files from the previous installation? I just need to get some user files. Then I can reformat.

Somebody already tried the repair/install on top of it ....
 
Possibly, it depends on whats exactlly wrong with the drive. What I would do is put that HDD into a desktop machine with a 2.5"-3.5" ide converter for laptop HDDs. Then you don't have to screw around with A. installing a new OS just to see the drive, and B. possibly making things worse by creating a new partition and moving that much data. If the drive is about to fail, the last thing you want to do is stress it out with an OS install. If there are software/NTFS issues creating a new partition could screw up the current partition.

In other words if you have a bad drive (or suspect a bad drive), regardless of the reason, and you want to get data off of it by taking it to another machine.

Good luck.
 
Thanks for the reply ... I'll just have to find a converter then ... I think there's something wrong with the drive ... I ran CHKDSK (using recovery console) and it says there are problems with it ... but does not give details ...

another opinion never hurts ... :D
 
No problem, SOP for me with any HDD issues is to remove drive and copy the data from another machine. That way if the drive is failing (covers a variety of failures) your have a better chance at getting the data back, the easy ways. Those 2.5"->3.5" converters are cheap (~$10-15 IIRC) and a life saver if you have a laptop or any 2.5" drives. Of course those swank firewire/USB 2.0, 2.5" IDE enclosures look real nice. :) I have lots of old small laptop drives...
 
I belive that you should be able to mount the HD after you boot from a Knoppix CD.

Maybe someone else has more details on this as I know that NTFS and Linux don't always mix well.
 
I can't find an adaptor locally ... but was able to procure an external USB case for ~$40.00 ... was able to salvage the files ... installing new OS on the laptop now to see if there are any hardware problems ... thanks for all the replies ...
 
i know you have done it, but for anyone else with this problem, download knoppix and boot to it, then you can burn all your windows files to cd(s).
 
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