Hard Drive Corrupted: Questions on Repair and Back-ups

[The Vault Dweller]

Today (March 21) was a kind of "end of days" scenario for me. My hard drive died. As much as that's a personal nightmare for any PC enthusiast I'm particularly peeved since the "repair" that created the problem was not only initiated by me when I chose to delete rather than quarantine a root-kit mentioned by Kaspersky, but the malware I was trying to remove was very minor. At it did was run audio ads in the background which I could disable by turning off explorer in task manager which I don't need to navigate the PC once I have my programs open. I'll never live this down...unless...

I just did some research (on my Dad's laptop which I am posting from now) and apparently you can "repair" install windows instead of reinstalling it with the usual formatting that wipes out all the data on the hard drive. I just wanted to ask if this is true that repair installs will leave the data on the drive an not format it? Also if that's not true are there any other ways to get the data out safely or keep it there after an OS reinstall?

Also I've only had to do a full format and OS reinstall once, but it was honestly the worst PC experience I've had in the 10+ years of using PCs. I'm now and will forever be doing backups periodically. I've heard of:

-saving all your data in an online copy through a paid service
-saving it all to another drive which you buy
-just using a small, separate PC for going online and another big PC for all your work/gaming. Anything that needs to be found online that needs to be downloaded can be transferred from the little PC to the main one without danger of malware. Also if the net PC gets infected reformatting and OS install would be a breeze since there would be no additional data that would be lost or even installed again.

Does anyone use any of those setups and if so do they work and are they cheap/fast/easy?

Please Save Me,
The Vault Dweller

*EDIT*

I just realized it looks like back-ups are intended to save small hand-picked stuff like work documents. Is it feasible to back-up the entire contents of PC? I speak specifically of just having to avoid the long and arduous process of having to fill out forms, adjust settings, troubleshoot, and re-add all sorts of options. Really it's not so much the lost data (pictures, music, etc.) that worries me since most of it was free or can be easily found again it's the time and effort it takes to do it all.

 

[Ausdoerrt]

I don't get it. Did your HDD physically die, or is it just the windows install that got screwed up? AFAIK, if the HDD is busted, it's usually busted for good. If it's just a software issue, you should be able to just pull it out and connect it to another computer to pull the data you need.

 

[TheWesDude]

you do not need to format to reinstall windows.


pop in your install cd, boot to command prompt, log into your c drive with the root admin password.

deltree windows and program files and my documents directories.

then run the install.

 

[The Vault Dweller]

First of all THANK YOU SO MUCH EVERYONE.

I don't get it. Did your HDD physically die, or is it just the windows install that got screwed up? AFAIK, if the HDD is busted, it's usually busted for good. If it's just a software issue, you should be able to just pull it out and connect it to another computer to pull the data you need.

My HDD is alive just corrupted in Windows. I'll try copying to another PC before I "repair" it as those below suggest.

you do not need to format to reinstall windows.


pop in your install cd, boot to command prompt, log into your c drive with the root admin password.

deltree windows and program files and my documents directories.

then run the install.

I will try this if the "repair" doesn't work.

1) If you can boot into Windows, you can do a repair install, and that should preserve all your data just fine (unfortunately with Windows 7 they don't let you do one from the recovery console, which is fucking bullshit and led to me wiping my drive on one occasion).

2) You can also try doing System Restore if you have it enabled, which is a quick and easy way to try to bring the operating system's state back to what it was at a specified date (it's basically just backups of critical files and relevant registry info). It doesn't always work, but in this case it just might.

3) You can run Linux from a bootable USB key or CD-ROM, and use it to copy whatever files you might want to keep, then reformat and reinstall Windows.

I love system restore. It's fast, easy and almost always works. I've even activated it from safe mode with the command console one time when I couldn't access anything after booting up.

Unfortunately I get the blue screen while booting so I can't even try safe mode.

I will try your first suggestion of doing a repair install by booting off the CD. I have Windows XP fortunately.

Gratefully,
The Vault Dweller

 

[Hassknecht]

Do you have a Liux live CD or stick?
You can use that to save your data and formate your HDD to reinstall Windows.
Actually, I'd recommend using Linux anyway
I rarely boot Windows these days, just when I want to play a game that just won't work with Wine.

 

[The Vault Dweller]

Hahahahahaha! Yes! The system repair worked!

It took be about a half hour of research and testing to initiate then another half hour to repair and another half to download and install all the updates. That's not only half the time I would have used had I needed to reformat, but ALL MY DATA SURVIVED!

I love the world and the existence it functions in...as well as all of you. My heroes.

,
The Vault Dweller