Hard drive works ok but vista won't start, need help rescuing info !!!!

HELLO,

I had Avast Antivirus on my system but was turning it real slow, hogging up to 50-65% of system resources so I decided to uninstall it to give the whole system a cleaning but after uninstalling it I rebooted and the system won't start, I tried safe mode in its three options with no luck, I'm able to enter the advanced recovery section perfectly but it tells me it can't find any restore points (I remember creating restore points but maybe they got erased with the antivirus uninstall), I'm able to reinstall windows and I don't mind whipping out all info IF I can recover some critical info I have on that hard drive like Windows Live Mail emails,

These emails are my main concern, from removing the hard drive and installing it on an enclosure I was able to retrieve a lot of info, but I can't seem to find any of the emails, I searched this forum for answers but I haven't been able to import any emails from the locations mentioned, I'm searching from a Windows 7 computer, I don't know if thats the reason I can't find the email files.

So I need help if anybody knows how to either restore the system without losing data or a way to retrieve the emails from Windows Live Mail program, the crashed system is a Windows Vista Home Premium, on Core 2 Duo, Gateway 3232m system, please help

Do you have another drive you can copy to? Free Hard Disk Backup and Restore, Hard Disk Image and Cloning Utilities (thefreecountry.com)
has a list of free backup and imaging tools for HDs. If possible I would save all the data or even image the entire drive using one of the drive imaging programs.

As example you could make an image with Macrium Reflect and when running your system again you can mount the image in Explorer and pick out individual files and folders, such as your mail folder once you learn the location.

Thanks !!!

Yes, I have 1TB external HD, so the idea would be to copy or clone the HD so once I restore the drive I can mount the cloned image ?? Please advise, I have not done anything like this in a long time so I'm rusty on all this restore things

I would still try to find your mail files. But by making an image of the entire drive you have all your data. Most of these professional imaging programs like Macrium and EaseUS ToDo Backup will let you open the backup image in Explorer. After that it is like using one of the undelete file utilities. You navigate to the folder you want and extract it. In Macrium you can just drag and drop the folder to another drive.

If your drives are vanilla Sata II or Sata III I would try macrium as it is very easy to use. Even the free version is very capable. It has both Linux based restore boot makers for DVD/USB and WinPE based. The WinPE is a large download. About 430 MB. So try the Linux based and see if it boots and supports all your hardware etc.. The advantage of WinPE is you can add Windows drivers for anything not supported by the default WinPE.. like if you had a Raid controller or whatever.

Thanks I'll try Macrium first, I'll let you know how it went.

MilesAhead said:

I would still try to find your mail files. But by making an image of the entire drive you have all your data. Most of these professional imaging programs like Macrium and EaseUS ToDo Backup will let you open the backup image in Explorer. After that it is like using one of the undelete file utilities. You navigate to the folder you want and extract it. In Macrium you can just drag and drop the folder to another drive.

If your drives are vanilla Sata II or Sata III I would try macrium as it is very easy to use. Even the free version is very capable. It has both Linux based restore boot makers for DVD/USB and WinPE based. The WinPE is a large download. About 430 MB. So try the Linux based and see if it boots and supports all your hardware etc.. The advantage of WinPE is you can add Windows drivers for anything not supported by the default WinPE.. like if you had a Raid controller or whatever.

Click to expand...

Sure thing. Please keep us posted.