crazy last two days dealing with unaccessible hard driv

At this point I can't even remember how I got to where I am. Messing wtih permissinos and ownership I ended up making my C drive completely unaccesible
This made it so I couldn't even boot up vista.. Ive spent the last couple days trying everything I could think of to get it back. I thought it was the permissions and tried every command in dos that I could.. I spent hours online researching for a fix.. downloaded some utilities no luck.. I was able to reset the permissions but it still didn't work.
if I would try to access the drive I would get "access denied"
I then discovered it was probably an ownership issue. Again i did hours of research and tried every dos command/utility to change the ownership but everything came back "Access Denied".. I booted to dos with windows NT, windows XP, the Vista DVD, and a straight up dos boot disk.. I tried the vista repair utility to fix statup issues.. it was workin doin something because my hard drive was goin full force but it just never finished and then the hard drive activity eventually stopped.
One reallyu strange thing is when I booted up with the XP I could access the C drive but you can't run any .exe files with the windows dos shell.. you can only run the commands they allow you..
In the end today I booted up the vistga dvd and went to format the drive.. strange thing was it didn't show up as an NTFS drive or a fat drive.. just coulnd't access it. So I formatted it in ntfs and the install was going fine but at about 75% it gave me an error saying it couldn't acess my drive.
Im at a loss here.. I am starting to consider a corrupt hard drive but it happeded so quickly and the security issues make sense since I was messin with permissions/ownership.. when I did a chkdsk everything seemed fine.. so it can be accessed but not I can't access teh directry/file system.
Im frustrated as heck now.. any ideas you might all have will be greatly apreciated.
ive tried all types of commands and utilities..: the old attrib command cacls chown.exe for canging ownership chkdsk xcacls subinacl
tried vista boot up repair option.. basically that and more.. everything you could try from a dos prompt I did..
ahh help!

Download the drive manufacturer's drive test suite to another computer and make the necessary cd. Then boot the balky computer with it and run some tests. Always start the troubleshooting process with the hardware.
"seasons" wrote in message

At this point I can't even remember how I got to where I am. Messing wtih permissinos and ownership I ended up making my C drive completely unaccesible
This made it so I couldn't even boot up vista.. Ive spent the last couple days trying everything I could think of to get it back. I thought it was the permissions and tried every command in dos that I could.. I spent hours online researching for a fix.. downloaded some utilities no luck.. I was able to reset the permissions but it still didn't work.
if I would try to access the drive I would get "access denied"
I then discovered it was probably an ownership issue. Again i did hours of research and tried every dos command/utility to change the ownership but everything came back "Access Denied".. I booted to dos with windows NT, windows XP, the Vista DVD, and a straight up dos boot disk.. I tried the vista repair utility to fix statup issues.. it was workin doin something because my hard drive was goin full force but it just never finished and then the hard drive activity eventually stopped.
One reallyu strange thing is when I booted up with the XP I could access the C drive but you can't run any .exe files with the windows dos shell.. you can only run the commands they allow you..
In the end today I booted up the vistga dvd and went to format the drive.. strange thing was it didn't show up as an NTFS drive or a fat drive.. just coulnd't access it. So I formatted it in ntfs and the install was going fine but at about 75% it gave me an error saying it couldn't acess my drive.
Im at a loss here.. I am starting to consider a corrupt hard drive but it happeded so quickly and the security issues make sense since I was messin with permissions/ownership.. when I did a chkdsk everything seemed fine.. so it can be accessed but not I can't access teh directry/file system.
Im frustrated as heck now.. any ideas you might all have will be greatly apreciated.
ive tried all types of commands and utilities..: the old attrib command cacls chown.exe for canging ownership chkdsk xcacls subinacl
tried vista boot up repair option.. basically that and more.. everything you could try from a dos prompt I did..
ahh help!

yeah.. just the fact that i was messin with the permissions and ownership right before this happened made me pretty sure it wasn't a hardware issue.. But im definiteyl not ruling that out.
"Colin Barnhorst" wrote:

Download the drive manufacturer's drive test suite to another computer and make the necessary cd. Then boot the balky computer with it and run some tests. Always start the troubleshooting process with the hardware.
"seasons" wrote in message At this point I can't even remember how I got to where I am. Messing wtih permissinos and ownership I ended up making my C drive completely unaccesible
This made it so I couldn't even boot up vista.. Ive spent the last couple days trying everything I could think of to get it back. I thought it was the permissions and tried every command in dos that I could.. I spent hours online researching for a fix.. downloaded some utilities no luck.. I was able to reset the permissions but it still didn't work.
if I would try to access the drive I would get "access denied"
I then discovered it was probably an ownership issue. Again i did hours of research and tried every dos command/utility to change the ownership but everything came back "Access Denied".. I booted to dos with windows NT, windows XP, the Vista DVD, and a straight up dos boot disk.. I tried the vista repair utility to fix statup issues.. it was workin doin something because my hard drive was goin full force but it just never finished and then the hard drive activity eventually stopped.
One reallyu strange thing is when I booted up with the XP I could access the C drive but you can't run any .exe files with the windows dos shell.. you can only run the commands they allow you..
In the end today I booted up the vistga dvd and went to format the drive.. strange thing was it didn't show up as an NTFS drive or a fat drive.. just coulnd't access it. So I formatted it in ntfs and the install was going fine but at about 75% it gave me an error saying it couldn't acess my drive.
Im at a loss here.. I am starting to consider a corrupt hard drive but it happeded so quickly and the security issues make sense since I was messin with permissions/ownership.. when I did a chkdsk everything seemed fine.. so it can be accessed but not I can't access teh directry/file system.
Im frustrated as heck now.. any ideas you might all have will be greatly apreciated.
ive tried all types of commands and utilities..: the old attrib command cacls chown.exe for canging ownership chkdsk xcacls subinacl
tried vista boot up repair option.. basically that and more.. everything you could try from a dos prompt I did..
ahh help!

"seasons" wrote in message

yeah.. just the fact that i was messin with the permissions and ownership right before this happened made me pretty sure it wasn't a hardware issue.. But im definiteyl not ruling that out.

It could be a permissions thing but seeing as your XP is now restricted aswell... I doubt that it would have affected your XP.

I agree with Colin ... rule out hardware first.
It definately WAS a permissions problem, and using all those utilities and whatnots probably screwed it up something fierce at the filesytem level ...
But if there was a problem formatting, it sounds more like hardware.
If it is NOT a hardware problem, I would do a low-level format using a utility made by your hard-drive manufacturer, and then start over totally fresh.
- JB

On Mon, 26 Jun 2006 20:28:02 -0700, seasons wrote:
Did something very like this a couple of weeks ago when I tried to get an image out with PartImage. After which Vista woold not reboot, the Image failed totally and the HDD was apparantly unreadable.
Tried reformat with XP recoveryconsole - Access Denied. Tried to Re-install Vista - Can't find a HDD Tried to install XP - Can't find a HDD.
Very odd, used the manufactorers (Western Digital) in this case disk utilities, checked the disk - all OK
Zero wiped the disk totally then tried to install Vista again - failed at 75% of install.
Zero wiped the disk again, installed XP - success.
Did an "upgrade" Install of Vista - success
Don't know WTF is going on with it but I got it going again after a lot of hassle, permissions? you may be on to something there, Vista may be doing something fundamental (intentionally or not) and any messing about with permissions / ownership at a basic level causes difficulties or maybe its certain disks cause problems? Don't know enough about it to speculate further.
I am using a Western Digital WDA800 SATA drive I liberated from an HP OEM Box.
Jonah

At this point I can't even remember how I got to where I am. Messing wtih permissinos and ownership I ended up making my C drive completely unaccesible
This made it so I couldn't even boot up vista.. Ive spent the last couple days trying everything I could think of to get it back. I thought it was the permissions and tried every command in dos that I could.. I spent hours online researching for a fix.. downloaded some utilities no luck.. I was able to reset the permissions but it still didn't work.
if I would try to access the drive I would get "access denied"
I then discovered it was probably an ownership issue. Again i did hours of research and tried every dos command/utility to change the ownership but everything came back "Access Denied".. I booted to dos with windows NT, windows XP, the Vista DVD, and a straight up dos boot disk.. I tried the vista repair utility to fix statup issues.. it was workin doin something because my hard drive was goin full force but it just never finished and then the hard drive activity eventually stopped.
One reallyu strange thing is when I booted up with the XP I could access the C drive but you can't run any .exe files with the windows dos shell.. you can only run the commands they allow you..
In the end today I booted up the vistga dvd and went to format the drive.. strange thing was it didn't show up as an NTFS drive or a fat drive.. just coulnd't access it. So I formatted it in ntfs and the install was going fine but at about 75% it gave me an error saying it couldn't acess my drive.
Im at a loss here.. I am starting to consider a corrupt hard drive but it happeded so quickly and the security issues make sense since I was messin with permissions/ownership.. when I did a chkdsk everything seemed fine.. so it can be accessed but not I can't access teh directry/file system.
Im frustrated as heck now.. any ideas you might all have will be greatly apreciated.
ive tried all types of commands and utilities..: the old attrib command cacls chown.exe for canging ownership chkdsk xcacls subinacl
tried vista boot up repair option.. basically that and more.. everything you could try from a dos prompt I did..
ahh help!

*irrelevant*
"xfile" wrote in message

All in all, the mistake is mine.
I thought you and Charlie Tame are MVPs since some MVPs don't put title in their sig lines and the fact that both of you provided helps.
So, I thought you two are MVPs.
And my mistake makes the whole post irreverent and I also apologize for jumping in.
Gee, I should keep my promise for leaving here.
Sorry again.
"dzomlija" wrote in message
xfile;531099 Wrote: Technically savvy doesn't mean one has to know how to install or play with PC OS. I know too many technically savvy engineers and consultants who don't do OS level things but they know how to use Enterprise Applications such as SAP ERP for reengineering and BI (business intelligence) for strategy planning.
You're taking that statement I made about technically savvy out of context. Someone of your own expertise should have been able to realize that I was speaking in terms of people who are -Computer Savvy-. I make a correction to my statement, in order to minimize confusion:
"If someone isn't _computer_savvy_ enough to realise that Vista is better than XP in many ways, then they are not _computer_savvy_ enough to be able to install another OS correctly.
And the irony is that there are those who claim they are savvy, but then proceed to ask how to downgrade to XP and thus disprove their very claim of being savvy. "
xfile;531099 Wrote: And when I was in consulting and IT industry, I didn't deal with PC OS or systems. We dealt with multimillion US dollar projects using SCM (supply chain management) and ERP (enterprise resources planning).
xfile;531099 Wrote: So who says technically savvy has to be on low-level PC technologies? People say that because they have never been exposed to other areas. Speaking of changes, that's a change many are over due.
Again, I say my staement was meant to be read as Computer Savvy.
xfile;531099 Wrote: That is exactly the problem that I am having with you and a few other MVPs. You set the WRONG benchmark - My God.
If you are using them for your benchmark, you are downgrading yourself (nothing personal, really). I and lots of others have much higher expectations to you guys as a professional. How can you not expect yourself to behave like one?
In case you have not noticed - I am not an MVP. I am nothing more than a 20 year "veteran" of Microsoft software that seems to be often misquoted and taken out of context. Oh, well. Win some, lose some. I can't keep everyone hapyy, now can I?
xfile;531099 Wrote: Charlie Tame is one of the very few who can see the big picture AND has the courage to speak out for the best interests of all stakeholders - Microsoft, customers, and its partners - system builders in this case.
I defend Microsoft because they produce quality software, that suits my needs. And I defend the customers who are more often than not being misled by the system builders into purchasing hardware that does not meet the required criteria. And more often than not, Microsoft get the bad rep, because a system builder is a "flawless entity than cannot do any wrong"!
xfile;531099 Wrote: The way that some of you are using for treating users and customers will accomplish nothing but creating even more frustrated users and even enemies.
The only way that I can envisage making enemies by looking out for the best interests of users and customers is when I protect them against the all too common shams that system builders try to shake off on them in order to get rid of old stock.
I've been unsuccessfully sued on more than one occasion by a system builder for "loss of profitable revenue" because I spoke out against their practices of selling rubbish to unsuspecting customers. The truth is that system builders do not like technically savvy (oops, Computer Savvy) people walking into their stores, because it means they cannot take advantage of a customer lack of knowledge.
xfile;531099 Wrote: In fact, Alias and Linux advocates are not your BIGGEST enemy. People like Frank consistently insulting frustrated and dissatisfied customers and users ARE your biggest enemy.
The put salt on the wound, don't you realize that?
You're right, Alias, Tiberious and Frank (amoungst other) are not my bigest enemies. In fact, I don't even know them, let alone what they look like. But are they not the ones spreading frustration by clogging the newsgroups with useless, derogotory, drivel? While my own words are often taken out of context, I at least make an attempt at trying to resolve a problem that someone may be having.
xfile;531099 Wrote: Those people who really care about you may say things that you don't want to hear. And people say things that you want to hear may very well be your biggest enemy!
I don't need a philosophy lesson. I know the drill, and it's one I'm all too familiar with:
"Keep your enemies close, but keep your friends even closer, because they are the ones who can betray you!" - Unknown Speaker
-- dzomlija
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