jaclaz

New kid on the block: http://code.kliu.org/cmdopen/ Quite a bunch of other nifty tools on the site (under "misc") jaclaz

If you could run some "diagnostics" and post some actual info on the chip used, the actual drivers that do work in Win9x, more generally technical specs of the notebook, etc. someone may be able to help you. jaclaz

Hmmm, either I am very late, or you are a bit early for Christmas.... . Nice circular referrence you made jaclaz

That has NOTHING to do with TTL levels. That part is about the Voltage regulator that is included in the chip and is abiut Vcc ("power") and NOT "signal". Since you removed the board, and also used the "cardboard", check thoroughfully contacts between HD and PCB: jaclaz

A good idea could be to use the UBCD: http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/ as it contains, besides several other tools, Partition Magic which is a nice small Linux distro that includes TESTDISK and PHOTOREC. jaclaz

Comeon, don't take this too seriously . Things like this happen every other day, I don't think there is any malice in the OP "general warning", some peeps tend to trust this kind of apps more than they are worth or - if you prefer are a little over-sensitive to these false alarms/overcautious, just as examples : http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=23931&st=361 I think it is part of the game (being suspected of hiding heaven only knows which malicious code within a freeware app), nothing to become upset for. Continue the good work... jaclaz

Very good you have more than enough available space. First thing you should do is to create a "forensic sound" or "dd-like" or "sector by sector" image of the probelmatic disk. To do this you will need EITHER an "alternate" way to boot the "old" PC (like a boot CD or USB stick or make the Freeagent GoFlex drive bootable -this latter may take some time) if the CD drive is operational and you have another PC with a CD recorder (and a writable CD ) the boot CD is probably the easiest of the options OR a way to connect the "old" hard disk to a fully functions PC (like an USB external enclosure or - better - another desktop to which you can attache the "old" hard disk as "slave". The above step (doing an image of the hard disk is STRONGLY suggested and may be - depending on the situation of the "old" disk - "absolutely necessary". Then the "recommended" attempt is to do a filesystem recovery, IF it works, you will have the contents of your "old" disk exactly or nearly exactly as they were. Alternative is to attempt a files based recovery, you will likely get your files with a simpler procedure but they will likely be "mixed together" in a single folder and surely they will be all renamed to a (meanigless) name, i.e. if you have a file that was (say) C:\MyPhotos\Holidays\Spain2008\alhambra.jpg, it may turn out as (say) E:\Recovered\0003456.jpg Up to you the choice of which path you want to take, this may depend also on the time you have available for this, your level of familiarity with tools/OSes, etc. Here you can find a few examples of past recoveries, just to have a "general" idea of the possible complexity of the steps you have before you (filesystem recovery): For file based recovery there are tools (namely PHOTOREC) that are easier to use: after a few unsuccessful attempts with filesystem recovery, file based one was used: page__st__28 jaclaz

While your google gets fixed , here : jaclaz

Basically you are stuck (IF the idea is to recover the filesystem) with a probability of 30 to 80 % . IF you are looking to recover files (namely photos/Images) AND IF the disk is detected in BIOS AND IF the disk had been defragged recently (before the filesystem issues began to show) THEN you have good probabilities, nearing 90% or more to recover them as files. How big is the failed/failing hard disk? How big is the new USB disk? How much free space you have on it? What you need is enough free space on a disk to contain TWICE the whole size of the "failing disk" (or two disks each one with enough space to hold the full contents of the old disk). Doing *anything* without this requirement fulfilled FIRST is STRONGLY NOT advised. Please start a new thread in the appropriate area: http://www.msfn.org/board/forum/169-hard-drive-and-removable-media-issues/ and detail as much as you can the hardware you have available and what you remember of how the disk was partitioned, if it was recently defragged, etc. etc. Please take note that no matter the (completely fake ) probabilities of failure of success, IF a filesystem recovery is possible the result will be essentially the files just as you had them before, whilst if this is not possible a file based recovery will - IF succesful - a number of "good" images BUT withouut their original names and paths. jaclaz

Where exactly? Mind you, I am not saying that the CP2102 does not support the "lower" TTL levels (I simply DO NOT know for sure that ) , only that I cannot find (and I doubt you were able to ) this particular spec on the provided datasheet. If you review the "readme first": (Point #6) you will find a link to here: http://www.interfacebus.com/voltage_threshold.html where the thing is graphically explained. We have an indirect report here: notable parts bolded for your convenience. IF this is the case, that adapter WILL NOT work to "talk" to the Seagate drive. See what was replied at the time: Based on just this partial info I would confirm what you have already been told: again bolded the relevant parts for your convenience. Since the Seagate circuit FOR SURE does not "like" 5V TTL/CMOS levels and operates at 3.3V TTL levels, IF the adapter you have is "3v3 tolerant" on the Rx line (which obviously ANY adapter would since the 0.8÷3.3v range is WITHIN BOTH TTL/CMOS and TTL specs per given linked page ) you may want to get something like this: http://www.sparkfun.com/products/8745 Or TRY mkaing a similar voltage divider with two small resistor on the adapter Tx line (HD Rx) to lower it's peaks (you will need a 10K and a 20K resistor Of course the above may or may not work, and you would have an easier life by just getting an appropriate adapter..... Can you "talk" to that other HD with the same USB/TTL adapter? If NO, it will be a confirmation that there is some problem with that particular adapter (again cannot say if with the "model" or the actual "specimen" you have ) Yep , you see, if the PCB is not powered it cannot - obviously - "boot" the "miniOS" which is it's "firmware", when unpowered it may either "short" the terminals or leave them open, but it is pointless to try to "talk" to an unpowered device anyway. jaclaz

WHICH "download file"? The XP_INST_v04.7z? Here: jaclaz

If I may, saying "latest version" of Opera may mean *something* today, but won't on one week/one month time. (and same applies to KernelEx) Latest at the time of this post should be 11.52 Latest version of KernelEx should be 4.5.2 jaclaz

"not initialized" (I presume from disk management of XP/2003/Vista or 7, etc.) simply means that the MBR has NOT at offset 510 the "magic bytes" 55AA. This could be due to several reasons and may either be easy fixable or unrecoverable. Please describe with as much detail as you can: the OS you are running. which hardware PC model/etc. if you have available another disk, possibly in a USB or e-sata enclosure of the same size or bigger what happened (what could have caused the issue, your actions, when it happened, etc.) what was BEFORE on that disk (number of partitions, filesystems used, etc.) jaclaz

http://reboot.pro/4416/ jaclaz

Yes, there must be asubdirectory in the *recy* named folder for it to appear. The &hA AFAIK was good until 9x/Me and changed with XP, it was connected to the (whatever it was "BITBUCKET" or something like that. But still, just like the mentioned "::{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}" it pointed to the "virtual folder". Conversely the approach pointed out by Coffefiend is "OS agnostic", or, if you prefer, in your approach you assumed that you boot to the OS and you want to look at the Recycle Bin of that OS. A procedure like: "bruteforcing" the names <-(Glenn9999) can be executed also from another booted OS (BUT it won't work if the Recycle Bin folder has been renamed *somehow* to a different name from the three known ones) finding *recy* <-(Gunsmokingman) can be executed also from another booted OS (BUT it won't work if the Recycle Bin folder has been renamed *somehow* to a different name from the three known ones AND it may provide "false positives) checking contents of the folder <-(jaclaz) will ONLY remove the possibility of "false positives") checking folder attribute <-(Coffefiend) will MAKE SURE that the folder is a Recycle Bin (used at least once by at least once of the OS ever booted on that machine) BUT won't cover the *somehow* renamed form the known three names I would think that the most comprehensive procedure could be "mixing" all these approaches: find all files called INFO2 (and "take note" of their parent folders) find all files called $I*, verify that in the same folder exists an identically named file but with $I replaced with $R (and "take note" of their parrent folders) process each of the found parent folders with the SHDESCRIPTIONID as per the "The Old New Thing" post, to verify that they are not a (rather sophisticated) "false positive" jaclaz

The math doesn't sound exactly right: http://www.allensmith.net/Storage/HDDlimit/98Fdisk.htm 156,301,488x512=80,026,361,856 80,026,361,856-68,719,476,736=11,306,885,120 11,306,885,120/1,024=11,041,880 11,041,880/1,024=10,783.0859375 Maybe the OP lied (or maybe was not ereally accurate in his report) In such a situation FDISK should have shown 10.783 Mbytes in size and "all" the others" *somethinge else*. But it could be . (I still wonder WHICH are the "all the others" ), but the bug is in FDISK only, and should not have affected the disk once partitioned in Win2K Setup, maybe it was a "combination" of things. jaclaz

You need to put *something* in them. Your script on my machine, bolded the relevant parts: jaclaz

I really hate these dialogs between deaf people . From what I understand (as said very little) of VBS, you make a WMI query on the whole Win32_directory space and find in it (in column "Path") strings containing "recy". Is the above correct? I can seemingly replicate the behaviour in my "dinosaur's" command line approach with this one-.liner : wmic path win32_directory where(Path like '%recy%') get Path BUT, if I create directories like: $recyclable recycling 1recy and put some contents in them, I get them listed allright, even if they have nothing to do with the actual recycle bin. Doesn't your VBS do the same? IMHO one should add additional code to check whether a file "INFO2" exists (which would cover up to XP/2003) OR BOTH a file $Ixxxxx.xxx AND a file $Rxxxxx.xxx (where xxxxx.xxx means "same string") to cover Vista and later (BTW does Windows 7 behave as Vista ? ) or maybe find a folder name pattern like the S-1-5-2* FOR /F "USEBACKQ tokens=1 delims=\" %A IN (`wmic path win32_directory where^(Path like '%S-1-5-2%'^) get Path`) DO @ECHO %A jaclaz

You report -as always - makes a lot of sense , the fact that it is not common doesn't mean that it is not a good idea, basically when the disk (new from factory and completely 00'ed and ONLY if this latter condition is met) is connected the first time to the motherboard, it makes a backup of the BIOS - just in case. What the OP reported remains "queer" as : Most probably the HPA was re-instated on FIRST connection once 00'ed and it's presence wasn't noticed until "a few power cycles later". Or, since there are anyway some unused sectors at the end of *any* disk if the cylinder boundary is respected during partitioning, the HPA reservation/install only happens after the disk has been partitioned, but then again that should happen at first power cycle after the partitioning is effective. I find quite hard to believe that the HPA is checked - and if missing recreated - "every third reboot" (or on fridays with ful moon in months without an R ). DeadDude reference to "Booting from XPRESS" made me land nicely here: http://www.gigabyte.com/webpage/21/Xpress-Recovery2.html (newer version) and here: http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1196073 http://web.archive.org/web/20060930120542/http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Support/Motherboard/TechGuide_List.aspx?NewTechID=84 So the feature is called XPRESS BIOS RESCUE, with these new keywords something can be found: http://web.archive.org/web/20070202044651/http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/FileList/NewTech/2006_motherboard_newtech/article_04_bios_explained.htm http://www.gigabyte.com/webpage/8/article_04_bios_explained.htm and the issue is cleared. The "indestructible" may be a bit optimistic, though . QUECON 4 everything is cool jaclaz

Well, NO. You were told: and you replied: Carpenter's comparison: Now if you replied: It should mean that you measured it's length and NOT it's width. I.e. I presumed that you were replying with what you thought was related, meaningful info. It is well possible that the issue is the actual hard disk PCB and the adapter is perfectly working and outputs 3.3V TTL level allright. The "best" condition to attempt communication to the PCB is with the PCB completely detached from the hard disk AND powered. Try again this way. Try exchanging Tx with Rx. If it doesn't work, there are 4 possibilities: you connected the the wires "badly" (I don't believe this) the adapter is a "dud" the adapter is NOT a "dud" but it outputs "something" that the PCB doesn't like, so it is not an"absolute dud" but rather a "relative dud" the PCB - for any reason - cannot communicate through the TTL port Once discarded #1, your only choice (as you can't do anything about #4 ) is either ascertain if #2 or #3 apply (oscilloscope) or presume anyway that one of them applies and try with another adapter, possibly one already mentioned in this thread and known to be among the "working ones". A "loopback" test is a good preliminary test, but it tells you nothing on what actually goes through the loop. A functional 5V TLL adapter will work allright in a loopback test, but it "talks" and "understands" 5Vish, from the various reports it has been determined that the hard disk ONLY talks and understands 3.3Vish. jaclaz

Not so queer. I have a motherboard that does that. It shouldn't be an issue unless the available space becomes smaller than the image being loaded. I would gladly "downgrade" the QUECON queerness condition from 2 to 3 or even 4, provided you: tell us which motherboard it is what are the actual contents of the HPA the motherboard creates (OP reported a FAT12 filesystem - maybe something connected to an emnergency-emergency boot to upgrade or reset the BIOS?) you could provide some more info/insight on the matter (I simply cannot believe that you actually saw this happening and avoided to investigate the behaviour right down to the single byte or bit ) jaclaz

I don't get it. I am failing (but not being expert in VBS it is very possible that I overlooked it) which part finds the recycle bin. I mean, if I have these 6 folders in a drive (say C:\): c:\$recycle.bin\s-1-5-20 c:\recycler\s-1-5-18 C:\secrecy\s-1-5-20 C:\recyclables\s-1-5-18 C:\recycling\goofy C:\unrecyclable\minnie Would ONLY the first two be listed? jaclaz

You may find some (interesting ) ideas/batch code in CASBAH: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=21123 http://reboot.pro/4023/ (feel free to use the whatever parts you find useful, though of course being 9x you might have a "more limited" command processor), just in case: You are welcome. No. As much as the "key" word in data backup is redundancy, the "key" word in troubleshooting is "repeatability" (something that is simply missing from the number of different attempts you made, you should re-do eeverything from start form the "cleaned" disk and IF you have the SAME result THEN I would be able to agree, right now we all - at least myself - simply have NO idea of what actually happened). The HPA re-created by motherboard is "queer" , anyway, and would be worth IMHO further investigations. jaclaz

Pardon me, but would it not include any of folders named as: http://www.morewords.com/contains/recy/ jaclaz

Problem would be if I am also "favorite" among your piranhas For NO apparent reason: jaclaz