Boot disk failure - data recovery

[reibow]

After loading and using camera software ( Camedia ) on ASUS P5A running Win98se, hard drive ( Seagate Barracuda )reported bad blocks - one bad block for each time software was run. Successfully repaired these after removing camera software. Then system crashed and would not boot until I removed all cards and drives and rebooted - reinstalled cards etc and removed a lot of extra entries in device manager then system seemed fine except it would not shut down automatically. Got the old Win95 "it is now safe to shut down your computer" screen. Accidentally left this screen on one night and next day found system shut down.
Would not boot - hard drive not seen by BIOS. Have been through lots of recovery procedures posted in many forums but no luck. Thought I might try to recover essential data by using hard drive from a Linux box with Redhat 6 as master. Drive came up with same symptoms. Tried another Linux hard drive Redhat 9 but same result ( yes a slow learner ).
Diagnostics on hard drives give them physical clean bill of health but show other problems.
-- Seagate Barracuda ATA iv 80G diagnostic shows problem with FAT 32 on C drive but D drive OK.
--Maxtor Diamond Max Plus 30G shows BIOS extension support failed.(After quick zero fill with Powermax on this drive it is now recognised when put into a possible rescue system which I put together from spare parts).
-- Maxtor Diamond Max plus8 40G shows BIOS extension support failed and is not recognised by rescue system.
Have tried limiting drive capacities, flashing BIOS, fdisk/mbr and slaving all drives on original system and rescue system but no result. Writing this on a spare system which I will not hook up to these bad drives just in case!

Looks like a mixture of MBR, BIOS and FAT problems which I may never solve.
My immediate problem is to extract data from Seagate but how do I do this when the hard drive is not recognised. I leave for extended overseas trip next week and data I need for that trip is on hard drive - all recent stuff and not backed up. Do not have enough time to compile data from original sources or have commercial data recovery so if anyone has any quick fixes would appreciate suggestions.
I have Win XP Pro but have not loaded it on anything yet - are there any tools on this which might help.

[glc]

In order for *any* software tools to work, the drive must be seen by the BIOS. If you can get it seen by the bios, start trying data recovery programs, starting with the free PC Inspector and work your way up through the various commercial programs till you find one that works - most commercial programs will let you download a free trial which will report only, not recover. In order to recover from an 80gb drive, the rescue system must support drives that large. Keep the rescue system as simple as possible - no peripherals or cards other than a video card, and only essential drives.

Commercial recovery programs include Badcopy Pro, GetDataBack, and Ontrack Easy Recovery.

Edit - I recommend that you install the bad drive as a standalone on the secondary IDE, so it doesn't bring down a drive on the same channel.

[pam123]

A quick questioin.
Since reibow's got 98se and is using FAT32 couldn't he use a Knoppix cd to send the data to his other system which he wants to use to rescue his files?

[glc]

Possibly, if the drive is still healthy enough to display the file structure.

[pam123]

Ahh!!
That's what I hadn't thought through.
Thanks.

[reibow]

Thanks GLC and PAM123. You pulled me out of the depths of despair.
The Knoppix one puzzled me as I have not come across it before. Read up on it and must get one.
Went up the Snowies yesterday and on the drive home thought about this problem. Decided that as the ancient rescue system I had cobbled together was not sophisticated enough to get bamboozled by all the fancy gear I was about to attach, I would have a few more tries at rousing the 80G Seagate.
The Seagate would not work alone so I wiped the 30G Maxtor which the old system could see. It came up nice and shining so I partitioned and formatted and loaded Win98se. I then tried the 80G on the secondary controller as suggested but it was not interested so I bit the bullet and slaved it to the Maxtor. The 80G was still not interested. I thought about the BIOS extension support fail message I had got from Powermax so I thought I would limit the 80G to 30G and bingo there were my C and D drives - now D and E. A few hours of cut and paste (a chance to get rid of lots of rubbish) and I am nearly ready to extract all the stuff for my overseas trip.
Have not yet been able to reactivate some of the programs - mostly Microsoft stuff such as Office which requires reinstall- but that will have to wait till I get back from my trip. Have sent off my critical data to be processed at my wife's office. All I need right now is the location of the Outlook Express inbox files and I will have everything I need.
Great site Pcmech = you don't get bucketed for stupidity and people like GLC and Pam 123 make nice suggestions which give you hope and get you thinking again.
Just as a footnote - while the 80G was attached to the old computer I could not get any Cd Roms to operate. I tried all combinations of masters/slaves/controllers etc but none worked. Scandisk took three runs to clean the results after cutting and pasting. Defrag on the 30G took over an hour. I think the motherboard on my main system is the culprit here and it is now banished.
PS will be in the USA in May- NY, San Francisco and Las Vegas. So look up and I will be there!

[pam123]

This will give you the OE file path : http://www.argentuma.com/backup/email-backup.html