Thanks Brian K. I love the fact that there are still more possible steps to getting this resolved. It helps keep my sanity (what little I have left.)
Status Update: This morning the restore is slowly progressing. It's approx. 1/8 of the way on the status bar. Tick.....Tick.....Tick.....
Well..... No Love.... When I arrived to my office this morning there was a little blinking curser and a message which read "missing operating system". The darn thing must have stopped over the weekend and re-booted. I'll pull the drives out today and try installing them in the desktop at home to see if anything different happens. But I'm not feeling confident.
pratzert, The restore has completed. Can you ignore it for the time being. It's bed time for me but I'll have some suggestions in the morning. I'll get you to use the BIBM boot disk you have made. Edit... Boot BIBM. You will see the partitions on HD0. Can you record what you see, names and sizes. Is there Free Space following the Win7 partition? How much?
Brian K. I'll take a llok and report back. But I'm not so sure the restore completed, because that is what happened the other time(s) I attempted the restore. It go about 1/2 way thru and "POOF", it re-booted.
Brian K. Here is what the report stated: Drives 0 - BIOS HD (1.36TiB) MBR Partitions: MBR 0 Partition 39 MiB Dell Utility MBR 1 Partition 9342 MiB NTFS/exFAT/HPFS/+ MBR 2 Partition 1421416 MiB NTFS/exFAT/HPFS/+ Partition 1 MiB Free Space
Thanks. Boot BIBM and on the Drive 0 screen click View MBR Is the word Active present? If so on which line? Select the MBR 1 line (by clicking) and click Set Active. Apply, etc. Does the computer boot into Win7? If not, boot BIBM, View MBR, select the MBR 2 line, Set Active, Apply, etc. Does the computer boot into Win7? If not, boot BIBM, select the MBR 2 line, Properties, Details. What's in Free and Used? Select the MBR 1 line, Properties, Details. What's in Free and Used?
Hi Brian K. You must have added the last part after I followed the steps. See my answers above, but I will have to check the other things tomorrow as I left the office for a meeting and won't be going back today. THANK YOU for sticking with me in trying to recover the drive. I appreciate it.
Also, in BIBM select MBR 1 partition, Edit File. Is a Boot folder present? Is bootmgr present (scroll to bottom)? Select MBR 2 partition, Edit File. Is a Boot folder present? Is bootmgr present (scroll to bottom)? This will tell us which partition contains the booting files. That partition should be Active.
pratzert - I hope you get it back man Brian K , who is an expert with Bibm, is only touching on the applications which the program is useful for, they are far-ranging, I have been studying it awhile now and still haven't mastered it
Thanks chrome_sturmen. I only have the 30 day trial now, but it doesn't look too expensive to purchase. If it ends up saving my bacon, I'll be happy to buy a copy.
It's a bit concerning. I hoped it would be a Set Active issue. http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=270
Missed seeing this earlier, if it hasn't been suggested yet, when my XP wouldn't boot i installed Linux Mint in a dual boot configuration and it fixed everything. If its not too late it should work for you as well.
Unfortunately, I think we have tried setting the various partitions as active... no help. I can look at the BIOS again, But I had reset it a couple of times... no help.
I'm interested in what those partitions contain. If still no luck I'll get you to install BIBM to the HD and see if BIBM can boot the OS.
Hi hogndog, I'm open to all suggestions and help that may lead down the path to success in restoring the drive OR retrieving my emails and address book. I have some things/info that Brian K wants me to supply/check. We'll see what leads to what. I can try the Linix Mint in dual boot if this path is a dud. Thank you for the suggestion.
**Unable to mount file system** Brian K. I tried to go to the "details" and in both instances got an error message "Unable to mount file system"