Recovery 169-580-90We do a fair amount of data recovery from hard drives that are still functional, but for whatever reason have a number of bad sectors. So if a tool like Acronis cannot clone the drive because there is significant file system damage, we’ve had great luck with the Linux dd_rescue tool in the System Rescue CD.

However, some problems crop up when you rescue clone from an older hard drive onto a newer Advanced Format Drive – dd_rescue has no concept of the new AFD layout. Tools are available from most HD manufacturers to repair this misalignment, but afterwards it can cause other problems. For most Windows Vista and 7 computers, there is a recovery partition on drive D:  Often after alignment, the boot information is incorrect and the boot loader cannot start the WinRE environment on Drive D:After much trial, error, and research – we were able to fix most issues with the F8 Recovery console on Vista and Windows 7.

The good news is, it is fairly easy to fix if you don’t mind getting your hands dirty in a command window.

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  • WindowsGlassRegistry corruptions don’t always require a wipe and reinstall. You can often get the registry ‘back’ using a backed up copy. Microsoft published a procedure for doing this way back in knowledge base article KB307545. The trouble with this procedure is it is very tedious, utilizing Windows XP recovery mode  (basically a DOS prompt) and tricks to get into the System Volume Information directory.

    Instead, utilizing the fantastic System Recovery CD, you can quickly restore a backup copy of the registry.

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