I'd look into using a Knoppix or any other Linux LiveCD distribution to try and get at the data on the drive. Since the entire operating system boots and runs off the CD, it doesn't matter if there's a hard drive in the system or not. You should be able to mount the drive and assess the damage. If it's formatted as NTFS you'll have read-only support and that's it, but it should be plenty to burn important data to CD using the supplied program K3B.
Hi,
Ok...BIG problem!...
The other day my computer crashed during log off. When I turned it on again, i ended up with a blue screen saying 'unbootable boot volume' . I guess at this point i should have sent it to a technician!...anyway i found a number of forum posts with the same problem and followed the instructions to do 'chkdsk' from MS DOS. This looked to be doing stuff.... but now... instead of a blue screen I get nothing...the screen just goes blank!
I ran a diagnostic on the hard drive and got the following:
Error Code: 0F00:0244
Msg: Block 6639579: uncorrectable data error or media write protected
this sounds bad!!
Anyway...I phoned DELL who sent me a new Hard Drive but i'm still trying to recouver the data from my old one. I've tried the 'dir' command and get an error message. The computer is now with someone else trying to recouver the data (but after 3 days i'm loosing faith)
Any help would be really appreciated!
Thanks
Chris
ps. i've learnt my lesson and an external hard drive is already on order to back stuff up in future!

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