wizardkilo
Beta member
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- 2
I was given an old PIII machine to work on that held all the (not backed-up) data for a business. The system was doing random reboots and occasional 'boot sectors not found'. I bought a WD 250 gig external and downloaded LaCie 1-click backup software because it was recommended in another forum.
I set the backup software to export a backup of C: to the external and walked away.
When I came back it was to find -
> the system had rebooted but now couldn't find the boot sector
> a handful of documents not in a backup format but rather just straight copied to the external.
Assuming it was just a problem booting up we bought a new system and I attached the old Maxtor as a slave. The new OS couldn't detect it.
I put it back in the old machine and used an XP disc to boot to dos which didn't show anything for C:\ dir c:
I then booted through to XP setup where it shows most of the 40 gigs as unpartioned space and wants to format it.
Is there any explanation for how a HD could suddenly become 'unformatted' and, more imporantly, is there any way to recover the data?
This will set the business back months so any help would be appreciated.
I set the backup software to export a backup of C: to the external and walked away.
When I came back it was to find -
> the system had rebooted but now couldn't find the boot sector
> a handful of documents not in a backup format but rather just straight copied to the external.
Assuming it was just a problem booting up we bought a new system and I attached the old Maxtor as a slave. The new OS couldn't detect it.
I put it back in the old machine and used an XP disc to boot to dos which didn't show anything for C:\ dir c:
I then booted through to XP setup where it shows most of the 40 gigs as unpartioned space and wants to format it.
Is there any explanation for how a HD could suddenly become 'unformatted' and, more imporantly, is there any way to recover the data?
This will set the business back months so any help would be appreciated.