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Windows Forum / Windows Vista / Setup and Deployment / August 2007I screwed up my Vista - can I save the data
This all started when I forgot my password for a HP laptop running Vista Home Premium. :( I had the "power Suite" by Spotmau disk, so I ran their password reset program and blanked the password. It reported it was successful. When I try to reboot, the computer hangs between the "microsoft corporation" logo at the bottom of the screen and the Welcome screen. When it hangs the screen is black except for a cursor arrow which I can move around with the mouse. I contacted Spotmau and they have said their software works on their machine and they don't know why this happened to me or what I can do to fix it. I have the OEM recovery disks which I am prepared to use to reimage the box, BUT I do not want to lose my data. Is there a way I can get to the data without Vista running? Or, any ideas on what is causing it to hang and how I can fix it? Any help will be much appreciated. LM  SignatureLM604 Hi, Saving the data would involve pulling the hard drive out and slaving it in another machine to cherry pick data. There are adapters available for this purpose. According to Spotmau's site: http://www.spotmau.com/products/package/full.htm this disk should also allow you to recovery data. Personally, based on your experience thus far I would be wary of any claims they make, but you may want to ask them exactly what changes were made to the system when you used the password reset tool. It may not be as Vista-compatible as they claim. Depending on the amount of damage, you may be able to access the system in one of the safe modes and run System Restore to recover the system. SignatureBest of Luck, Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/ Windows help - www.rickrogers.org My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com > This all started when I forgot my password for a HP laptop running Vista > Home Premium. :( I had the "power Suite" by Spotmau disk, so I ran [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > > LM Thanks for the response. I did ask them what changes their program made and they have not answered that question. Spotmau asked what my hardware setup was and claimed they replicated it and their program worked. They said their programer had no idea of why it didn't work on my setup. They offered a refund. I suppose that is quicker or easier than trying to actually work through the problem. They must not care that much about their program otherwise simple intellectual curiosity and avoiding future issues should have compelled them to figure out what went wrong. I am sure I am not the only one who has had or will have this problem with their software. Since I had nothing to lose, I did try their data recovery program and it comes up with a double pane window with source on one side and destination on other. But the source side is empty. It does not see any of the folders or data on the C drive. I had not thought about removing the hard drive. I do have an external usb IDE case for a 3.5 hard drive. I do not know if the laptop drive would fit, but that might be a solution. In fooling around with the SpotMau disk, I found a way to get to the c: prompt and I can find the most important data files using a dir command. This laptop does not have a floppy drive. I do have a thumb drive I can plug in. Is there a command that I could use to copy to the thumb drive? How do I determine if the thumb drive is recognized and has a drive letter? Thanks for your help. LM SignatureLM604 There are external USB cases made specifically for 2 1/2 inch laptop drives. The case you have will not be suitable due to the different interface. SignatureRegards, Richard Urban Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User (For email, remove the obvious from my address) > Thanks for the response. I did ask them what changes their program made > and they have not answered that question. Spotmau asked what my [quoted text clipped - 26 lines] > > LM Thanks Richard. When I am looking at the command prompts that I get to through Spotmau I assume they are the dos prompts. Is there a way to use a usb thumb drive to copy data to from these prompts? Again thanks for the insight. LM604 SignatureLM604 Hi. Sorry to hear about your problem. One solution might be to build a BartPE bootable CD. You could do this if you have another WXP computer, or perhaps you could have a friend do it. GROUPS.google search for BartPE in Microsoft's Vista & WXP newsgroups. This boots up a windows preinstall environment which resides in memory and doesn't disturb the hard drive until you want to access it. PE can present thumbdrives as drive letters and of course accesses all the common Windows drive formatting. There is an ISO (CD image that can be burned to replicate the original CD) called ultimate boot disc, freely available on the net, and an ISO burner freely available from M$, which also may give you access to your NTFS partition and thumbdrives as drive letters. These are handy discs to have in your computer toolbox. -Paul Randall > Thanks Richard. When I am looking at the command prompts that I get to > through Spotmau I assume they are the dos prompts. Is there a way to > use a usb thumb drive to copy data to from these prompts? Again thanks > for the insight. > > LM604 Thanks Paul, I am working on the UBCD now. I tried the BartPE and could get it to boot, but could not find my files that I know or on the C drive. I am hoping the more complete tools of UBCD will do the trick. LM SignatureLM604 Update. The Ubcd4win worked and I have been able to copy the essential data to a thumb drive. Thanks for all the help. LM SignatureLM604 Thanks for the update. It's always good to hear success stories. -Paul Randall > Update. The Ubcd4win worked and I have been able to copy the essential > data to a thumb drive. Thanks for all the help. > LM |
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