Re: Corrupted NTFS needs reformat - how to preserve windows installation

Martin T. wrote:

Hi all,

SHORT:
------
How do I preserve a Windows XP sp2 installation (registry, drivers, installed programs) when I want to reformat my C: drive, without using a disk cloning tool??

LONG:
My C: NTFS partition went bad when a power outage occurred during shutdown. Now, when XP tries to boot I get a UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME blue screen.
Booting to the recovery console and running chkdsk /P will result in chkdsk telling me that there are unrecoverable errors on C: (In fact, the recovery console won't even dir the contents of the C: drive.
So far so bad.
When I access the NTFS volume (read only) from my Linux boot option, I can see that basically all data on there is intact and accessible (read only). (Checked with a few images and zip files -- assuming that most other stuff would also be correct.)

Now, as I see this, since CHKDSK refuses to repair the volume I will have to reformat (I can get all data I need off it.)

What would also be great be when I'd be able to preserve my Windows Install.

I can't use a Clone Program since these will copy at the partition level and so I guess will just replicate the broken NFTS structure. (-> ??)

Is there a way to preserve my old registry etc. ??


thanks!


John John wrote:

Did you try running the fixboot command from the Recovery Console?

Can you mount the disk to another Windows XP installation and when you do can you see and access all the files on the corrupt disk? If no to the above do you have an NTFS or FAT32 driver for your Linux installation?

If you can answer yes to one of the above what you can do is get another hard disk, mount it to an XP box or use the XP cd to partition and format it and mark the primary partition active (prepare it for XP) then mount it and the broken disk to your other operating system. You can then use Xcopy, XXcopy or (something similar if you are doing this with Linux) and then using the appropriate switches copy the files and folder structure from the broken disk to the new disk. Once done you may need to run the fixboot command on the new disk for it to boot. No guarantee but worth a try.

John


Martin T. wrote:

Hello.

I can access the broken partition from Linux alright.

I have not tried fixboot yet, ...
Will fixboot mess up the Grub Linux boot loader (I think that resides in the MBR, so I'd figure not) ??

Your description sounds good:
So I would:
1.) Do a recursive copy backup of NTFS-C: to my external Harddisk
2.) Reformat NTFS-C: so that it gets a clean filesystem
3.) Do a recursive copy back from my external drive to NTFS-C:
4.) Run the recovery console and do a 'fixboot'

Is this OK?

It's just one more copy, but I do not have another disk so that will have to do.


Thanks!

To dislodge the GRUB loader you would use the fixmbr command, if fixboot damages GRUB then you will have to repair it, shouldn't be too big a problem to fix if the disk is otherwise sound, search the net and you will quickly find how to do that. I don't know how your disks are arranged and where GRUB is being started, that is for you to determine.

As for the trying to salvage the Windows installation that is how I would try if nothing else works, which seems to be where you're at now. Strange that Linux can read the files on the disk but that Windows cannot see them or even chkdsk the drive, go figure! But it seems that I have read posts with similar happenings before.

I want to *emphasize* that there is no guarantee that this will work! There is no saying what kind of corruption the disk is having and if all the files are recoverable, maybe there are certain areas or sectors of the disk where system files reside that are corrupt beyond repair or recovery. After you do this copy over job you may still need to to a repair install. Before you try to copy files back to the disk it would be a good idea to run a disk diagnostic utility from the hard drive manufacturer to make sure that the disk is sound.

Also, I don't have extensive experience with Linux and I am not sure that you will be able to copy files to an NTFS disk without the Paragon driver or without another similar driver. If you cannot copy to NTFS you may be able to copy to FAT32 and convert the file system after the mess is fixed, if it is fixable to start with!

Good luck,

John

.

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