I tried sticking in an old ati tv tuner card into my pc (back up old family tapes)


Upon booting up, the pc started flashing b.s.o.d's and restarting in a cycle. Ok, it didnt like the card.. so i took it out, and still cant boot. After trying all the "f8" options, and watching it cycle through the boot process 500 times, It said bootmgr is missing.

Ok, not sure how a tv tuner driver would attack the mbr, but hey, im no pro.

So I try using the repair features on the vista disc (now heres where it gets werid)

I know the hard drive itself is good, Its less than a year old and hasnt had any problems up to this point. It spins up when powered on, the bios (on both pc's ive tried it on) list it as a bootable drive. But when I FINALLY get the vista install screen to load (this drive in any computer makes the process 50000x longer) i hit the "repair my computer" option like many list as a method to replace the mbr.

Well upon doing that, the hard drive will start cycling, power on, 4-5 seconds, power off, power on, etc.

Now, If its not a physical connection, and the drive is fine, what is keeping me from repairing the drive?

It lists as a RAW partition upon being hooked up to another computer. There is about 600gigs of stuff I dont want to lose on the drive. So any moethod to retrieve my data is welcome. And after I have it, Ill send the drive to WD under warranty for a replacement.

Help?

-Blain

...bootmgr is missing... means you are missing specific drivers and chipset, or the hard drive is bad...
I would get a new hard drive... then use an external USB enclosure to insert the hard drive and attempt to rescue all the needed files...

Then start from scratch on the old hard drive once you know you have saved all the needed files...
You can get a new hard drive pretty cheaply, $39 or so, on Directron.com, Zipzoomfly.com, Geeks.com and others.
Your VISTA drive is likely good, but it very well could be in early failure... you never know... and it will need a full new install for good results.

You clearly have problems with the drive... so why risk your valuable data... I doubt that anyone can help you "fix" that old drive from online.

this is the part that matters, how do i go about saving my files? (beyond what I've tried and outlined in my origional post)

obviously the drive isnt trustworthy, and i can easily rebuild the pc with the same raid setup as my video machine, but for now i just want my stuff off of it.

Just saw this and wanted to follow up for those who come across it

I used the "Recover my files" software, it brought back everything in one piece. It was a very long rebuild however, taking about 145 hours to complete. (640gb)

A couple times I ended the search prematurely which causes a lot of corrupt recovered files (music especially)

Also, had a buddy who upgraded to windows 7 and lost all his data, ran his drive in 48 hours (160gb) and also brought everything back.

I Still don't fully understand how the TV tuner install messed it up so bad, but what matters is my data is back in one piece, stored on a raid mirror now.