My computer crashed and I have some very important data on the hard drive that cannot be lost. I have an 80gb hdd with about 30gb I don't want to lose. The 80gb hdd is in 2 partitions, an C and a D. The information I need most is on the D partition but I also have some files that I would like from my C partition. I need to some how keep this data. I own 2 PCs. Both have around 80gb hdd. I am thinking that the best way to keep the files is to transfers it to my other pc then fdisk my non-booting pc then transfer the data back to my fdisked pc. Well anyone with some ideas, help, tips, or opinions let me know!

-DC4ever:(

Here are 2 idea's .


Go back to a good copy of the registry .

Toggle F8 ( when , verifying DMA pool message comes on ) or Press
Ctrl during bootup , depends on your computor .

Select , Command prompt only .

After the C prompt , type , scanreg /restore

Follow the prompts and select a registry dated prior to the problems .

This article describes how to restore a backup copy of the Windows 98
or Windows Millennium Edition (Me) registry
scanreg /restore
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q221/5/12.ASP?LN=EN-US&SD=gn&FR=0&qry=scanreg/%20restore&rnk=3&src=DHCS_MSPSS_gn_SRCH&SPR=W98

Start the System Restore Tool from a Command Prompt in Windows XP (Q304449)
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q304449

Restore Operation Failed (Q220878)
The information in this article applies to:
Microsoft Windows 98
Microsoft Windows 98 Second Edition
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q220878

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To improve on the 5 days MS have on registry backups , use the Cabrest system below & get 14 days .
http://www.pcnineoneone.com/howto/regback1.html

For those that find the above site confusing , here is what to do .

Alter MaxBackupCopies from 5 to 14 as per instructions at above site .

Download the zipped copy of the Batch file from ,
http://www.pcnineoneone.com/downloads/cabrest.zip

Unzip , copy & paste cabrest onto the top of C: in Windows Explorer .

Delete zip file , or save it on floppy , if you want it for others or the
future .

Print the instructions below & stick on your comp in front of you , so
when you have to go back to a good copy of the registry , you don't
need to search for them .

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Toggle F8 ( when , verifying DMA pool message comes on ) or Press Ctrl
during bootup , depends on your computor .


Select , Command prompt only .

Type in cabrest & press Enter , keep answering y & you will see a
table , which will allow you to select which CAB file to restore from .
So , for example , to restore from rb009 cab , you look at the table &
see 09 corresponds to the letter j . You type j & Not the number .
Follow instructions .

Type win & press Enter to exit .

If after following the instructions to Restore , things arn't
working , go to an earlier date & try again .

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Ummm well let me ask you this... Is it a PC/hardware prob on the crashed machine? Or did the HDD crash?
If its just a hardware issue & not the HDD... you could always just throw that HD as a Slave drive in your other PC & copy the files you need


THe only problem you may run into this way is that having 2 partitions set as "active" could give you boot up trouble in Win98/ME so I think you can run Fdisk and change the 1 part to non active or extended safely to do what you need to do without losing data. But I've never tried this little manuever, perhaps someone else knows.

Give us some more info on exactly what has happened?

Problem resolved. I simply removed the hdd and put it in my 2nd pc and transfered all the data I needed to my 2nd PC's hdd then I took out the hdd again and put it back it my computer and fdisked it. Then I reinstalled windows me and took the hdd out again and transfered the data I needed back on. Took me 10 hours to do all this but it was worth it :-).