When all else fails

[careless223]

So I updated windows and it asked me to reboot.

-It then said that NTDLR was missing.

-I booted into the recovery console from an XP disk and used the command chkdsk /p to check for my disks and locate errors. That failed to I used -BOOTCFG /scan to scan for my partitions and repair the boot.ini. It found no windows partitions either time.

-I restarted and booted into the CD again but this time choosing to install windows.

-At the partition manager screen I see my 3 disks and all my partitions and they all say "unknown partition" except for one which is labeled as "my stuff"

-All the disks are the same size even though I have a 150 gig and 2 300 gig disks

-All the partitions are there but they are all the same size and show the same amount of free space

-I tried booting from a live cd but it failed. That included Knoppix, Morphix, Ubuntu, Mandriva, and Knoppix STD.

So my question here is what the fuck happened and how do I get my shit back without breaking anything or loosing any thing.

My system specs.

-Asus P5B-E

-Intel Core 2 Duo E6400

-1 gig Corsair (2 x 512)

[Sparda]

What happened: Windows broke it's self

How did this happen: you where using windows, you should know better (;))

Have you tried manually mounting the partitions? You say "I tried booting from a live cd but it failed. That included Knoppix, Morphix, Ubuntu, Mandriva, and Knoppix STD." but wtf does that mean?

[careless223]

It means that Linux would not boot because it could not find the Linux partition on the CD for some reason. My guess is that Core 2 is not supported yet. Mounting the partitions is out of the question with the very limited shell that it dropped me into.

The only reason that I am using Windows on that machine is because it is my gaming rig. I have other computers that I work on and they all run a flavor of Linux.

Not only did windows break itself but it also managed to break itself across 3 disks and 5 partitions.

[Sparda]

It means that Linux would not boot because it could not find the Linux partition on the CD for some reason. My guess is that Core 2 is not supported yet. Mounting the partitions is out of the question with the very limited shell that it dropped me into.

I still don't see why it's falling down. My guess is you have damaged cables (or at least data is been lost in transmission).

[careless223]

See thats what I thought at first. So I whipped out my spares which are brand new fresh out of a hermatically sealed bag.

Sticking a drive in another box which runs Linux does not work either. It won't mount the partitions. That was using Mandriva and Knoppix. manually mounting them fails too.

[Sparda]

Is the compter running next to some thing like a 2KW amplifier or some thing stupid?

[Freakish]

I had this happen to me a few years ago, sadly the only thing that you can do is format your drive.

[careless223]

Yea. It is sitting next to my Tesla Coil. I use it to fry CDs.

[Sparda]

Yea. It is sitting next to my Tesla Coil. I use it to fry CDs.

lol, I had to ask. One time I this guy called me and said his programs kept crashing and windows kept locking up. Turned out he was running the computer right next to a 2KW amplifier which was corrupting data as it moved between the HD and the motherboard. It also had a strange RAM issues... where the BIOS would warn about a RAM miss count or some thing like that, it was a simple matter of disabling quick boot in the BIOS, I can only guess that problem was also caused by the amplifier.

[careless223]

That is pretty stupid. Almost as bad as cleaning your computer with water instead of canned air.

I just reisntalled windows and added a linux partition for ubuntu to live on.

Problem solved I geuss?

Now I need to torrent half a terrabyte of data. :p

[maddog]

You might try spinrite; people have been able to save a failed drive with this. It is a great error fixing tool that I highly recommend.

http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm