Copying files from corrupted disk, XP
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Copying files from corrupted disk, XP
My girlfriend's laptop died so I removed the hard drive and put it in a USB caddy that I then plugged into my laptop. I can browse her disk and see all of her files, but when I try to copy them across to mine, some of them won't (and I get "The path is too deep" error, which is b*llocks seeing as similarly named files copy OK). Not a big problem that these odd files won't copy, but Windows then stops the whole copy process and I have to manually select each folder without the aforementioned files.
Is there a better utility to use for copying files across? If bloody USB worked on my Linux box I'd do it there, but for the moment I'm stuck with Windoze...
addendum: I'm having some success, I think, with "Roadkil's (sic) Unstoppable Copier" from http://www.roadkil.net/unstopcp.html
Is there a better utility to use for copying files across? If bloody USB worked on my Linux box I'd do it there, but for the moment I'm stuck with Windoze...
addendum: I'm having some success, I think, with "Roadkil's (sic) Unstoppable Copier" from http://www.roadkil.net/unstopcp.html
Last edited by Richard Spandit; 6th May 2006 at 09:39.
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Richard,
The first paragraph I can't answer, but having had to recover my girlfriend's laptop hard drive contents to a USB drive this week I may be able to help you with the second bit. It's a bit long-winded but I'll post it anyway in case it's of any use to you. However, for it to work, your own hard drive must be formatted as FAT32, not NTFS. Linux strictly warned me about writing to an NTFS drive when I tried it.
Search for Knoppix on Google - it's a CD-bootable Linux GUI interface which will boot on any PC regardless of whether you use Windows or not. It's available for free on the internet as an iso image. If you download it on your laptop, burn it to CD and then boot your laptop from the CD (without the USB hard drive plugged in.) It'll load up the Linux GUI, which supports USB hot-plugging.
Once you're in, go to your internal hard drive on the Linux desktop just to check it's mounted and you can browse it. (Do it this way rather than going through the Konsole command prompt as for me Knoppix had a bit of a user-name conflict between Konsole and GUI and wouldn't mount the drives in read/write mode properly.) Then, plug in and switch on your external USB drive, and it'll appear on the desktop. Again, click it and it should automatically mount and you'll be able to browse it.
Right click on your own hard drive (the internal one), go to Actions, then click "Change read/write mode" and click on "OK" in the box that appears. Your own hard drive should be now in read/write mode and you should be able to browse the USB drive and drag and drop anything you need on to your own laptop's internal one.
Hope that's of some use to you.
The first paragraph I can't answer, but having had to recover my girlfriend's laptop hard drive contents to a USB drive this week I may be able to help you with the second bit. It's a bit long-winded but I'll post it anyway in case it's of any use to you. However, for it to work, your own hard drive must be formatted as FAT32, not NTFS. Linux strictly warned me about writing to an NTFS drive when I tried it.
Search for Knoppix on Google - it's a CD-bootable Linux GUI interface which will boot on any PC regardless of whether you use Windows or not. It's available for free on the internet as an iso image. If you download it on your laptop, burn it to CD and then boot your laptop from the CD (without the USB hard drive plugged in.) It'll load up the Linux GUI, which supports USB hot-plugging.
Once you're in, go to your internal hard drive on the Linux desktop just to check it's mounted and you can browse it. (Do it this way rather than going through the Konsole command prompt as for me Knoppix had a bit of a user-name conflict between Konsole and GUI and wouldn't mount the drives in read/write mode properly.) Then, plug in and switch on your external USB drive, and it'll appear on the desktop. Again, click it and it should automatically mount and you'll be able to browse it.
Right click on your own hard drive (the internal one), go to Actions, then click "Change read/write mode" and click on "OK" in the box that appears. Your own hard drive should be now in read/write mode and you should be able to browse the USB drive and drag and drop anything you need on to your own laptop's internal one.
Hope that's of some use to you.
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Thanks - I'll give that a try... just found out that the laptop is still under warranty (from PC World) so will take it back and get a new one... after I've taken the files off, of course...
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You might find this link useful.http://www.cyberscrub.info/download/
It's for a free trial of "cyberscrub". You can use to to totally wipe (and scramble anything on the hard disk before you return the computer.
Don't forget that deleted files are very easy to recover by someone who knows what they are doing.
I've used it for a couple of years, and found it very useful
If you do download it, I'd advise you to set up a new e-mail address (yahoo or hotmail), or you might find yourself bombarded with junk in the future.
It's for a free trial of "cyberscrub". You can use to to totally wipe (and scramble anything on the hard disk before you return the computer.
Don't forget that deleted files are very easy to recover by someone who knows what they are doing.
I've used it for a couple of years, and found it very useful
If you do download it, I'd advise you to set up a new e-mail address (yahoo or hotmail), or you might find yourself bombarded with junk in the future.
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Try to get hold of a disk-to-disk cloning software such as Symantec/Norton Ghost. Those usually have both a "raw", (sector-by-sector) copy option as well as a "skip bad clusters" option. One disk goes into the primary IDE channel, the other into the secondary IDE channel, and the software on a bootable floppy or similar.
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As an aside...
What OS was the GF's laptop running and what is your's running?
From memory (read in an article a long long time ago in a magazine far far away), teh "path too deep" error is an MS OS issue. I seem to recall that XP can address a deeper directory than Win98...
Now, where is Conan the Librarian when you need him (or her)?
Regards,
Shuttlebus
What OS was the GF's laptop running and what is your's running?
From memory (read in an article a long long time ago in a magazine far far away), teh "path too deep" error is an MS OS issue. I seem to recall that XP can address a deeper directory than Win98...
Now, where is Conan the Librarian when you need him (or her)?
Regards,
Shuttlebus
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More on using Knoppix
Posting for completeness, but I too would give it a go with Knoppix. The notes here good.
http://www.shockfamily.net/cedric/knoppix/
http://www.shockfamily.net/cedric/knoppix/
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Both laptops are running XP.2
I've got most of the documents off so if PCWorld want to wipe the disk, then no great loss - they'd better replace it, though - that's what warranties are for!!
I've got most of the documents off so if PCWorld want to wipe the disk, then no great loss - they'd better replace it, though - that's what warranties are for!!
