Hard Drive not readable but working?

[tcwh1971]

I have a hard drive that I have connected to my old PB PC as a slave to see if I can rescue any thing from it. Basically, this HD is from another PB that has stopped working. So I connected it to my old PC to take everything Off. However, when I opened it all that showed up was the following files, and nothing else...

bcd_backup
bcd_backup.LOG
bcd_backup.LOG1
bcd_backup.LOG2

I think it could be because the partition is either destroyed or damaged. I know for a fact that there are loads of files on this HD but they don't show up. I think maybe the only way is a file recovery program, which I have. But I want to know if there is another way, perhaps the Partition can be repaired or rebuilt so that the files, which I know for a fact are on the HD, could be retrieved.

Any help greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[reddevilggg]

What OS are you using??

Is there an OS on the old hard drive?

The Boot Configuration Data file might be corrupted.

[patio]

Those are Vista bootloader files...

[reddevilggg]

After a quick google i found

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927391

[reddevilggg]

Sound like he can't open the hard drive. You can rebuild the BCD store by using the Bootrec.exe tool in the Windows Recovery Environment.

Is this wrong???

[Allan]

Yes, it's wrong. He's not getting an error message, the drive is SLAVED, and it appears there are no other files on the drive other than the bootloader files. And sorry, I deleted my previous message by mistake.

But even if there ARE other files on the drive, you cannot boot to it from another system.

[reddevilggg]

Would a file recovery work, as the OP suggested???

[patio]

Most likely he would need a Partition Recovery tool...if in fact there's anything left on the drive...

[tcwh1971]

Thanks to everyone for the replies.

This HD has Vista on it and was the main HD for a PB PC. It was, I believe full of viruses and I did try and do a clean install but it wasn't possible and just refused to work. I don't have the original Vista disc as it's an OEM version. I've no way of knowing whether that would solve the problem anyway. I've no way of accessing this HD other than attach it to another PC as a slave which I have done.

There is stuff on the HD as I have tried to recover jps and avis and it has worked. But I'd rather take it back to it's original state so it can be a main HD again. Would a recovery tool help solve this problem and what could you recommend.

[patio]

Sounds like the attempt at re-installing Vista wiped everything...
google for Partition Recovery tools...after that file recovery tools...

NOTE: Try the Free 1's first