Data Recovery - PLEASE HELP!!!

[bronze09]

My T42 running XP pro recently got some sort of worm or virus , and now it won't even start up! I can get tech support through my school to help me out, but they will just wipe my harddrive and reinstall XP. So l was hoping there is a way to get my data off the computer before I take it to the tech department. When I try to start the computer, the fan turns on and the computer is making sounds, but the screen is blank and nothing happens. Any help would be much appreciated!

Thanks!

[GomJabbar]

Here is one option (if you haven't deleted the service partition). This is copied from the Access IBM Help.
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Turn off your computer for at least 5 seconds. Turn on the computer. When the following message is displayed, press the blue Access IBM button: "To interrupt normal startup, press the blue Access IBM button." The IBM Rescue and Recovery workspace opens.

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Using the Rescue files method

1. In the Rescue and Recovery menu, click Rescue files. The File rescue window opens.

2. Follow the instructions on the screen. Additional help is available from the Rescue and Recovery workspace.
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I believe you can also boot up from the Rescue Media CD (which you should have made already) if you can't boot into the Rescue and Recovery workspace using the blue Access IBM as mentioned above. Note that the Rescue Media CD is NOT the same as the Recovery Disk set (6-7 CD's)

After you rescue your files, you can then go in and restore Factory Contents. See below, copied from same help file.
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Using the Restore factory contents method

1. Make backup copies of your data files, if possible. Any files on drive C that are not backed up will be lost.
2. Turn off your computer for at least 5 seconds. Turn on the computer. When the following message is displayed, press the blue Access IBM button: "To interrupt normal startup, press the blue Access IBM button." The IBM Rescue and Recovery workspace opens.
3. Click Restore factory contents and follow the instructions on the screen. Additional help is available from the Rescue and Recovery workspace.

* Note: Your computer might restart during the recovery process, possibly more than once. When the recovery process is finished, your computer displays a message to let you know that the recovery is complete.

[cwestwater]

how about you pull the HDD from the machine, and get/use an IDE->USB adapter on another machine to get the data off?

[Nolonemo]

how about you pull the HDD from the machine, and get/use an IDE->USB adapter on another machine to get the data off?

That would be the way I'd go about it, since you're not doing anything to the disk but reading it for the data.

You can also google for software that will boot from a floppy and read NTFS formatted disks (I presume your HD is formatted NTFS), but you might need to be able to navigate using DOS commands in order to find and copy them, an art that unfortunately is becoming lost....

Example: http://www.ntfs.com/boot-disk.htm

There may be some programs like this that include a GUI browser like the old Norton Commander.

[egibbs]

Any Linux "Live CD" (Ubuntu, knoppix, etc.) will let you boot to Linux from a CD. Then you could mount the Windows volume (or what is left of it) and copy the files off to somewhere.

Ed Gibbs

[cwestwater]

how about you pull the HDD from the machine, and get/use an IDE->USB adapter on another machine to get the data off?

This is the sort of device I mean