Re: [Hampshire] O.T.- W/XP..... Help!

Hi

Check if the files are readable in linux.

I they are readable then we know we have a USB disk which has not been
damaged. USB disks are very prone to have their partition table damaged if
they are pulled out of a windows machine without being correctly unmounted.

It could be a job for the testdisk program.

You could try copying the files onto DVD and transferring them that way.

Windows Professional is a very nice operating system. Sometimes it is
possible to prevent USB drives from automounting as a protection against USB
automounting viruses. This may be the case here.

There is also a drive facility in computer services which could be set to
limit the drives available. What does a USB stick do?

If the Drive partition table has been irretrievably damaged. Do a Drive Copy
Clone onto a new drive. Then run testdisk on the newdrive and hopefully the
testdisk should get your partition table back.

I don't use windows these days so I can barely remember how to do the more
esoteric things although with a computer manual and a keyboard I can still get
my way round windows.

John Eayrs




On Saturday 06 June 2009 18:52:24 Chris. Aubrey-Smith wrote:
> I haven't used W*nd*ws for years, but I'm obliged to set up a machine for a
> friend who steadfastly refuses to use anything else.
>
> I have taken the precaution, from time to time, of backing up files from
> her Dell notebook (XP Home Edition) to a USB disc. She now has a new(er)
> machine running XP Professional and I'm trying to restore the files from
> that USB disc.
>
> The disc seems to automount, the drive is reported as being present and I
> can unmount it successfully. But, where the hell are the files? The last
> time I used w*nd*ws, an added disc drive would simply be allocated the next
> drive letter in the sequence and would be accessible through that. That's
> not happening, and I've tried three different drives so far, all of which
> work perfectly well on my Debian machines.
>
> I discovered (somewhere) that the disc was mounted at 'location 0',
> whatever that means, but I can't find any way of accessing it.
>
> I'm sorry to have to bother you Linux types with such a problem, but I'm
> getting desperate: how do I access these files?
>
> Chris.