Automatic Repair/Recovery Disc Problem

[MrVigilante]

Hello,

I have came across this particular problem recently and am in need of professional help.

About a week ago, I started up my ASUS X55U-EH11 15.6-Inch Laptop and was greeted with the Automatic repair loop. After searching for a solution until my face turned blue, I ordered a Windows 8 Recovery Disc in hopes that it will work. However, that was not the case. I set the boot option to the disc drive and upon boot I get a 'loading files', black screen, then small blue boxes on the top of the screen as if something was loading. Then halfway through, I get another black screen. Then the computer turns itself off.

I have a bunch of files on my computer that I simply can not lose. I'm trying very hard to avoid wiping out the system. I just want to recover everything and return to normal. Win8 Experts...please help me.

Thank you,
Glenn

 

[Fast one]

The first thing you should do is take the hard drive out of your laptop and connect it to another computer and back it up. You can do this by using an external adapter or just attach it to a desktop using the internal power and data connectors. This will tell you if there is a problem with your HD. Don't try to fix the drive until you have backed it up.
Google your laptop or look at the manual to get the drive out.

 

[MrVigilante]

I can connect a laptop HD to a desktop computer?

 

[Fast one]

I can connect a laptop HD to a desktop computer?

Yes. The connector on the laptop SATA HD is the same as a regular 3.5" SATA HD. Make sure that you power down the desktop before you connect the laptop HD. If this seems difficult then get a SATA to USB external HD adapter. Just think of it as an portable HD that you can buy fro a store only you are going to make it yourself. If you use this you can just attach your laptop HD just like any other USB device.

 

[Fast one]

Have a look at this example of a drive enclosure.
http://compare.ebay.ca/like/390677148690?var=lv&ltyp=AllFixedPriceItemTypes&var=sbar&_lwgsi=y&cbt=y&lpid=33&item_id=390677148690

 

[MrVigilante]

I'm just getting a blinking line.

 

[Fast one]

What blinking line?
If you mean on the desktop that you have attached the laptop HD to then make sure which drive you are booting from. I did not mean to disconnect the original HD from the desktop. Add the laptop as another drive to the desktop and boot normally.

 

[MrVigilante]

Okay, I have Removable Disk G-J in My Computer. None of which I can open.

 

[Fast one]

If it lists more than one drive letter this means that there are several partitions. I would first try to backup the partitions using windows backup. If you get success then your data is backed up. If not successful then you should try "disk check".
Right click on the drive and choose properties and then tools. this is the same place where you will find backup.

 

[Fast one]

Here is another thing you can try. I am running windows 7 so if you are not the steps may be a little different. Go to the C: command prompt (all programs/accessories/command prompt).
Right click on command prompt and "run as administrator"
Type chkdsk G:
hit return
report to me what happened.
Try chkdsk J:
report

 

[MrVigilante]

I should probably mention that my other operating system is XP. Is that gonna cause a problem?

 

[Fast one]

XP is not a problem. It has less administrator problems than 7. Did you manage to run chkdsk?
Remember. The whole process here is to rescue your data, so don't write to the disk if possible. virus checking it is OK, chkdsk is OK. don't format it under any circumstance or you'll probably lose everything. If the disk is bad then all might be lost.
Does the disk spin? Can you hear any clicking? Is it SATA or ide? Sata is small data cables, ide is 80 pin ribbon cable.

 

[MrVigilante]

I get "Cannot open volume for direct access."

 

[Fast one]

Is it SATA or ide?. "Cannot open volume for direct access" when you did what? Was this on drive G: or J: Please, more info is necessary to make suggestions.

 

[MrVigilante]

In the command, I typed "chkdsk G:, etc. and got that message

 

[Fast one]

G: might be the OS backup partition. So it might be a permissions problem. Try J: When you see G: & J: what are the sizes of the partitions? Is it SATA or ide?

 

[MrVigilante]

Sorry it's a long time for me to post...had work.
I get the same message on each drive. In each properties, used, free space and capacity are all on zero.

 

[The_Prophecy]

Looks like you might need to invest in some data recovery software at this point. If chkdsk can't access the drive and the capacity listed for all partitions in 0, I seriously doubt anything included in Windows will be able to get it back.

I am a big fan of Easeus Data Recovery Pro: http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizardpro/. Saved my bacon several times, and the cost isn't too bad. Because the drive is spinning up and the partitions are visible (even if their properties are wrong), the chances of recovering your data are still pretty good.

 

[MrVigilante]

Okay...there's still hope...thank God...
Alrighty....once I get this, I can run it on my computer and be able to back everything up? Maybe get a bigger HD for it too? Also, I have a failing HD for my desktop. I have a "Reboot and select proper boot device" error upon startup. BiOS doesn't even recognize it. Would that program work for it too?

 

[The_Prophecy]

Run it on your computer and assuming it can detect the device, it should be able to pull data from it. Getting another hard drive is not a bad idea either. That way you can have an offline backup storage solution.

Assuming that desktop drive is still failing instead of failed, it could work there too, but if the BIOS isn't recognizing it though, you are probably out of luck. If you happen to get the system to recognize the drive, then you'll have a shot.

 

[MrVigilante]

Okay...I bought it and ran it...on my desktop HD first. And it found no files. I guess it's safe to assume that HD is completely wiped out.
However, on my laptop HD, it found a lot of files. Now my question is what happens to the files it recovers? The HD I'm currently operating on is my old computers 120 GB HD. Not a chance in hell that can hold it all.

 

[The_Prophecy]

There are a couple different methods it can attempt within the program... give them all a shot. If it still doesn't find any data on the desktop drive, you're basically SOL unless you go to a data recovery company (that can get pretty expensive pretty quickly though).

If you have another computer that can handle the data, it should support restoring the data from the bad drive to a network share. Easiest way to set it up, is to create a network share on the other computer, map the share in File Explorer on the computer running the recovery (which will then give the share a drive letter), and then simply click the drive letter in the Easeus recovery window and it will send everything there.

 

[MrVigilante]

How about an external HD? Can I recover everything onto that?

 

[The_Prophecy]

Absolutely. An external drive would work just fine for this. Just make sure it has a high enough capacity to hold all of the data.

 

[MrVigilante]

Recovery was successful. Thank you, Prophecy. Do you know what I can do to wipe my laptop hard drive clean and start over?