Hello all,

I have a Samsung HD160JJ with Windows XP Pro installed on it. After some random machine crashes, a bad memory stick was identified as the cause.

However, the drive is now not showing as initialised. (I have tried a chkdsk from the NTFDDOS utility on the Windows Ultimte Boot CD which says it is not initialised).

Is there any way of marking the drive as initialised (in the hope that all data will then be available! - or at least be able to run a chkdsk, fixmbr etc.)

Many thanks in advance for any advice.

CA

Why not use some proper software?

e.g. Getdataback, R-Studio

Yiou can download a demo version which will scan the drive and show you the files. If it appears successfull then you can buy the product and retrieve your data.

(Assuming the HDD is in full working order of course)

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I would examine the damage before letting any data recovery software loose on your data.

A drive that is not "initialised" will probably have a damaged MBR and/or partition table. Do not be tempted to use any Microsoft disc tools to fix the damage, especially not FIXMBR.

You can use a freeware disc editor such as HxD:
http://mh-nexus.de/en/hxd/

If you compare the MBR against a standard MS MBR from a good drive, then you may see a pattern in the bit differences. If this pattern is consistent (eg bit x is 1 instead of 0), then this may you help to reconstruct damaged data.

You can compare two files in an XP DOS window with FC (File Compare):

fc /b bad_MBR.bin good_MBR.bin

The following resource may help you.

An Examination of the Windows 2000 ( NT5.0 ) and Windows XP ( NT5.1 ) MBR:
http://mirror.href.com/thestarman/asm/mbr/Win2kmbr.htm

If you upload your MBR, one of us may be able to help you.

Thank you both for your responses.

I had already let some "data recovery software loose on my data". I think a lesson learned there. Anyway, to cut a long story short TestDisk showed that both the MTR and backup MTR records were corrupted. I was able to recover some files using GetDataBack, and others from an external drive backup - not perfect but better than nowt!!

Thanks again for your help - out of this calamity I at least found this forum, which is definitely one of the better ones.

CA