3 hds and none of them work except externally with my laptop

Since this involves hardware and multiple OSs I am not sure where to post this. I'm going for XP though.

This is complicated (to me), so some background:
I had a Compaq in 2000 with ME, on this machine were 3K+ mp3s. In 2002, I got an HP with XP. These were my home machines. In 2004 I got a Dell with some nice programs. I had all the ME hd put into the big Dell case late in 2004. I moved (rather than copying) the mps to the Dell. Then, early Dec. the power spiked at 220 v (it should be 110) and fried both the Dell and HP despite surge protectors and UPSs (one went up with a big bang, the other in smoke!). (Both the laptops survived however). The local electricity dept. are not liable sadly. I live on a small island in the Caribbean and things do not work like in big countries - we have many impromptu power outtages, sometimes half a dozen a day (sometimes weeks go by without one though).

A few weeks ago I had the power supply replaced on the HP as that was available on the island, and the Compaq ME, Dell and HP XP hardrives put into the Dell case. No problems, everything runs fine. Then a week ago I got a blue screen and stop code: STOP: C0000218 (Registry File Failure)
The registry cannot load the hive (file):
or its log or alternate.
It is corrupt, absent, or not writable.

I couldn't fix it or boot up in any way, I couldn't change the drive letter to try and boot up from another HD. I don't have the original disks, but I do have an OS CD for XP Compaq or HP. This got me all sorts of places but I was unable to boot up. Computer professional tried one hd at a time in the machine but same result each time. So now I have a generic USB external drive plugging into my HP laptop.

I can find everything from the ME except the mp3 files that were moved. On the HP I cannot find anything from 2005 at all - no recent work. On the Dell its the same, no recent work, a huge 8,000+ book analysis disappeared (I have a not very profitable book shop so I have to do all the work myself, no IT ppl or even secretaries) that I was in the middle of on Excel. This is the only machine I have Excel on. I have Quattro and Word Perfect on the HP and just bog-standard Works spreadsheet on my laptops.

My questions are:
1) is there any way I can get my mp3s back?
2) Can I reformat/reinstall XP from the Operating System CD that came with the HP that is for Compaq as well? If so how do I do this from my lap top (I have two laptops, an HP and a Compaq) The HP is partitioned into E: Recovery and F: Pavillion.
3) I can't use the Excel or Quattro Pro from my laptops - I get a message saying that they aren't configured for Excel. This is a problem because most of my invoices come as Excel. How can I use this program from the portable HD or how can I transfer it to my laptop?
4) If I can't do anything, what should I do? Wipe the hds and use them for storage or what? If so how do I do that?


The only disks I have are the Operating System CDs that came with the HPs, possibly the laptops, I don't know and a Driver and Application recovery disk. The Dell was a 6-month old second hand machine and I don't think I ever had any disks with it. Also an old ME recovery disk.


I hope this doesn't sound as tangled to you as it does to me and that you can help. Thanks very much, Petra

Perhaps we can try to simplify this & or break it up.

First off without a full version XP CD you are limited to your recovery disks as they pertain to their particular drives & machines.

If you have a tower pc with a working OS you can install the other drives as slaves & extract their data.

Although you may be able to extract data from Excel or Quattro Pro I doubt if you will be able to use those programs unless you can get the OS working on the drives where the program is installed. Do you not have Disks for Excel or Quattro Pro? Perhaps they were included in the Driver & Application Recovery CD?
If you can get the data off the drive & then reinstall the programs then perhaps you can Import the data back into the program.

There is a free data recovery tool here:
http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/UK/welcome.htm
Although I am unsure how much help it would do in this case.

Using your HP & Compaq Recovery Disks will only work on those particular drives on their original machines. They will also totally WIPE those drives as they restore XP.

As to formatting & using the drives in the future that is simple as long as the drives themselves are ok.
We can cover that if you get to that point.

Let us know if this starts to help.

Thank you for your reply
My pc is non-functional right now, all 3hds are out, it didn't have a working OS at all, which was the problem. I am not particularly concerned about the Quattro or Excel as much as I didn't want to lose the programs - I can redo the data and get an Excel viewer for now. Its losing the 3,000+ mp3s - some of this was very rare music and the cds have deteriorated. I will try the Recover program but I am unsure as to whether it will work on a hd that is not the OS one. However, the site does provide a link to a recovery service as well. Thanks for that :-) I will get on to this tomorrow and let you know.
As far as wiping the hds is concerned, if I can't run programs from them and can't find the lost files, then not a problem.
I'm thinking I might get an online file storage acct if they stream music and prevent this happening again. Life on the edge of a rainforest is not really technologically ideal!

Thanks again for your help.
Petra

When you say: "My pc is non-functional right now, all 3hds are out, it didn't have a working OS at all, which was the problem."

I am confused as to all the machines & drives you mentioned originally but:

If you put the Original Drive back into "Your My pc" (is this the dell?)
You can then use that particular Recovery Disk (Dell: for example) to restore XP on that machine. This process will remove all data on that drive but should reinstall XP.
I guess I am thinking of this computer: "A few weeks ago I had the power supply replaced on the HP as that was available on the island, and the Compaq ME, Dell and HP XP hardrives put into the Dell case."

Point being if you can put the Original hard drive back into this, the original computer you should be able to restore XP with the corresponding Recovery Disk. (although you will lose all other data on that particular drive.)

Just btw: that registry error is known & recoverable utilizing a Full Version XP CD. However it will not work with an OEM machine (which your's are).
http://support.microsoft.com/Default.aspx?kbid=830084
http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org/how...air_a_stop.htm

The Dell HD was the primary drive that got the blue screen. Nothing I did got me into windows. I had all 3 hds taken out - using them externally.

I got a good result -90% of the mp3s back on the HP - with the PC Inspector. ( I was hoping that I might also have got them from the ME. their original source I moved them from but didn't.) Every time the program encountered an access error it froze. Closing it down through the taskmanager and then getting it up and running again took 15 minutes or more each time. Sometimes it went down twice in a minute. Sometimes it stayed up for ten minutes when it was saving files. It was worth it though. I didn't get back the Excel file, it didn't seem able to find it, I might have another look for it later. Great link, thanks :-)

I can't put back a drive in the Dell case because I don't know how! My computer person doesn't come back to the island for six weeks either.

What do you suggest I do with these 3 hds? I have two laptops. I really need one more machine anyway for my shop but I might get a laptop as there isn't much space. What do you think of online storage (the ones who will stream mp3s)?

Thanks for your help. Its really great not to have lost the music.

Petra

If you want to try to rebuild the Dell we can help here. Just say so. I will move it to the hardware section & we can take you thru the process.

If those drives are in good shape & you have the Dell case (by which I am assuming is a functioning mobo etc.) you might as well use the drives in there; or at least two of them while you use the third externaly.

If you put the Dell drive back into the Dell case you should be able to use the Dell recovery disk to reinstall XP.

As to online storage I personally know nothing except via google:
http://www.ibackup.com/features_storage.htm

You might want to start a new thread for suggestions under the Other Software section.

I would love to try and do the hardware but I am so cackhanded that I generally stay away from physical stuff. The Dell worked fine until the blue screen. I think the only modifications in it were extra memory from the HP plus all these hds. I'm not around for most of tomorrow but I will post again when I am back and then maybe try the hardware thing.
Thanks again for the link to pcinspector.de

ok

the guts of computers are really fairly simple

like legos

plugs & unplugs

fun to learn