Crashed and recovered

[Fluf]

My PC had a windows system file error the other day, and I cound't get the pc to boot up. A mate came over and had a look and said that he couldn't boot the harddrive and that it needed to be re formatted. He did this, and I lost all of my photos from the last year (including the birthing video of my first born daughter).

I had nothing backed up (because I am an idiot) so have lost everything. The same friend ran 2 data recovery programs and got heaps of stuff back, including 2 gigs of video, but none of it plays. I just keep getting a message that it is corrupt. Is this the end of the line for me?

BTW, I am now aware that he could have booted up my hard drive as a slave on another machine, I just didn't know this at the time, and he thought that I had eveything backed up, as he is quite proficent with Pc's (he starte his own mr fix it mobile pc business), so assumed that I would have done this.

Please god someone help me! I will send beer /insert beggin smilie here

[Fluf]

This is the "more information" msg that I get.

0xC00D1199: Cannot play the file
Windows Media Player cannot play the file. You may encounter this error message for one of the following reasons:

The file type is not supported by the Player. The following table lists the file types supported by the Player. If the file type you are trying to play is included in this table, then the file may have been encoded by using a codec that is not supported by Windows Media Player. If this is the case, Windows Media Player cannot play the file.
The file type is supported by the Player, but the file was compressed by using a codec that is not supported by the Player.
The file type is supported, but you are trying to play it in a way that is not supported by the Player. For example, you may have attempted to drag a DVD file with a .vob extension from a DVD to the Windows Media Player icon. Or you may have attempted to open a .vob file by clicking Open on the File menu.
You are trying to play one part of a multipart file. Use a newsreader or other program to combine the files, and then try again.
The following table lists the file types (formats) supported by Windows Media Player.

File type (format) File name extension
Music CD Playback (CD audio) .cda
Audio Interchange File Format (AIFF) .aif, .aifc, and .aiff
Windows Media audio and video files .asf, .asx, .wax, .wm, .wma, .wmd, .wmp, .wmv, .wmx, .wpl, and .wvx
Windows audio and video files .avi and .wav
Windows Media Player skins .wmz
Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) .mpeg, .mpg, .m1v, .mp2, .mpa, .mpe, .mp2v*, and .mpv2
Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) .mid, .midi, and .rmi
AU (UNIX) .au and .snd
MP3 .mp3 and .m3u
DVD video .vob
Macromedia Flash .swf




*To play .mp2v files, you must have a software or hardware DVD decoder installed on your computer.

Notes

To play DVDs, you must have a DVD-ROM drive, and a software or hardware DVD decoder installed on your computer. If you do not have a compatible DVD decoder installed, DVD-related commands, options, and controls do not appear in the Player and you cannot play DVDs. By default, Windows does not include a DVD decoder. For more information about DVD decoders, see Windows Help.
DVD playback is only available on select versions of Windows.
Error ID = 0xC00D1199, Condition ID = 0x00000000
Web Help


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
© 2000-2002 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

[Number Six]

What was recovered were only partial files, as the rest of it was already overwritten by the format and reinstall of the OS.

I'm sorry - but if this was your friends business, he should have known that the drive could be accessed as a slave. The first thing he should have done was ask you if there were any personal files that needed to be saved before wiping the drive. Whenever I do a reinstall for someone, I always offer to save their personal files - it does take extra time, but it is worth it to have a happy customer and therefore insures repeat business.

[gll99]

It is possibe that some of the recovered files are ok but the proper codecs have not been reinstalled on your system. Try a player like KMplayer which for the most part uses it's own codecs and/or check the tools section of this site for a recent version of ffdshow which can be set to decode most video file types. You can also choose to download and install specific codecs like mpeg2, xvid or divx and mp3 or ac3 audio codecs etc... as needed. Most will be linked to in the tools section.

[gadgetguy]

Recovering damaged video files is not my forte, but I know that WMP is not a good program to try to play damaged files in. Try VLC or MPC and check the file in GSpot to see if it can be recognized.

[Fluf]

Thanks so much for your feedback guys. Even if I can't get the files back, at least I will know i have done everything I can.

KM PLayer keeps crashing when I try and play the files.

[Fluf]

Some of the files seem to be complete but I don't really know what I am looking for in GSpot. Most of them it doesn't come up with any information at all.

[Fluf]

VLC will run some of the files but there is no picture or sound. This is the end of the road isn't it?

[luigi2000]

Take many more pictures. I hope that you remember this tough lesson. You are old enough to procreate. So how long have you used a computer? Know your OS and the capacity of the drive.

Obtain an usb-sata (or my choice--an esata) external hard drive and an enclosure that is the same capacity and interface as the one used in your computer. Partition both drives into matching system-application and data-media partions. Use an imaging application such as the one I use, Image for Windows by Terabyte, to backup the system-app partion(s) to the external drive. Create a batch file based on the xcopy command to backup the data-media partion(s) to the external drive. Swap the drives to verify that the drives can be interchanged.

Backup your data anytime that you have information that you would like to keep. Swap the primary and backup drives every few months to average the useage. Keep a regularly backed up third copy of your data-media at another location.

Realize that your hard drive can fail at anytime.

[Fluf]

Yeah no doubt this is 100% my fault. I've just never had a hard drive fail on me in over 25 years of using a pc. In hindsight, wish it had happened earlier, but now I know.

I am interested in backing up properly, but what you said makes almost no sense to me Luigi2000. Is there a laymans term for what you are doing?

My step dad said go and get a terabyte hard drive and get a program to back it up automatically. Is this what you are saying?

[Soopafresh]

You might be able to recover some of those lost files. The best app I've found for the job is Ontrack EasyRecovery. There are trial versions here: http://www.ontrackdatarecovery.com/data-recovery-downloads/

You also need an external USB drive to recover to - like one of these Western Digitial Passports

http://www.westerndigital.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=525


Do NOT install the recovery software on your C: drive (aka Windows drive). Install it onto the External USB Drive so you don't write over any data on your original hard drive.

[Bjs]

Active@ UNDELETE 7.0 is what you need to recover the files intact.

Never had any problems using it to recover files from the main os drive ... but it is preferred to slave the drive up for recovery.

[INFRATOM]

Some info for the future, You could have installed windows or recovery without formating and your data would still be there. You could have probably booted in safemode and repaired your windows. You could have booted your computer with Ubuntu a linux version just from a cd and got your data out. You could have partitioned your drive and installed windows into new partition ... list goes on

[Nelson37]

I'll make a prediction that your friend goes out of business very, very quickly.

Check ALL of the recovered files..Some may be readable.

As a question, were these files recovered to the same drive, or to a seperate drive? If recovered to the same drive, you should tell your friend to close his business TODAY.

[Number Six]

INFRATOM - It is possible that the OP is not very technical about computers, most users aren't - so I do not fault him in this case.

Nelson37 - I agree with you - if this guy really knew what he was doing, he would have asked questions first instead of just wiping the drive - especially for a friend's computer!

[Fluf]

So what sort of hard drive should I be looking for to back up to? I don't want the best of the best, but I want something very stable, and I guess the faster the better?

[Nelson37]

Hard drives and enclosures more or less a generic item, pick a size and bargain shop. Stay with a major brand, I'm pretty much a Western Digital guy myself. I usually get the seperate enclosure and drive.

Something else which would have solved your problem. Buy two removable docking enclosures and a drive matching your own. Mount boot drive in one internal cartridge, the backup drive in the second one. Periodically install the backup drive and run a drive image copy to the backup drive, afterwards removing the backup. Then, if the primary fails, jsut remove the cartridge and replace it with the identical backup, boot and go.

"Intermittant software mirroring", yes I made that up. Has the advantage of minimal wear and tear on the backup drive, complete copy of boot drive with all software, maybe $40.00 more than a USB enclosure, fast backup.

The cartridge and docking bay will need to be replaced periodically if R and R'd often, the connectors do seem to have a limited lifetime. Many new ones can be switched off and on without removing the cartridge, and even without rebooting the PC.

You might also consider multiple memory sticks as they are cheap, also burning to CD and/or DVD as an additional method.

There is no perfect method. More is better.

[TBoneit]

I hope he ran diagnostics one the drive before working on it.

I agree with the above comments, I would never wipe a drive without checking with teh customer if it has been backed up. in 12+ years working where I'm working now I can count on the fingers of one hand the customers who said yes I have a backup.

Your friend better have the his customers sign a release against loss of data so he can defend against a lawsuit if he is going around assuming that everybody has their data backed up and wipes their drives.

Normal procedure here is back up to a second drive or the server, depends on data size, before wiping out the drive. Some viruses you do need to zero out the drive before a re-install.

[Fluf]

Something else which would have solved your problem. Buy two removable docking enclosures and a drive matching your own. Mount boot drive in one internal cartridge, the backup drive in the second one. Periodically install the backup drive and run a drive image copy to the backup drive, afterwards removing the backup. Then, if the primary fails, jsut remove the cartridge and replace it with the identical backup, boot and go.

"Intermittant software mirroring", yes I made that up. Has the advantage of minimal wear and tear on the backup drive, complete copy of boot drive with all software, maybe $40.00 more than a USB enclosure, fast backup.

The cartridge and docking bay will need to be replaced periodically if R and R'd often, the connectors do seem to have a limited lifetime. Many new ones can be switched off and on without removing the cartridge, and even without rebooting the PC.

You might also consider multiple memory sticks as they are cheap, also burning to CD and/or DVD as an additional method.

There is no perfect method. More is better.

When you say buy two docking enclosures, what are these? My motherboard will support 4 hard drives @ once. Is that what you are talking about? I was thinking of getting a usb hard drive that I can just plug in once a week and let it automatically backup all of my pics and videos.

[Nelson37]

It is basically similar to the external drive, but mounted internally and using full-speed SATA or IDE connections. The mounting rails and connector install in the case, the cartridge holds the drive and can be removed.

There are backups and then there are backups. A full image copy of the drive, including the Os and all program files, on a bootable disk, can only be done a few ways. Expensive hardware mirroring, performance-robbing software mirroring, or by booting a different OS and using Ghost or similar, There's a Unix program which works pretty well but is a bit scary lookin.

I always copy from a smaller drive to a larger. Drive lettering and or numbering is not always a reliable indicator of which drive is which, and I can tell you from personal experience that having a mirror go the wrong way is something you don't want to do.

Just got a customer with what used to be a $5,000.00 server with RAID mirroring and a hot-swap drive kept offsite. BUT, what was a $400.00 RAID card has crapped out, company has confirmed that NO other card will read the data on these drives. Got one coming from E-bay, fortunately the PC is 8 years old and the cards are a LOT cheaper now. Hopefully it will work.

[Fluf]

Ok, thanks very much for this it makes sense to me. So it's like a portable drive but you can mount it inside a case. And then when I want to take all my photos to a friends place I can just take the drive out use a usb cable? Is this correct?

[Nelson37]

No.

The advantage of the internal mount is the full hi-speed performance on the internal bus.

Disadvantage is requirement to make that very connection. You could take the drive out of the cartridge and place it in an external USB enclosure, and then use it on another machine. USB memory sticks would be better for this purpose.

You could also take the drive out and mount in internally, or purchase a second docking bay and install it in the other PC. This would allow the drfive to be easily installed and removed in seconds, using the cartridge.

The internal cartridge system is best applied when a COMPLETE, BOOTABLE duplicate of a system drive is desired. A side benefit of this type of backup is absolute assurance that everything is there. Simple file backups ALWAYS miss something that yoo would like to have in the event of a crash.