C:\ is not accessible incorrect function

[pcgreens]

Unable to access C drive or D drive on 200gb hdd.

Original problem was clicking noises. Attempted reboot but was unable to boot supposedly due to a missing/corrupt windows file "windows root>\system32. hal.dll"

Was prompted to reinstall a copy of the file. Safe Mode did not work.

I did not find a copy of the file or know how to reinstall it... but ultimately the system ceased to prompt me to do that, so I bought Power Suite and tried with that. It showed me the files but did not let me copy them anywhere.

So, I got a Rocketfish harddrive enclosure kit and tried that.

I was able to copy about 20 files from the folder I thought was the most important at the time and then it just wouldn't read the disk any more.

I started getting the above error message "C:\is not accessible incorrect function."

Then the hard drive no longer showed the blue access light anymore to even get the error on trying to access it from windows explorer.

After putting it in the extra bay (had to buy a new hard drive and get that setup to have a life! but need those files!) the bios initially "saw" it even though I still could not access it. Then the bios stopped seeing it.

I tried dropping it on a flat surface per my nephew's successful experience with other hard drives that stopped working, to no avail.

Suddenly, today, after many attempts over days and days of trying, the Rocketfish enclosure is seeing the disk enough for the blue light to register and for Disk Management to "see" the drives as healthy and in the proper allocations for the C and D drives (although C does not say System) and Windows Explorer also sees it. There is an additional item called EISA Configuration for 6.01gbs, but I noticed that on the external hard drive I have as well, so I'm thinking that somehow is related to USB accessed drives versus the drive itself, but all I can find on the internet is that it's possibly some backup file allocation.

No matter what I do.... I cannot see the list of files again to try and copy them somewhere.....

Any ideas? suggestions? Yes... I should have been backing it up and I wasn't. And Yes, I should have created system recovery disks/cds but I didn't.

Thank you! Thank you! And Thank You!
PCGreens

[DonRayner]

I tried dropping it on a flat surface per my nephew's successful experience with other hard drives that stopped working, to no avail.

That wasn't a good idea, probably did more harm than good. But then again I've lost count of how many things that I've "fixed" over the years by giving it a good whack, so you never know.

Anyway have you tried to to a repair on the windows install yet?

[pcgreens]

Thanks.... good question! (Anyway have you tried to to a repair on the windows install yet? )

I can't access they system at this point other than to "see" it listed in windows explorer and disk management.

Trying to access it gives me the incorrect function, even from dos.

Soooooo........ .... I don't have the original windows install disks, and I'm not aware of how to use the xp windows disks I bought at a different time for a different system to do a repair on this drive (partitioned c\d disk).

[DonRayner]

when you first start the computer press Esc or Del or F2 (depending on your BIOS) to enter the setup screen. Change the boot sequence to boot from the CD first. Put your XP cd into the drive then Exit/Save your BIOS. Reboot and follow the prompts to "Repair" not "Install" windows.

[pcgreens]

Ok.... so here's the thing....

Will the system "see" the external drive as containing the disk that needs repair on bootup with the xp disk?

I have an internal drive that I setup and have been using post the 200gbs failure so that I could get things done, although I need the files from the defunct one.

I'm thinking I'd have to put the 200gbs drive in a bay and remove the clip from the one I've been using in order for the xp cd to realize which disk to try to repair.

I think the last time I tried that though, I received some errors that I have on some paper here somewhere. I've been working on this for some time, so...

Direction? Thanks!

[DonRayner]

Put your system back to it's origional state and then boot off of the CD into recovery console.

Article # KB945380 from Microsoft can help guide you through the recovery process. This article relates directly to your origional error.

[pcgreens]

Thank you, Don, for your help. Here’s where I am now.
I put the 200gb disk in the bay as suggested and ran XP from the cd drive.
After launching the Recovery Console, and that system doing whatever it does by default, at the C:\> prompt I thought... let me type DIR and see what happens.
The error read “an error occurred during directory enumeration.”

I put it back in the external drive and the 500gb drive back in the system.
The 200gb drive no longer will show me the C and D drive allocations as it did prior to this.

I read the link you sent and some other things I found related to the ‘enumeration’ error and swapped the 200gb back in, ran the Recovery Console, and ran FIXDISK which, after saying Y to the prompt said “the file system on the startup partition is unknown. Fixboot is attempting to detect the file system type. The Boot Sector is Corrupt. Fixboot is writing a new boot sector. The new boot sector was successfully written.”

I then tried DIR and got the same ‘enumeration’ error.
So I tried FIXMBR which returned nothing, so I rebooted.

I got my original error message!!! “Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt <windows root>\system32\ hal.dll please re-install a copy of the above file.”

So I booted from the cd again, did the RC and ran it FIXMBR again.
After typing Y to the prompt, received message “writing new master boot record on physical drive \device\harddis k4\partition 0. The new master boot record has been successfully written.

Tried DIR and received same ‘enumeration’ error.
Tried chkdsk /r and let it run while I went to bed.

Got up this morning and it finished at 25% completed with the message “The volume appears to contain one or more unrecoverable problems.”

Tried DIR — same “enumeration” error.
Tried D:\ and it went to that prompt. Tried DIR and received “There is no floppy disk or CD in the drive.” So it doesn’t see the partition, I guess, and as I have a dvd and a cd drive, it must have been looking at the drive that did not have the xp cd in it.

Reboot does not see the 200gb as a bootable drive and also does not give me back the original error regarding the hal.dll file.

Gave up for now.... and put the 500gb back to use my system and 200gb back in the external drive. Does not ‘see’ drive.

The one article/blog suggests doing a FDISK, making sure to use the same partition divisions, and then re-installing Windows. They believed it would not delete files.

http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.c...1421346&page=2 Is the blog address.....
I tried to find the knoppix program someone suggested, but it seemed to be related to Linux so I did not try that.

Maybe I should run the chkdsk /r 2 or 3 more times?

Thoughts? Ideas?

Thank you! ;-)

[pcgreens]

Hi, Don..... I thought I posted the following info the other day.... but when I'm looking at the blog today, I don't see it listed, so here's what it was....
Thank you for your help. Here’s where I am now.
I put the 200gb disk in the bay as suggested and ran XP from the cd drive.
After launching the Recovery Console, and that system doing whatever it does by default, at the C:\> prompt I thought... let me type DIR and see what happens.
The error read “an error occurred during directory enumeration.”

I put it back in the external drive and the 500gb drive back in the system.
The 200gb drive no longer will show me the C and D drive allocations as it did prior to this.

I read the link you sent and some other things I found related to the ‘enumeration’ error and swapped the 200gb back in, ran the Recovery Console, and ran FIXDISK which, after saying Y to the prompt said “the file system on the startup partition is unknown. Fixboot is attempting to detect the file system type. The Boot Sector is Corrupt. Fixboot is writing a new boot sector. The new boot sector was successfully written.”

I then tried DIR and got the same ‘enumeration’ error.
So I tried FIXMBR which returned nothing, so I rebooted.

I got my original error message!!! “Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt <windows root>\system32\ hal.dll please re-install a copy of the above file.”

So I booted from the cd again, did the RC and ran it FIXMBR again.
After typing Y to the prompt, received message “writing new master boot record on physical drive \device\harddis k4\partition 0. The new master boot record has been successfully written.

Tried DIR and received same ‘enumeration’ error.
Tried chkdsk /r and let it run while I went to bed.

Got up this morning and it finished at 25% completed with the message “The volume appears to contain one or more unrecoverable problems.”

Tried DIR — same “enumeration” error.
Tried D:\ and it went to that prompt. Tried DIR and received “There is no floppy disk or CD in the drive.” So it doesn’t see the partition, I guess, and as I have a dvd and a cd drive, it must have been looking at the drive that did not have the xp cd in it.

Reboot does not see the 200gb as a bootable drive and also does not give me back the original error regarding the hal.dll file.

Gave up for now.... and put the 500gb back to use my system and 200gb back in the external drive. Does not ‘see’ drive.

The one article/blog suggests doing a FDISK, making sure to use the same partition divisions, and then re-installing Windows. They believed it would not delete files.

http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.c...1421346&page=2 Is the blog address.....
I tried to find the knoppix program someone suggested, but it seemed to be related to Linux so I did not try that.

Maybe I should run the chkdsk /r 2 or 3 more times?

Thoughts? Ideas?

Thank you! ;-)

[pcgreens]

3-13-09 9:30pm
After I went through the fixdisk, fixmbr, and chkdsk /p /r (which failed and made the disk no longer accessible by the Recovery Console to even 'see' there was a media there, albeit no directory access was ever there), and the system was only doing 'clicking' noises as it tried to access the media and failed, I was finally able to get the same old errors again.

One thing I had found, but didn't think of to mention, is that, although Disk Manager shows the correct partitions of the drive, and Device Manager shows the disk type as "basic" with the same partition allocations, the Properties of the drive say File System: RAW and the drive is all showing as Blue for Used Space although it does not allocate space, meaning that the bytes ALL say 0 bytes for both Used entries and both Free entries.

Ideas??? Thoughts????

Thank you!

[DonRayner]

I dare say that you have a pooched drive on your hands. Unless someone else has another idea, about your only option left would be to send the drive to a data recovery specialist. Won't be cheap though.

Backups are much cheaper!!

[pcgreens]

Thanks, Don.....

I appreciate your attention to my problem. That was very kind.

If something happens one way or another..... I'll post back!

;-)

[Studlyami]

It doesn't sound good, but one thing you can try (and I've seen it work) is using a hard drive duplicator. The problem is that this device is expensive (starting around $400 USD) with no guarantee of success. If you have some friends in the IT/sys admin world check with them to see if their company has one that they could "barrow" or use while at work (this is how I got access to one). This would also require you to have another empty hard drive to try and transfer the files onto.

[pcgreens]

Thank you for those suggestions.... .. both seemed out of my range ($ and contacts), sooooooooooo... .........

After many moons (it feels like) I tried reinstalling windows on the C partition which I was sure would overwrite any data there, but was in hopes of at least salvaging the D partition as that is where almost all my files were anyway.

Well..... I can at least access the drive now, although the D partition only shows one file at all --- a PDF file, that when copied to another disk, loads properly, but when trying to open it from the D partition gives an open error message.

The Disk Manager and Explorer accurately report NTFS drive allocations and bytes used and bytes available, which was not true prior, so I tried chkdsk /r again, this time running from the cmd prompt on my main drive with the drive back in the external kit, and it produced a new error “File record segment ________ is unreadable.” (Different numbers displayed on each line of tons of lines of this error message. “42552" for example) This was after I tired of failing to read it with the BootMaster software I downloaded as a trial product and trying to “see” the drive unsuccessfully with the recovery software I got on e-bay for my pc since the manufacturer no longer provides it.

The chkdsk /r process took forever, so I left it running over-night with the end result that in the cmd screen, where I ran it, there were a number of lines stating “inserting an index entry into index $0 of file 25.” followed by a final line stating “insufficient disk space to insert the index entry.”

After running another DIR request, (still in DOS, as it were), it showed me the date, time, bytes and name of the one PDF file I mentioned earlier, and then the next line said “file not found.” Weird, huh?

Anyway, I am still in hopes of recovering some important data, and so I also tried HD Tune Pro 3.50 to try to see what was going on, and started a scan which after 10 hours only got 1/3 of the way through the process, and I felt it was probably never going to complete, so I stopped it and did a Quick Scan which completed in just under 50 minutes. I had copied the ‘error’ lines from the deeper scan, which were up to 216 when I finished, at 72506 MB (LBA 148492672).

The Quick Scan showed 56 errors and only 2 of them matched any of the ones on the ‘deeper’ scan from my first, uncompleted, scan. # 7 of the QS and # 190 of the DS said “Error at 41971 MB [LBA 85958400]” and # 11 of the QS and # 211 of the DS said “Error at 71581 MB [LBA 146598144].”

I read on a Symantec document online - “pfdocs/1996814142342" that marking and unmarking clusters could bring positive results, perhaps, using their Disk Editor.

I am now tossing between trying the BootMaster diskette to see if it will see any folders (which I doubt, because I think that the file list is non-existent or corrupted for the most part) but I’m afraid it will mess things up instead of move them forward. I’m also tossing with looking at the tools on the Recovery Sony cd from Ebay for my specific model which has Disk Doctor on it, and I’m wondering if I should try this Symantec Disk Editor idea.

Do these changes to the situation give you ideas on different solutions than the last one?

Thank you!

I especially would like to figure out how to get the system to let me put ‘resultant’ files on a different disk instead of the programs trying to save them to the damaged disk. I tried the “dir d: /a /s >c:\d-dir.txt” I found on a MS page Article ID: 315688 which was okay for that file, but I’d like to be able to do the same thing for the chkdsk results since they take so long and I can’t take screenshots of all the pages of those and I don't know what the command should say, if there is one, unless it should be something like "chkdsk d: /a /s >i:\d-chkdsk.txt." (If I understand the above pattern correctly?)

I’m thinking there has to be a way for the system to see those errors and fix them somehow.

[DonRayner]

Why not just try some of the comercialy available recovery product trial versions. You may not be able to recover with the trial versions but at least they should tell you if the data is recoverable or not.

[pcgreens]

Thanks, Don....

I guess I just don't know which those products are....

Product Suggestions?