My laptop hard drive has recently failed to boot. Upon restarting from an
unresponsive session (I was not doing anything prior to this, I just came
back to it after leaving the laptop alone all day), I got an error saying
that the mountmngr.sys was corrupt or missing.

Things I've tried:

All safe modes and other boot modes: No change. Will load bunch of xxx.sys
files but eventually end up with the same error message.

Installing Vista & trying to access Vista recovery: BSOP after a few
minutes (blank screen of purgatory with cursor after loading install files
and before actual install) so can't do either of those options.

Installing XP: BSOD after loading files

Check RAM integrity, changing to new RAM: Integrity test checks out fine.

Trying to slave the drive into a desktop: Vista will hang forever in blank
screen after finishing the green loading bar. Removal of the drive lets
that system start normally.

Trying to slave the drive into my laptop: Recognized in bios, but will not show up in windows.

Booting with a ubuntu live CD: Was able to mount the second partition, but
not the OS partition. The OS partition was visible, though. Mounting the
OS partition via command line gave me some more details but I'm not at my
computer at the moment and cannot paste them.

My laptop is an Asus g50vt-x1 running Vista. Drive is recognized by bios.

Hi, Well I think you have tried most of the things available to a pc user so now you have to try software recovery tools.

A pro would make a by sector image of the drive and work on the image. This should be your next option.

I've been looking into various softwares that are bootable cd's. I can't build the bartPE stuff correctly, it always gives me errors. What should I look into getting?

Thanks

You can try and pull your drive and attach to another system via USB and get all your needed data off of here. Then on ASUS that you can boot directly to the factory part of the drive and reinstall windows. But this too will format this part of your drive and install fresh factor install back to this drive. So you can proceed this way too if it is not fixable. I think with ASUS it is F10 or Alt + F10 to get you where you want to be

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Iorana Haraharaini

USB adapter doesn't work. It too will hang because of the OS partition being retarded.

Also any windows installation on that drive plain doesnt work, the process won't even start. If I try to install windows while it is a slave, the drive won't even show up by then.

Next option. Buy new HDD and install and reinstall the OS. You need to clone this drive now to a new drive and see what your other options will be after the clone is finished.

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Iorana Haraharaini

WHat should I use to clone the drive? My only options are things that run at boot time.

Oh yea, I forgot to partition the new drive before installing vista on it...What can I use to create a partition now on the new one?

The OS can do your partitioning for you when you install. You can choose this option to install this way or you can use any partition program like even partition magic if you choose to do this one

Choose like Winhex or RStudio to clone your drive to a new drive to work from there then you can check you problem with your partition table

Good luck

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Iorana Haraharaini

Now do any of these programs work off a boot cd? Again, windows does not show the drive at all so anything that is run there won't work.

Sounds like your problems are way over your scope. If you need this drive then seek some help now no mater what we offer it will not help you to fix this drive in the condition it is in now. Otherwise get a new drive and throw this one away or put it away until you can seek help. You do have a chance if you invest in a good cloning device and you can find a lot of them here on the forum. There is deepspar, data compass, data extractor just to name a few but there is many more out there. These can read this drive and clone it for you. Other wise take it to someone who can clone it for you.

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Iorana Haraharaini

Theres nothing that I can run off a boot cd that will hep out with my issue?

Make a boot cd copy of MHDD. Its on this site in the files section.
You can then run a scan of the surface media.
I bet you are going to find loads of bad sectors at the beginning of the partition.

Reading the thread it appears you don't need data from this drive.
You don't say what make and model it is.
What are you trying to do? Fix it?
Have you bothered to try the manufacturers utility tools?

If you don't need any data then sure play with it but don't use it for storage!

All I want is access to the OS partition of the drive so I can recover the data I need. I definitely don't plan on using the drive once I have what I need from it.

It is a seagate drive, I don't have my laptop open atm so I can't give the exact model.

The iso of MHDD is a boot cd, correct? It only seems to have a txt file in the iso...magicISO won't let me burn it either...

Thanks