Help ! Can't get my HD to Boot

64bit.

Thanks for the concise explanations.... I'm gunna try to let 'er fly tomorrow.

 

The Win7 Ultimate CD I have is a 64bit, the same OS as the "OS" HD has/had on it.

It's an install disk.

I use it to boot the desktop. is there something else I have to make?

Is the Boot Win7 I have different than a "repair disk"? If so, how do I make an actual "Repair Disk or USB?

 

That's OK. If your 64-bit Win7 disk can see the image you don't need a Repair disk. Out of interest...

https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/help/17423/windows-7-create-system-repair-disc

Edit... make one if you like. It fits on a CD as the ISO is only 165 MB.

 

Thanks a lot for the link.

I'll report back after I try my luck.

Regards.

 

Fingers crossed you don't get this issue with the 4 TB HD....

http://knowledge.seagate.com/articles/en_US/FAQ/218615en

 

I hope not.... I'll find out soon.

 

I've started the process.

Two things.... When I looked at the disks in Diskpart, List Disks, it showed drive 0 as almost 4TB. But I didn't do anything but take it out of the box. I hope it's OK.

And in the "Exclude" disks the only one that showed up was drive 0. The other DataPart Disk did not show up.

But when I was in "Restore" it found the Image on the Disk, so it did see the disk.

In any event, the restore has begun and the message says it might take from a few minutes to a few hours. So far, I see no discernable movement of the Status bar, and no activity on the HD drive light. Has me concerned a little, but I will let it run for a while.

 

It's been 4 hours and no progress yet as far as I can see on the status bar.

I haven't seen any action on the Hard Disk Activity light either.

It may be doing something... or maybe not.

I have read stories of some people letting restore run for days before it finished.

Also read some stories of people changing their drive setup to RAID in th BIOS and it helped a lot to speed things up. When this drive crashed, I was trying changes in the BIOS to see if I cold get it back up and running, but no luck

Not sure what the actual BIOS setting may have been when I did the image, or if it even matters.

Guess I will leave it running, maybe even until tomorrow.

 

I agree. It's running, both disks are recognized and you have almost 1.5 TB of data to restore. Depending on your hardware speed it might take a day.

Annoying that there is no progress on the Status bar!

 

It's OK as it shows the disk size.

The disk containing the image is already excluded. Disk 0 is in the list in my computer too.

 

Thanks again Brian K.

I hope when I go into the office tomorrow morning the restore will be either done or far along.

 

good luck, hope it works out

 

chrome_sturman.

Thanks... I'm trying to stay positive..... :.)

 

Good Morning everyone!

Good News / Bad News....

When I arrived this morning I was pleased to see that the status bar had, indeed, made progress. So something is definitely happening.

But it's only moved about 1/8 of the way. I realize that it's a nearly full 1.5TB drive and I have read that the restore process is often times a long and agonizing one, so I will take it for what it's worth.... Progress !

I am willing to let it run as long as necessary to its conclusion. Perhaps the process will speed up a bit as it goes along, I don't know, but I am encouraged that it's at least doing something.

 

pratzert,

If you can wait, do so. But something is amiss as it should have only taken a few hours. You mentioned changes were made in the BIOS. Let's assume the restore completes successfully. I'd set the BIOS to "Load Optimized Defaults" and restore the image to your old HD. I guess you have copied all relevant data off the old HD and it's ready for a restore.

It's certainly frustrating.

 

Hi Brian K.

No, I've not recovered any data off the old drive as of yet. I had planned to use the 4TB drive to recover the data onto.

Plus, I wanted to see if the image restore worked first before I muck about with the old drive, and possibly messing up the data further.

I have time to wait it out and hope that the restore goes OK.

I did do a BIOS reset to the Defaults before doing the restore.

At the rate the restore is proceeding, I'm betting it won't complete until Friday. :.(

 

This morning they restore process had made some progress, but not as much as I had hoped. I had hoped for at tleast 1/2 finished... but it's still not even quite 25% completed.

I'll let it run to completion, which may end up being Monday !

 

pratzert,

Thanks for the updates. This must be driving you mad.

 

If your present attempt fails - since you have the hard drive in the other computer connected as a 2nd hard drive, maybe on that computer you can install a trial of Restorer Ultimate, let it scan the disk, and see if it finds your data - just another thought
We've all been through this and it's no fun, but we press on until we've exhausted all options

 

Yes... It's driving me Bonkers !

 

Hi crome_sturmen.

Yes, I guess I could install the OS (trashed) drive in my home desktop again and try to recover the data. I planned to try it in any event. I did run Recuva on the drive when I had it installed before and it found tons of files. It found so many, that it gave me a message that it had 18 hours remaining in order to recover all the files. I think it must have found ALL of the files, including programs and all the associated files that go with them.

I was able to look at some of the files too by taking ownership of them. I need to figure out how to take ownership of the entire drive so I can look at each one. I do not need the program files... just the data.

I also have to figure out how to recover all of those files when the primary drive on that desktop is pretty full.

If that 4TB drive I am restoring the image onto works, I can, perhaps, use that drive as a place to put those recovered files.

 

I'm sure any 'spectators' like myself here are feeling your pain and trepidation

Hope you succeed.

 

Thanks paulderdash.

This morning when I arrived at my office, I saw more progress, although once again not much.

The process is now 25% completed.

Hopefully it will continue progressing thru the weekend

 

Well here it is 7 hours later and the restore had made it to about 1/3 completion.

Then... all of the sudden things stopped, my restore screen disappeared and all I had was just a background and a pointer.

I have no idea what happened. Then, the machine rebooted itself and gave the message "Missing Operating System".

That's not surprising since the disk in the "0" position was not a bootable disk ( at least not yet. )

So I started from scratch......

Maybe the image is corrupt?

We'll see where it is on Monday and go from there.

 

Bummer. I say different software.