***VERY URGENT!!!

[FnIrish]

I need to save EXTREMELY important files from a hard drive and am not yet able to do so. Here is the issue: ntldr missing, mbr missing. I have tried "fixboot" and "fixmbr" as well as copying 2 nt files and nothing works. I ABSOLUTELY need to get these files off of the hard drive. Please help. I will be checking here until it helps. I have a new hard drive that I formatted and can use, but I still can't access the old one even as an external drive. It says it needs to be formatted. If I format, eveything will be gone. If I can get an answer or 2 within the next 48 hours I would be greatful, especially if the answers work for me.

 

[smorizio]

I need to save EXTREMELY important files from a hard drive and am not yet able to do so. Here is the issue: ntldr missing, mbr missing. I have tried "fixboot" and "fixmbr" as well as copying 2 nt files and nothing works. I ABSOLUTELY need to get these files off of the hard drive. Please help. I will be checking here until it helps. I have a new hard drive that I formatted and can use, but I still can't access the old one even as an external drive. It says it needs to be formatted. If I format, eveything will be gone. If I can get an answer or 2 within the next 48 hours I would be greatful, especially if the answers work for me.

if you have the full version of windows you can reinstall it over the old damaged one it wont wipe your old data you just end up with a windows.bac on the old drive. also have you tried using a system restore to see if you can go back a few days??
with the first fix will work if the fat table and partion are fine if you think there damaged you may have to try a free data recovery program to fix them.

 

[medmn]

go here - http://www.ehow.com/how_4804862_fix-ntldr-missing.html after you get
ntldr repaired give fixmbr another try. Good luck with it.

 

[Alabalcho]

@Smorzio, @Medmn - the OP says he can't access the volume even when the drive is put in an external enclosure, saying "It's not formatted".

@FnIrish - you need something like GetDataBack (I have used thit like five years ago). Meanwhile - do byte-level copy of the whole drive (byte-by-byte) so you can play with it without fear that you will damage it more than necessary.

 

[mightymaxio]

You could try diskdigger found here: http://diskdigger.org/
It can even mount hard drives that have a corrupted partition to recover data like your hard drive and its free as long as you recover 1 file at a time so its good for small amounts of files but not your whole computer.

 

[mightymaxio]

Obviously not urgent enough to warrant a reply. I'm done here lol.

 

[FnIrish]

@mightymaxio: First off, we all have things that we need to do during the day and I was doing some of those things, therefore I was too busy to reply until now. Secondly, I need to recover everything at the same time or as close to. I at least need to recover the files by copying a singular folder which will contain several files. Any suggestions???

 

[FnIrish]

I am going to try a couple of the methods from a couple of you, first I will try Albacho's way then maxio's first way. Please continue to throw out ideas for me. Thank you.

 

[rdc85]

Unplug your HDD, bring in to friend house, plug into his computer.... get the data out..

If it can be done quickly it the best route for now, u can worry about installing/fix later...

Edit : friendly neighbor/co worker is also work,

My Bad,
miss read since the 'mbr' is missing/corrupt u will need fix that first as the poster above post....

 

[ws1173]

You can always try booting up with a linux live cd or usb and copying the files you need to another drive through Linux. That's what I usually do.

 

[FnIrish]

Best answer selected by FnIrish.

 

[FnIrish]

@Smorzio, @Medmn - the OP says he can't access the volume even when the drive is put in an external enclosure, saying "It's not formatted".

@FnIrish - you need something like GetDataBack (I have used thit like five years ago). Meanwhile - do byte-level copy of the whole drive (byte-by-byte) so you can play with it without fear that you will damage it more than necessary.

Thank you so much. That program did the trick. I appreciate the suggestion and the outcome.