Hey Everyone,

I recently spent a few weeks ripping about 700-800 CDs to two 250GB internal hard drives (flac format). The goal was to get all the files loaded on the drives, then remove them and put the drives into a new computer and use them there.

Well, today I put them into the new computer. Upon booting the machine for the first time I got some message from Windows (before it actually loaded the desktop, etc.) about indexing and what not and that it was going to read the drives and to press any key in the next 10 seconds to stop it. Well, I didn't stop it and it went through a minute or two of analyzing and doing all kinds of stuff.

When Windows started up, both drives were recognized, but not all of the files! On one drive I got most of the files but was missing a few folders. On the other, no files at all are recognized! I could really kill myself right now. The thing is, it still says that 108 GB have been used on the drive. And when I fiddled around with it a little bit, unchecking the "Allow Indexing Service" option in the Properties box, it ran through the files it was applying the settings to and I saw all the names of the songs go flying by. Problem is, they're still not there when I look for them in Windows Explorer.

So does anyone have any clue what could be the problem here? I am going out of my head right now!

Thanks!

What Windows OS and filesystem was used on the first computer?

What Windows OS and filesystem is used on the new computer?

Windows XP was used on both computers, with both drives formatted in NTFS.

And now that I thought about it, I recall the little Windows analysis thing mentioning something about the NTFS format. I wonder if it did something with this that made it unreadable?

Sounds like time for CHKDSK (Error Checking > Check Now).

Have you tried to put the drive again in the first computer?

Been there, done that . I remember having success with some data recovery tools. I can't remember the names, but I'm sure somone else can help with that.

- Do NOT use data recovery tools unless you tried everything else.
- Have a look at your files using the console (cmd.exe) and DIR, DIR /AH
- Try a bootable Knoppix CD (or gentoo livecd) for a read-only view of the real stuff on your NTFS partitions. You'd be surprised how many entries windows can hide from you.
- Try WinHEX to view your directories

Did you by any chance use Microsoft outlooks backup feature?!

Jan

Does the second computer (mainbord) support LBA48?
This is necessary to access hd’s greater then 137 GB.
Modern Pentium IV would all support LBA48 but not all Pentium III support it.

If you have an older motherboard than a BIOS update can help, or a not so nice solution is to make partitions smaller then 137 GB.

Unfortunately this can't be the case..

Normally, to mount a NTFS partition, windows ensures it has access to the whole of it. Either all or nothing. So if LBA48 were disabled, he would not have seen the drive letter at all.

That's true... it can some times make things worse.

However in my case, I did have some success with it, so if everything else fails, it is a viable option.

Make sure that "Hide protected system files" is unchecked
"Show hidden system files and folgers" is checked.

I had even worse problems after checkdisk restored my indexes on NTFS partition. Large amount of files have pieces of ohers inside them. I dont even know what helps me, but i runned checkdisk again. It said that everything is OK. After that i removed about 7GB of broken files from 160GB HDD. After that i reinstalled XP. This is magic, but all the rest files are now O.K. Even that i SURE was broken before.

About restoration programs:
You'll be on the safe side if you use utils that do not edit problem partition at all. Such programs needs new free partition (for example on other HDD) and they will help copy invisible, deleted or lost files to other HDD. Or (in worse case) to search known file signatures and save found files. Source partition wont be touched at all, so it wouldnt make any bad. Chances of success is wery high in case of unfragmented files. Otherwise there could be errors in resulting files (you coud after this check your flacks for corruption, there are some flack cmdline parameter for that).
You could try this (shareware) programs if easier ways wont help:
http://www.runtime.org (look for GetDataBack, it is slow if there are a lot of files on HDD but should be powerful enough)
http://www.handyrecovery.com (just another option)

I also tried utils that directly modify partition. This procedure is irreversible. Do not use this at all.

Please note that besides being "microsofty" NTFS is a reliable filesystem. Losing files on FAT can happen once in a while, but losing stuff on NTFS is very rare.

Even if there's a hardware problem, because of NTFS driver's internal consistency checks, the kernel will crash / halt instead of going nuts / corrupting stuff.

There's about 90% chances that the viewing application (ie: windows explorer) is the culprit. For this reason, IMHO you should try cmd.exe or a linux bootable cd ASAP, before playing russian roulette with any BIOS settings and such.

Does your second Computer support UDMA-133 ?

You will need this since UDMA-100 is limited to 127 GB ...

All NTFS partitions should refuse to mount if the BIOS settings are wrong (according to what I've seen)..

mandaring, you should login as Admin and check your directories' permissions and properties.

You need to install lastest service pack and enable 48-bit LBA. This will probably resolve the problem and you won't lose any files you haven't touched after moving to new computer. http://www.48bitlba.com/

As I already said twice -- the thought that half the files would disappear when half the disk gets inaccessible, is a bit naive !

If half of the disk is unreadable, you don't get access to the data. That's how (almost) all filesystems work.

In NTFS, for performance reasons the Master File Table (MFT) is *not* located at the beginning of the disk. So you *do* need the whole 250GB to access any file.

If you can see anything at all when LBA48 is disabled, then it is a serious kernel errata which should be reported to Microsoft.

This is not totally true.
I know that Windows 2000 will mount an hd greater then 137 GB without enabling 48bit LBA.
This will cause strange behavior like lousing data and even crashing the computer.
For Windows 2000 you have to enable 48bit LBA with a registry key and must have SP3 installed and the BIOS must also support 48bit LBA.

Well this might very well be the case for FAT partitions (I haven't tried with those). I was mentioning NTFS and XP only.

Maybe win2000 lacks some integrity checks?

Nice to know, that this has been improved in Windows XP.