Having serious problems with my HD. its considered as Dynamic and Foreign?

hey guys, im new here.
yea its my first post. im kinda desperate here. i tried almost anything i can.
so here is my story,
i have an old computer. a powerbreak burned out my power supply so i had to buy a new one. when i replaced it i figured out my old 40gb hd is dead 2 so i had to buy a new one (160gb works perfectly).
i had another HD on my old cpu. a 80gb one. i plugged them both, fixed the master/slave problems and installed XP.
now for the problems im having.
the bios recognize the HD and the disk management also. the problem is dat it considered by my system as a "Dynamic" and "Foreign" and i cant access it no matter what.
ive been reading alot since it happened to me. i figured out i have to convert it to basic but if ill do that all my data on that HD will be lost. i dont want to loose it. i have some important stuff there. i also tried some backup softwares and all kinda sucked.

what else can i do? how can i access it?

i did some research here also and i found this thread:
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=191006
ill be more than happy if some1 (like Markymoo) will help me gain access.
im not sure if his way works.

thanks for all of u.

 

Hi, Welcome to the board. You did the sensible thing asking for help. Before you do anything there must be some way to backup. I supposing you using IDE as you altering the master/slave combo and the 80Gb is the drive you have your precious data on and the 160Gb is the new drive you installed XP. The new 160Gb is showing Basic but the 80Gb is showing Dynamic. Correct? also what filing system was being used on this drive before you saw it as Dynamic? Give me more info on your exact setup and i be able to help you get the data back.

The method i described in that thread is for NTFS and for a drive that was a Basic one before.

 

hey,
thanks for answering. i tried to get you on prv msg but the msging system is off right now.
you guessed all correct...
on my old system i had 2 HD's. one was 40gb which was my primary and i installed XP on it. the 2nd one was the 80gb which im trying to recover. i dont remember exactly but im almost sure it was NTFS. i dont know if it was basic or not before. cant remember.
i also tried to use the Active@ UNDELETE program u advised.
here is a screenshot after the scan, if it helps or not...


and another one from the cpu management:


what do u suggest?

 

When you move a data hard drive to a new XP it can be listed as Foreign, depending on it's configuration used with the previous XP. All that might be needed is 'Import Foreign Disk' if you right click on the part where yellow triangle is but it might not be that and the volume is damaged. So don't do that yet. What is the data you want to recover? Do you recognise any of your data in the disk scan results? Active@ UNDELETE won't recover all files back unless you pay for it. I am not impressed with dumping all the files into groups but it could not making sense of the drive and thats best it can do. Did you do a low level scan/advanced or deleted partitions?

Do this goto Tools at top and select Disk Image / Create
In popup box, select the 80gb disk in dropdown, untick store as chunks.
select destination path to your new 160GB and click Create. You need 80GB of space.

This backs up as a exact RAW image of your damaged drive so if you do any changes on the drive you can restore back to its first damaged state or recover data from the image without touching the drive.

When it's backed up. Goto Tools Disk Image / Open and load in the image located on the 160GB drive and click Open. It should be now listed on the left at top as image. Right click the image, select Open in Hex editor, goto VIew above, select Hexadecimal offset and post the screenshot here.

 

Ok i got it, but b4 ill do it, maybe i wont have to.
the data i want to recover is mostly family pictures, some doc files, and ppt files. the music/movies etc i have on my WD my book so im all good there.
as for my scan, i used low lvl. when i recovered my PPT files for example it missed some important files i need. why is that? maybe if ill use the other scan properties it will recover everything?

and another thing, u can see in the pics ive added that the status of this drive is considered "bad". if ill format it, will it make it "good"? or maybe it is a hardware problem?

let me know what you think before i move on.
thanks alot!

 

mainly because your using the trial version or just the file entrys are seen but not the data. check the files you recover are not scrambled and load into powerpoint ok.

Have a go with this software, it is free but good and no restriction. http://download.pcinspector.de/pci_filerecovery.exe

it might be it has bad disk sectors. yes if drive ok. i was suggesting backup the image and then see if you can Import Foregn Disk in Disk Management which shouldn't ruin any data but just in case or convert to a basic disk the way i described with hex editor. make sure you get all data back before you go and format it or convert to a basic disk. if you unsuccesful getting the data back come back here before you wipe it.

 

i managed to put my hands on a retail version of Active@undelete. im rescanning now.
its kinda wierd cause before i had the retail version the program wrote that the disk situation is bad and now its healty.
maybe it will solve the problam and ill be able to back everything up.
ill keep u updated.
do u by any chance use Messenger?
thanks again

 

if it showing good then chance it import. this is what you do. all the info you need is in this thread.

recover any data to the 160Gb drive.
test all recovered data is valid and works ok. if data ok wipe and format 80GB
if data not complete or recovery bad backup the drive before you do any changes described below.

goto Tools at top and select Disk Image / Create
In popup box, select the 80gb disk in dropdown, untick store as chunks.
select destination path to your new 160GB and click Create. You need 80GB of space.

when its backed up goto Disk Management in XP and right click the 80gb where yellow box or Dynamic is displayed and select Import Foreign. It should come back online and drive,data be accessible. If XP doesn't bring it back do the hexedit you found in the 1st post.

 

ok i created an image file of my hard drive,


whats next?
is it safe to try Import Disk as u said?
what will happen after ill do it?
thanks.

 

yes import it. what you mean what will happen? i have already said.

It should come back online and drive,data be accessible.

It will be a drive letter in My Computer.

 

HEY!!!
its back!!!
everything is back!!!


but, why it has yellow mustard kinda color and not blue like my primary? is it cause its considered Dynamic?
and can i delete the backup i did with active@undelete like u suggested now?
what do u suggest to do with this HD now? maybe moving what i need to the 160GB, format it, and move it back?

THANKS ALOT MAN!!!

 

good you welcome. yes that's the color of dynamic disk which you created before. you backed it up just in case and as RAW so other image software can read it. yes move what you need to the 160Gb. even better split the 160GB into 2 partitions and put the data on the 2nd partition plus easier for when you wipe XP again, then delete the 2 partitions of the 80Gb and create basic disk as 1 partition. When you done that, delete the backup you took, in future take image backup of the first partition of the 160Gb onto the 80Gb.