Simviation Forums

Hello Gents,

Can someone PLEASE give me the A.B.C's on the proper way to slave a hard drive?

I recently had a computer crash and so far have not been able to restore my hard drive.

My last hope is, If I can slave this hard drive to my Dell computer, maybe I can save all
my FS9 projects. ( If it's still on there anyway. )

If you need the computer specs to be able to answer the question, I will get the info and
update this post. I don't know if it's a different process for different computer manufactures.

Thank you so much for any help in this situation

Dwayne

Well Dwayne, i'm sorry to say this.
If your HDD has gone "burning" (as you said in another thread), you'll need some "very" specialists to open it and maybe save something in there! That'll cost you more than 2 new drives and some externals drives, maybe a whole new pc

My common advice is, when you buy an HDD, allways buy two, (could be an external). Then use the second one for backups.

The last time one of my IDE Hard Drives went "belly-up", it was impossible to open it to read the contents, as all the data in the master boot record section was corrupted!
Even connecting it as a "Slave HDD" to my existing Computer, it was not recognised.
I had to purchase a new IDE HDD, re-install Windows, and re-install my files again!
Everything was lost!
It was a real bugger, but I had no other option!

It was like; The End Of The World!... ...1

Paul...all OK Now... ...!

(Using SATA drives now, instead of IDE drives).

P.S. Making Master and Slave HDDs is easy. Read the instructions on the drives, and connect the jumper pins as required: Master/Slave.
Go into BIOS and and select the boot-up sequence: Master; boot-up with the Windows operating System, Slave; with all your other "Stuff".

Thank you,

Hi Bass,
I talked to mark, he is one of the guys from a place called 'Comp-U-Ship' It's a computer repair shop across town.
I told him that I wanted to see if he could possibly "bring her back to life" He said not if I formatted, I told him no
I haven't formatted yet, But I DID (in the process of trying to do it my self) partiton it a couple times.
He said (of course) bring it over. I forgot to ask him what that little diddy would cost. But in reality, it would be
well worth the price he may charge to get all my hard work back.

Hi Paul,
I was thinking about what you said about the "master boot section" I am hoping that because all the FS9 files were
on drive D:\ partiton that they won't be effected by the corruption. Please!.. Please!.. Please!.. Recognize!.. Recognize!

Paul, Thank you for the slave drive advise. as soon as I clean up my room (it looks like a tornado hit it!) I will get
to work on that. Is it just me or does everyones computer room turn into a mess when we have a comp-meltdown?

Dwayne... When is this tornado going to end?

The best of luck to you and Mark. Hope he will be able to get it running/saving stuff!
To add one of my favorites "what are friends for"

Thanks very much Bass!

I just got done slaving the hard drive in question. It shows up as a new storage devise BUT when I try to
access it, it says it needs to be formated. I tryed to check the properties of the slave and it just shows up
as zeros across the board. Then when I try to let windows format it, it works for alittle bit then says it cannot
format the drive.

This sounds BAD doesn't it?

I felt the case of the computer.. It felt like the drive was working, but not very hard though. Oh well.. what are
ya going to do right? I guess I'm going to have to break out the NYLONS!

Its a bunch of crap I tell ya!

One idea left. (I noticed you can feel it running)
Now you've tried to format the drive, and if i recall right, you got OS on it, it wont cost you anything to put it in as master again (remove other drives), insert win disk and let it run through boot section.
One never knows what will happen with windows...........

BLAZE wrote:Thank you,

Hi Bass,
I talked to mark, he is one of the guys from a place called 'Comp-U-Ship' It's a computer repair shop across town.
I told him that I wanted to see if he could possibly "bring her back to life" He said not if I formatted, I told him no
I haven't formatted yet, But I DID (in the process of trying to do it my self) partiton it a couple times.
He said (of course) bring it over. I forgot to ask him what that little diddy would cost. But in reality, it would be
well worth the price he may charge to get all my hard work back.

...

If your computer could see it to repartition or format the drive there were 2 ways that you could have (possibly) restored it enough to recover the data, or even recovered the drive itself.

Rebuilding the MBR (Master Boot Record), or SpinRite. Rebuilding the MBR has only worked once for me, but SpinRite has helped me recover data for several people even though the drive itself was going bad and had to be tossed afterwards.

From what you just said though, rebuilding the MBR isn't going to be an option, and I doubt very much if SpinRite would help either.

For other readers though, if your computer can see the drive but wants you to format it you may have a chance.

Even if you can reformat your drive at this point I'm not sure that it would be a good thing to reuse it. SpinRite could tell you if it was good, as well as save it, but it costs $90. For you, it would be better to just buy a newer, and faster, drive.

For anyone who like to get their hands dirty with bits and bytes though SpinRite is a great tool.

As a consolation; a faster hard drive has always been one of the best ways, for me, to improve the speed of my computer. You now have a great excuse to make your computer better. Sorry about the downside though.

I want to thank all you guys for your support on this matter. I had some good news come my way yesterday, I was talking to
my brother and told him of my dilemma and he told me he could help me out with a hard drive.

He said he could even throw me one of his extra external HDD's for holding all the FS9 related files on. .. ..

I got to tell ya, the shock of loosing all that data is all but gone, all I want now is to get my sony back in working order and get
back in the cockpit and do some flying. I also can't wait to start repainting again!

I have been going over (in my head) some ideas on a new filing system for all the FS9 addons. Also, like fozzer was saying, the flight
sim is going to run much better and smoother now. I can't wait!

I have one question, I wonder if I can use the 10-Disk recovery kit on a new HDD? Can I bring a completely different (blank) HDD
back to the "original factory settings" as they say? Or is that only possible with the original HDD?

Dwayne .... Climbing the walls without my flight-sim

Look at the bright side Dwayne.

I'm sure you'll love the hard work, (you need to).
Getting stuff again you like and leave what you didn't use anyway

Not sure if i understand your Q?

Bass wrote:Look at the bright side Dwayne.

I'm sure you'll love the hard work, (you need to).
Getting stuff again you like and leave what you didn't use anyway

Not sure if i understand your Q?

Exactly!
Ya know Bass, I was just about to say that "I won't have as many planes cluttering up the aircraft folder" BUT.. in reality, there were some really
sweet aircraft I didn't put in there cause I wanted to make some room first. Now.. I was clearing some aircraft out here-an-there, and then replacing
them with the top notch stuff. Now I can start from the get-go loading the top notch planes and other addons. Brite side indeed!

Oh yeah.. on the question, You know how (in Windows-XP & later) you can make a 10-Disk recovery kit? so if you lose your O.S. you can bring her
back to life.

My question is, If I get a totaly different hard drive from my brother.. will I be able to use the recovery kit that came with the "Sony Vaio"? I'm pretty
sure the recovery kit has the whole Windows-XP program on it. I don't see why it wouldn't work,.. but I don't know. If the recovery kit don't work for
what ever reason, I just have to take the computer with the new HDD installed over to Mark at Comp-U-Ship and let him install Win-XP.

Then I'll be cookin' with Gasoline!.... Slidin' like Greazzz Lightnin'! ...

Dwayne..... The futures so bright.... I gotta wear shades!...

Starting from scratch is like blowing your nose..

..you get rid of all the crap blocking up your Nasal Tubes..

Paul.. ...!

If I get any problems with my Computer......I just blow my nose......problem sorted!... ...!

Oh Man Paul!

We all wish it were that simple eah? And if that were the case, imagine what one could accomplish by a good B.M.

That would give a whole new spin on the "Honey-Do-List" --Sure hunny.. I got your new roof right here!

BLAZE wrote:

Bass wrote:Look at the bright side Dwayne.

I'm sure you'll love the hard work, (you need to).
Getting stuff again you like and leave what you didn't use anyway

Not sure if i understand your Q?

................

Oh yeah.. on the question, You know how (in Windows-XP & later) you can make a 10-Disk recovery kit? so if you lose your O.S. you can bring her
back to life.

My question is, If I get a totaly different hard drive from my brother.. will I be able to use the recovery kit that came with the "Sony Vaio"? I'm pretty
sure the recovery kit has the whole Windows-XP program on it. I don't see why it wouldn't work,.. but I don't know. If the recovery kit don't work for
what ever reason, I just have to take the computer with the new HDD installed over to Mark at Comp-U-Ship and let him install Win-XP.

Then I'll be cookin' with Gasoline!.... Slidin' like Greazzz Lightnin'! ...

Dwayne..... The futures so bright.... I gotta wear shades!...

I never bought any PC with preinstalled OS, and i never will! I want to be in control.

I have a vague memmory, that recovery kits, made by producers to their own products, only helps when using those products. I may be wrong.

Its a long time since i've used XP, but as far as i remember, you can make a recovery disk.

In Win 7 its easy, but then again, use a "slave" to make a safe copy of the OS drive and at the same time, make a recovery disk.