"Tim" wrote in message
...
In message , Brian Wakem
writes
Keith (Southend)G wrote:

I have a problem Houston!

I have a major problem with my main PC, which is fixable but don't
want to lose data.
Basically, it boots up as far as the 'start windows normally' screen
etc and won't go any further.
It's Serial ATA 80Gig Hard Drive (Has the connection from the SATA1
position on the Mother Board0 and is a connector about the same size
as a USB.
Problem is I have an Easy IDE adapter, which can be used to extract
data off a disk when Windows goes wrong, but of course this won't fit
into the SATA socket on the Disk.

Also if I put the XP disk in to do a repair, (Not repair console) when
I get to the disk/partition bit. 'R' Repair is not an option, so if I
hit Enter it will do a clean install and wipe everything from the
disk.

Any ideas?


Use a live linux distro such as knoppix or mandriva one, they wont need to
use the hard disk but they'll be able to read it.



This may help.

http://distrowatch.com/table.php?dis...n=systemrescue
--
Tim
-------------
I've done the Knoppix/Mandriva thing before and got data off. You could
probably then put data on to a memory stick. it's a scary thing when this
happens though, I know - you're frightened to touch anything in case you
accidentally wipe the data.
Dave

On Oct 18, 4:25*pm, "Keith (Southend)G"
wrote:
On Oct 18, 11:58*am, Weatherlawyer wrote:

On Oct 18, 9:18 am, "Keith (Southend)G"
wrote:

Thanks for all the replies especially Weatherlawyer, you must have
spent some time typing that lot.

1. No it won't boot into Safe Mode, starts scrolling through files and
gets to about the 10th in the list as it scrolls through, .confg one I
think, and stops a that point.

I bought a Hard Drive Docking Station from Maplins and have
successfully salvaged all my data from the SATA disk. I think the disc
is fine so it must be the boot sector that's corrupted. I can try a
few things now without worrying about losing data, although I may just
buy another SATA drive in the morning and start again, as there's
alwaya something you forget that was on the disk! It's needed a
refresh for sometime as it's been getting slower over time and I've
had some near misses over the last few months, so maybe my luck had
ran out!

Best regards

Keith (Southend)

Hmmm this is odd , has this sata drive been working fine up untill now
or is it brand new?

If it has been working okay then I can only assume that there's a
fault with the hard drive or alternatively you got a bad virus; but I
would have thought you'd have been well protected.