Looking for software to access crashed hard drive

[risingTide]

Greetings,

I have a hard drive with Windows XP Pro SP3 on it which gives me BSODs when I try to start it...hence I can't ever get into the operating system. I'm looking for some software that I can use to access the hard drive so I can figure out what is going on.

I've tried UBCD4Win, but for some reason my CDROM won't recognize it. Does anyone know of any other similar software that I can try?

Many thanks.

 

[Tedster]

remove the drive, use and external usb adapter and access it from another computer to recover data. BSODs indicate a hardware or driver error.

 

[gguerra]

If you can get you hands on Acronis True Image, create a boot CD, boot with it and easily back up your data (all or part) to another drive or USB device.

 

[risingTide]

I'm not worried about the data; it's been backed up. I'm trying to fix the drive.
I've already tested the memory and the hard drive and both are fine from the tests I've
run. I'd like to test them more though, but now since it won't boot I need to access
it "pre-boot." The particular BSODs are leading me in the direction of a driver error,
which has happened before. So, really I'd like a way to access the drive pre-boot and
do some uninstalling, cleaning, etc.

Here's some more info:

Over the last few weeks I was getting some random stop errors at various times. They became more frequent and now I cannot even start windows without a stop error. I had begun troubleshooting both my sticks of RAM and both passed MemTest. I haven't added any new hardware recently either. I've also checked my drive with SeaTools for DOS. This is Seagate's HD Diagnositc tools (which also works with Maxtor drives which is what I'm dealing with).

I'm stuck because I also get the stop error in Safe Mode which I have never had happen before. However, now that it crashes on boot it always gives the same error:

0x000000D0: DRIVER_CORRUPTED_MMPOOL

Also, I'm working on getting my drive to read a copy of UBCD4Win, which I still haven't sucessfully done. And also I'm working on getting SystemRescueCD to work; I've gotten further with that one in that it actually recognizes it as bootable but freezes at various points while booting.

Any further advice would be deeply appreciated. Also, if this post should be moved to a different forum that would also be great...I could change the title?

Many thanks.

 

[gguerra]

Recovery Console, run chkdsk /r. It will flag any bad sectors you may have and repair any errors you may have. The only problem is that if any essential parts of the OS reside on the "bad" sectors your system may not boot anyhow until those "essential" parts are restored/reinstalled. Your best bet is going to be reformat and reinstall (or replace). Physical defects are just that, they cannot be repaired effectively with any software. I know of one software that claims to repair bad disks called "Spinrite". There are others I'm sure.

 

[risingTide]

As a follow up, I was able to get UBCD4Win to work correctly and access the drive. I have ruled out memory and hard drive issues. However, I've posted more about that in another forum where it is more appropriate. Concerning this thread...I feel it has been resolved.

(However, if you're interested in helping a brother out further, please see my other thread. )