Windows AIO to repair second HDD? DOS version in the works?

[[email protected]]

Thank you very much for this remarkable suite of utilities. It's saved my bacon more than once, thus my $50 donation from the first time that I used it.

I've got the HDD from my wife's confuser in my machine to try to repair it. It's unbootable and, yes, I've jumped through all of the hoops (W-7 Repair, fixmbr, bootfix, the Ultimate Boot CD utilities,etc.

Is there a way to run Windows AIO from C: to fix the D: drive? Is their a way to run Windows AIO from a DOS prompt?

Again, thanks for your hard work and expertise.

Best regards,

LasVegasRich

[Shane]

Almost all the repairs have to do with Windows itself and the registry. So doing it to another drive where another version of Windows is wont work.

On your wife's machine, you say it is unbootable, what error do you get or what happens? Are you able to get into safe mode?

Shane

[[email protected]]

Thanks, Shane, for taking a personal interest in my dilemma.

Her machine is running Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit (OEM version), an ASUS P8H67-M EVO, Intel Core i5-2500, and 8GB RAM.

It crashed four days ago. I was able to recover most of her stuff from the (retail) EASEUS backup, but not everything. She still missing her .PST files from MS Outlook. Since the EASEUS restore, however, it's been unbootable.

After dropping her HDD into my Shop machine, I ran a couple of Data Recovery utilities, but couldn't find what I wanted. Then, with her HDD as the boot device, I ran the Windows Repair utility and it couldn't complete. "Windows is unable..."

How I wish that I could do a simple Repair Install, but- alas- that's not an option with the OEM OS. Pissy on the part of Microsoft. Like not being able to migrate apps from XP to 7 unless one goes through Vista first.

So I'm gonna bite the bullet, Shane, and build Linus' Dream Server next week. This is not the first time in 20+ years of messing around with confusers that I've had a backup image fail. My experience, by the way, goes back to building machines with DIP switches and manually assigning IRQs. Brrr...

Wait! I've got a better idea! I'm gonna send you the HDD. Don't even take it out of the box. Just pass your hand over it and say, "HEAL!" and send it back to me.

Thanks again for taking an interest in my problem.

Richard
LasVegasRich

[Shane]

Here is my heal

Windows vista and 7 have a nice new feature with the setup. Boot off the setup cd and do a normal install (Not an upgrade)

Do NOT format the drive. When you tell windows to install on the drive it will say windows is already there and that it will move everything (Program files, profiles and windows dir) to a Windows.old folder.

Once you have the install done you can pull all her data out of her profile from the windows.old folder

Done this a few times for some of my customers and works like a charm. I do this when I am unable to backup a machine. Normally I take the drive out and put it in my system as a 2nd and get the data, but this way is much faster.

Shane

[[email protected]]

Great minds...

I'll betcha that it wasn't five minutes after I posted my last that I got to thinking, "Hmmm... The WINDOWS.OLD file after a reinstall..."

Bingo!

All is now right with the world. I recovered her files. She thinks that I'm a genius.

Thanks again, Shane. Best wishes  to you and your lovely missus from LasVegasRich.

[Shane]

Glad you got it working

Shane