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Ok...So i have a computer. Its a pretty amazing computer. Built it myself. It has 3 500gb harddrives on it, all with different OS's. XP, Vista, and 7. I recently ran into a little problem. Well its a pretty big problem hahaha. Some how, it seems ALL 3 have gotten corrupted. one day i turn on my computer, i boot up XP. It gets to the loading screen, then BAM. a Crash screen flashes on the screen (a 0x00000007 code) it automatically resets after that, so...logically, since that one stopped working, i figured id try getting on 7...7 gets stuck on Startup Repair. And of course...startup repair is unproductive and cannot find any problems. so i open command prompt and perform a disk check. FINDS NO ERRORS! WTF right? So...i try vista next...wont even start because it says kdcom.dll is missing or corrupt.

Whats really funny about all this...is with windows 7 and xp....SOMETIMES...it actually manages to pass the loading screens and i can use them like i normally would.

So....back to the question...im pretty sure my data is safe cuz sometimes i can still access it. is there anyway i could save the data, because i have like 400gb of data. after the problem started i moved all the collective data from all the harddrives onto the windows 7 harddrive, because thats the one that actually works most often. So could i take that harddrive out and put it in one of those cases that allows you to connect it to another computer thru a usb? and transfer all the data there? or get a nice big external harddrive and pull the data off that way?

I realize that im gonna have to wipe the harddrives and reinstall windows on all of them. I just want to be able to put all my data back after doing that.

Your answers will be greatly appreciated.

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Have you installed any new hardware recently? Did you install any new software recently? Can you boot into safe mode? Have you ran virus scans? – MaQleod Nov 11 '10 at 5:56
no new hardware, no new software, cant boot into safe mode, Virus scan on 7 finds nothing, and i cant seem to open norton in xp. im pretty sure xp is the where the problem started. – Sean Nov 11 '10 at 6:16
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2 Answers

up vote 3 down vote

Yes, you can use a hard drive enclosure to connect your drives to a different computer to copy your data to a new location. You can also use an Ubuntu live CD or flash drive (or other Linux distro if you prefer) to boot your computer and copy your data that way.

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well the problem with a cd or flashdrive would be that there isnt enough room. i have roughly over 400gigs of data that im trying to save. – Sean Nov 11 '10 at 6:17
also, if i were to open it up, take out the harddrive and put it into an enclosure, what are the chances of it not allowing a transfer if the data is corrupt? or, what are the chances of my data being corrupted? lol. – Sean Nov 11 '10 at 6:19
How could a thumbdrive boot benefit my situation...also...where can i download something that will allow me to boot my computer from this thumbdrive? if you could give me a link, that would be amazing. to be able to get back on 7 would be amazing, as that is where all my data is now. – Sean Nov 11 '10 at 6:28
ok....i just went to the Ubuntu site, if i were to mount this onto my usb....i could have access to ALL my files? where i could then, get another harddrive, and make the transfer right there on the spot? – Sean Nov 11 '10 at 6:58
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@Sean: Get another hard drive or connect to another computer over the LAN. Either works. If the thumb drive boot doesn't even work you're probably looking at hardware problems (bad RAM for example) instead of just the hard drives. I already suspect something like that because honestly, short of someone running around with a strong magnet or an EMP burst, 3 hard drives going out at the same time is too much of a coincidence. – Jonathan Hobbs Nov 11 '10 at 7:32
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up vote 1 down vote

The chances of three drives failing simultaneously are very small. More likely you have a hardware failure elsewhere, perhaps in the disk controller, perhaps in memory, perhaps elsewhere on the motherboard.

I have an IDE/SATA to USB adapter I use to test drives on other computers, to migrate data etc, I would check the drives on another computer and run diagnostics on the faulty PC.

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