Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery

There are some situations where you need to promote your Windows Server to domain controller and to demote domain controller to member server. This is possible using the Dcpromo.exe (Active Directory Installation Wizard) feature of Microsoft Windows Server.

This wizard deletes configuration data for domain controller for the Active Directory, as a part of demotion process.  It takes form of the NTDS settings object, which is stored as child of server object in the Active Directory Sites and Services. However, if  you use the Dcpromo.exe utility incorrectly, you may come across serious problems of system failure and data loss, which ultimately requires hard drive recovery to be fixed.

The information about promotion process and NTDS settings is stored in Active Directory in the below location:

“CN=NTDS Settings,CN=<servername>,CN=Servers,CN=<sitename>,CN=Sites,CN=Configuration,DC=<domain>…”

Attributes of NTDS settings object has data that represents how domain controller is recognized by the replication partners, naming contexts which are organized on machine, default query policy, and whether domain controller is global catalog server.

If NTDS settings objects are removed improperly, Exchange Server administrator can manually delete metadata for server object. Administrator can manually delete NTDS Settings objects in Windows 2003 Server and Windows 2000 Server using Ntdsutil.exe tool. Before you modify the Active Directory attributes or remove server objects, you should keep the following things in mind:

When you use the LDP utility, ADSI (Active Directory Service Interfaces) Edit snap-in, or any other LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) client version 3 and you improperly modify the Active Directory object attributes, you may come across serious problems. Such problems may cause operating system malfunction and require you to format the hard drive and reinstall operating system.

You should always make sure that you have complete backup of your mission-critical data after demotion before you manually remove NTDS Settings objects from any server. Incorrect use of Ntdsutil.exe utility might affect Active Directory and cause severe data loss situations.

When any of the above problems occur and you face serious data loss from your Windows hard drive, hard drive data recovery is the best option to sort it out. The hard drive recovery is possible using third-party data recovery software.

The hard drive data recovery applications use high-end scanning techniques to carry out in-depth scan of entire hard drive and extract all lost data from it. The have interactive user interface and read-only conduct to ensure easy and safe recovery.

Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery is the most efficient and advanced utility that recovers lost data in all scenarios. The software is compatible with Microsoft Windows 7, Vista, 2003, XP, and 2000. It recovers data from all FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, VFAT, NTFS, and NTFS5 file system partitions.

A file system defines the mechanism to store and organize computer files and their data in a computer system. Two basic types of file systems are used in the Windows system, FAT and NTFS. Of these, the NTFS file system is considered more beneficiary for the system as it is more secure, performs file compression, encrypts the files, etc.

That is the reasons more and more users are shifting from FAT to NTFS. However, sometimes when you perform the conversion the Windows system is unable to boot. In such situations, you should use appropriate methods to resolve the issue. However, if you are unable to sort the issue then you should use a third-party Windows hard drive recovery software to do the needful for you.

Consider a scenario wherein you have FAT 32 file system in your Windows XP system. You want to convert the active partition from FAT 32 to NTFS using the ‘convert drive: /fs:ntfs command’. However, when you perform this operation and restart the system, it is unable to boot. An error message is displayed, that is:

“Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: System32\Drivers\Ntfs.sys”

Cause:

The root cause of this error message is that the Ntfs.sys file has either corrupted or gone missing while you converted the file system from FAT 32 to NTFS.

Resolution:

To resolve this error message, you should perform the following steps:

Boot the system using the Windows XP CD ROM.

Enter the Recovery Console and press R to start the repair process.

Type the following commands and press Enter after each command:

cd \windows\system32\drivers

ren ntfs.sys ntfs.old

The ntfs.sys file will be renamed if it is corrupt. However, if it is not there it means that it is missing.

Type the following command and press Enter.

copy X:\i386\ntfs.sys drive:\windows\system32\drivers [Where X=CD-ROM Drive]

Enter quit, and press Enter to exit the Recovery Console.

Restart the system. The system should boot properly now.

However, if you are still not able to access the data then you should use a third-party hard drive recovery software to do the needful. Such read-only tools are able to recover hard drive using fast yet sophisticated scanning algorithms.

Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery is a hard drive recovery software that enables you to recover lost, deleted, or formatted data from both FAT and NTFS file systems. It is capable of recovering more than 185 different file types from various storage media such as hard disks, external hard drives, USB flash drives, memory cards, etc. This Windows hard drive recovery software is capable of recovering deleted emails from Outlook Express and MS Outlook. It is compatible with Windows 7, Vista, Server 2003, XP, and Server 2000.

NTLDR (NT Loader) is the most essential file that is needed by the Windows NT (Server 2003, XP, and Server 2000) systems to boot. It is run from the primary hard disk drive and contains the main Boot loader. The well-being of NTLDR is very significant for the boot process as if this file is missing, then your system would not be able to boot.

The NTLDR file may get missing or corrupted due to various reasons, such as virus infections, power outages, damaged operating system, etc. In such cases, you should consider taking appropriate corrective measures to rectify the problem. However, if you are unable to resolve the issue then you should use a third-party Windows hard drive recovery software to do the needful.

Consider a scenario wherein you have a Windows Server 2003 system. When you start the system, it fails to do so. An error message is displayed, that is:

“NTLDR is missing

Press any key to restart”

Cause:

For the aforementioned error message, there are following reasons:

• The BIOS settings of the system are outdated
• Any or all of the following files are either corrupted or missing:
  • boot.ini
  • Ntdetect.com
  • Ntldr

Resolution:

To resolve your computer system from the aforementioned problems and access the Windows system, you need to perform the following methods:

• Check the BIOS settings: Verify the BIOS settings and check if the latest version of the BIOS is installed on your computer.
• Repair the Windows repair environment: Repair the Windows repair environment if any of the aforementioned files is missing or damaged. You can perform it by using any of the following methods:
  • By using a boot disk that contains all the mentioned files.
  • By using the Recovery Console to copy the mentioned files to your computer.
  • By using the Windows Server 2003 CD-ROM to repair the Windows Startup Environment.

The problem will be resolved using the aforementioned methods. However, if you are still not able to address the issue then you should use a third-party Windows hard drive recovery software to do the needful. Such read-only tools are able to recover hard drive contents without overwriting the original contents.

Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery is a hard drive recovery software that enables you to recover lost, deleted, or formatted volumes. It is able to recover trapped data from all sorts of data loss situations. This hard drive recovery tool is competent enough to recover more than 185 different file types from various storage media such as hard disks, external hard drives, iPods, etc. It is compatible with Windows 7, Vista, Server 2003, XP, and Server 2000.

File system (FAT or NTFS) installed on a Windows-based hard drive is a database that saves all critical information related to every file stored on the hard drive. Corruption in file system is one of the most common factors of inaccessibility of data saved in the hard drive. Few reasons for file system corruption are unexpected system shutdown, virus attack, application malfunction, and operating system damage.

In most cases of file system damage, a Windows user encounters an error message that halts the boot process of Windows. To overcome such error messages and to overcome file system damage, the user needs to use an inbuilt repair utility named ‘CHKDSK’. While this utility is helpful in repairing file system, there are a few cases when it fails to repair. In such situations, data can only be accessed by restoring it from an updated backup. But, in case of no backup or deficient backup, the user needs to use a powerful
hard drive recovery software.

Consider a real-time scenario wherein you encounter the below error message while trying to boot your Windows XP system:

“The volume X: is not formatted. Do you want to format it now?
The disk in drive X: is not formatted.
There was an error accessing drive X:. The disk is not formatted.”

Once the above error message appears, the system becomes unbootable and the hard drive data becomes inaccessible.

Cause:

The root cause for the occurrence of the above error message is corruption in file system.

Resolution:

To resolve the above error message, you need to run CHKDSK command. However, the command might also fail, displaying the below error message:

“The type of the filesystem is RAW.
CHKDSK is not available for RAW drives.”

To overcome the above CHKDSK failure error message and to boot your Windows XP system, you need to perform a clean reinstall of Windows XP operating system. This allows you to install new file system on your hard drive and also brings your system in a bootable state. However, re-installation also results in complete inaccessibility of all previously saved files and folders saved on your hard drive. To access those files, you need to opt for an advanced Hard Drive Recovery Software. Such Hard Drive Recovery tools are easily available on the Internet.

Stellar Phoenix
windows data recovery assures recovery of all the files and folders post re-installation. Compatible with almost all file systems (NTFS, NTFS5, FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, and VFAT), the Hard Drive Recovery utility supports Windows 7, Vista, XP, 2003, and 2000 operating systems.

Are you unable to extend a hard drive partition on Microsoft Windows 2003 Server-based computer? Are you getting errors while extending the partitions and process stops halfway? The problem may occur if you are extending a Windows partition using a third-party application, which use incompatible control codes. This behavior may damage the volume data structures and make it inaccessible. It may cause data loss on your Windows hard drive and needs Hard Drive Recovery to be fixed, if backup is not available.

For example, you may come across a STOP error, which is similar to below one, when you try to extend a Windows 2003 hard drive partition using third-party partition resizing utility:

“A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer.
If this is the first time you’ve seen this Stop error screen, restart your computer. If this message appears again, follow these steps:
Disable or uninstall any anti virus , disc defragmentation or backup utilities. Check your hard drive configuration, and check for any updated drivers. Run CHKDSK /F to check for hard drive corruption, and then restart your computer.
Technical Information
Stop 0×00000024 (0×0019033c, 0xf016e7a0, 0xf016e49c, 0xe061dcdc)”

When the partition extending process fails, the partition may become inaccessible. In order to get your mission-critical data back in such cases, you need to find out the cause of this problem and go for Hard Drive Data Recovery to fix it.

Root of the problem:

This behavior may take place if partition resizing utility uses the below FSCTLS and IOCTLS control codes for extending the volume:

FSCTL_EXTEND_VOLUME

IOCTL_DISK_UPDATE_PROPERTIES

IOCTL_DISK_GROW_PARTITION

For instance, you might be using a third-party tool for resizing a hard drive partition or for appending unused disk space to an existing Windows partition.

Resolution:

If the resize process is incomplete and partitions are damaged, you need to format the hard drive and reinstall operating system. Although, formatting helps you to sort out all the hard drive errors, but also removes the data stored on the drive and cause severe data loss. In such cases, Hard Drive Recovery Software come for your rescue.

These are commercial applications, which Recover Hard Drive data in absolute and efficient way, using powerful scanning algorithms. With simple user interface and read-only design, such tools are easy and safe to use.

Intel-based Windows computers rely on system BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) for loading and executing bootstrap code. Bootstrap routine of BIOS generates ‘int 0×19′ that loads the first sector of hard drive in memory at 0000:7C00H segment address. First physical sector of hard drive is known as MBR (Master Boot Record) and it contains bootstrap loader code. In some cases, your system refuses to boot due to missing boot code and you can not access the system. This behavior renders all your data, stored on hard drive, inaccessible and cause serious data loss situations. In such circumstances, you need to perform Hard Drive Recovery to fix the problem.

After loading sector zero of the hard drive, BIOS checks that last two bytes of the sector are 55AA. The 55AA is the boot record signature. It is like EOF (End OF File) when sector is read. Boot record signature is required by BIOS to boot the system. In case, this signature is missing, you come across a BIOS-dependent error message, stating:

“Boot Record Signature AA55 Not Found, xxyy Found”

Alternately, you may get either of the below error messages and the system may stop responding:

“Non-System or Non-Bootable Disk”

Or

“Strike f1 to retry boot”

If Microsoft Windows operating system is installed on any logical drive in the extended partition, you receive below mentioned error message after BOOT MENU choice and NTDETECT runs:

“OS Loader 4.0

Boot record Signature AA55 Not Found, xxyy Found.”

In this scenario, your system becomes unbootable and unresponsive. It does not let you access data from hard drive and needs hard drive recovery.

Cause

This problem may occur due to any of the below reasons:

Disk configuration or inconsistency problems.

Damaged MBR.

File system corruption or missing system files.

Resolution

You can settle this problem and Recover Hard Drive data by:

Running ChkDsk utility to repair hard drive.

Booting your system in Recovery Console and using Fixmbr command to rewrite MBR.

Format hard drive and reinstall Windows.

Formatting can fix most of the hard drive related problems, but it also has a downside. It removes all the data from hard drive and causes severe data loss. In such situations, you should recover lost data using Hard Drive Recovery Software to ensure quick, safe, easy, and absolute recovery.

Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery software successfully recovers lost data from your Windows hard drive in all data loss situations. Designed for Microsoft Windows 7, Vista, 2003, XP, and 2000 operating systems, this recovery software preserves integrity of your data. It supports recovery from FAT16, FAT 32, VFAT, NTFS, and NTFS5 file system partitions.

Microsoft Windows 7 is the latest version of Microsoft Windows – a series of GUI-based operating systems by Microsoft corporation. It has a range of advanced, improved, and added features that simplify your computing experience. Above all, it has various data security, data safety, and data backup features, which help you prevent data loss situations and need hard drive recovery solutions.

Before you upgrade to Windows 7, you must check out the merits and demerits of the operating system. Some common ones among them are:

Advantages of Windows 7

Supports latest advancements in computer hardware: The operating system supports multi-core processors, enhanced memory utilization, and 64-bit computing that help your hardware resources to give highest possible performance. These features make your system more effective and run faster.

Better Stability and Device Support than earlier versions: MS Windows 7 promises you to offer support for various hard drive interfaces and make/models. You can upgrade to Windows 7 from any earlier version, without any difficulty of hard drive support. This newly released operating system is more stable as compared to its predecessor Windows Vista.

Enhanced Media Sharing: Windows 7 enables you to seamlessly and easily share media across the network. You can drag and drop the media and view the shared files on network.

Disadvantages of Windows 7

Needs high system resources: Windows 7 requires more RAM and high-speed processor to run effectively. The 64-bit version of the operating system needs you to buy new processor if you are running a 32-bit version of earlier operating system.

Requires BIOS up-gradation: In order to upgrade to Windows 7, you need to upgrade your system BIOS (Basic Input/Output System). Failure to this process may cause serious errors, even data loss.

Failure of upgrade process make your system unusable: If the upgrade process gets interrupted due to any reason, such as system crash or power outage, you may lose all your data on the hard drive. This behavior puts you in need of hard drive recovery methods.

If you encounter data loss after upgrading to Windows 7, you need to opt for advanced Hard Drive Recovery Software. The applications are particularly designed to carry out methodical scan of entire hard drive and extract all lost, missing, and inaccessible data from it. You can easily and safely Recover Hard Drive data using these software in most of the data loss situations.

Stellar Phoenix windows data recovery is the best application to retrieve lost data from Windows 7 hard drive. It recovers data from NTFS5, NTFS, VFAT, FAT32, and FAT16 file system partitions. The software is designed for Microsoft Windows 7, Vista, 2003, XP, and 2000.

Computer users are curious to try out different things with their computer, such as, installation of new software, partitioning their hard drive, changing default settings, and more. Although experimentation with the computer system allows the users to learn new things, but it should not be done at the cost of damage to the operating system. A damaged operating system in most cases, is unbootable and displays an error message at the time of bootup. In such situations, the data saved in the hard drive of that operating system becomes inaccessible. To access the data post operating system corruption, most users restore the data from an updated backup. But, if the users have not maintained any backup, then Hard Drive Recovery becomes a difficult task.

To illustrate the above case, consider a practical situation, where you install a new software from the Internet. The software contained a virus that corrupted your MBR (Master Boot Record), making your computer system unbootable. In such cases, if you want to boot your Windows 7 operating system, then you will need to use the ‘Start Repair’ option.

To use this feature:

1.Restart your computer and boot to the ‘System Recovery Options’ screen.

2.Select the first option ‘Startup Repair’ on your screen.

3.The repair process starts and fixes all the startup issues.

However, there are some probabilities that the exact problem could not be found by the ‘Startup Repair’ option, and your problem continues. In such cases, the only option left is to format your computer system. Formatting a system deletes all the previous entries saved in the file system and allows the user to save new data on the hard drive. But, formatting the hard drive also deletes the previously saved data.

To recover the deleted hard drive data, in case of backup unavailability, you need to use advanced Hard Drive Recovery Software. Such Hard Drive Recovery tools comprehensively recover formatted data and save it at user-specified destination. Developed by highly qualified recovery experts, these tools use powerful algorithms to recover lost data. Such tools are easy to use and install.

Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery tops the list of advanced hard drive recovery software. Whether the files are formatted, lost, deleted, or missing, the read-only software recovers it all from almost all storage media. Supported by FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, VFAT , NTFS and NTFS5 file systems, the tool is designed for Windows 7, Vista, XP, 2003, and 2000.

Microsoft Windows XP is perhaps the most widely used version of Microsoft Windows. It has set various technology benchmarks in terms of data storage and data security. So users having older versions of Windows like to upgrade to Microsoft Windows XP. In order to upgrade to MS Windows XP, you are required to have installation CD of Windows XP that gives setup wizard for completing the operation. But in some cases, the upgrade process gets halted and earlier version of Windows become unusable. Such situations make your hard drive data inaccessible and lead to data loss. At this point, you need to perform Hard Drive Recovery to get your data back.

For instance, you may come across some error message while upgrading to Microsoft Windows XP and the installation process can not proceed. The error messages may sound like the followings:

“Setup is unable to perform the requested operation on the selected partition. This partition contains temporary Setup files that are required to complete the installation.”

Furthermore, your system might stop responding with the below error message:

“An error has been encountered that prevents setup from continuing. One of the components that windows needs to continue setup could not be installed. Data error ‘cyclic redundancy check’”

In addition to the setup process, the error messages also indicates that there is some problem with hard disk. The problem could be damaged metadata structure, virus infection, and Raw file system. Errors occur as setup attempts to fix the hard drive issues. In order to access data from the hard drive, you need find out the cause of this problem and fix it through hard drive recovery.

Cause

The problem occurs because the hard drive is having logical damage. Setup can not properly write data to the damaged disk and thus gives the errors. In these cases, previously stored data also become inaccessible.

Resolution

use chkdsk /r utility to fix this problem or let the setup to sort it out. If both of the methods fail, go for hard drive recovery software to ensure complete and automated recovery of all your lost data.

The Hard Drive Data Recovery applications are quite easy to use with simple user interface. They use high-end scanning techniques to thoroughly scan the hard drive and extract lost, missing, and inaccessible data from it. The programs keep integrity of your data as they have read-only conduct.

It may happen that all of sudden your system refuse to boot without any strange sounds such as clicking and tickling. Here you cannot access your data and face a critical data loss. In such situations Hard Drive Recovery comes as a cure.

Well, this could be due to both mechanical and virus problem as well . Unfortunately the operating system does not include any utility to prevent boot sector virus. Thus you are required to go for third party anti virus software to avoid such issues from being occurred.
There may be one more reason for this behavior and that is problems in OS registry .

In particular, when the device drive that is associated with the drive controller is damaged, the hard drive could become inaccessible. Such problems prevent your computer hard drive from being accessed and booting normally. To resolve this problem we require hard drive recovery.

Some users might consider it the case of operating system malfunction and they reinstall the operating system after formatting the hard drive. Some may also use the System Recovery Disk to resolve such issues. But These procedures might overwrite the stored data and might cause permanent data loss so, try to avoid these behaviors .

If a user has already done this mistake and facing a severe data loss problem , then a third party data recovery software is recommended to recover hard drive data.

Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery Software is the the ultimate solution to all these data recovery problems. The Stellar Phoenix is renowned name in the field of data recovery software The software are provided for almost all the requirements like Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, UNIX, Linux and Novell. Here at Stellar the Recovery service is carried out in Class 100 Clean Rooms using the latest technologies under the supervision of recovery experts.