Windows 95 HDD recovery

[quinnlaup]

Hello all

I got a windows 95 HDD in last week which the customer wanted me to recover data from. The HDD itself is fine and works normally i believe the reason the customer brought it to me was because of a "fatal" motherboard problem. So far i have tried to plug the drive into my ubuntu machine which finds one partition only labelled as "host for C:" which is compressed and i cannot get access to the file system. I then plugged the HDD into one of my windows PC's which did not recognise it at all (i believe this was due to FAT16 file system). I also tried using Acronis to see if i could convert the filesystem to FAT32 but it didnt recognise the volume either. As a last resort i plugged the HDD into a pc with no other drives connected and to my surprise it booted in safe mode only. I was then able to see all the data the customer wanted but could not find a way to get the data off the drive. I then tried to copy the data from the c: partition to the host for c: which would have allowed me to retrieve the data using ubuntu but it hadn't enough free space. Eventually i found a utility built in to 95 which allowed me to resize the drives i attempted this and it failed as a result the drive no longer boots is there any way i can replace these files and get the system back up and going.

regards

quinnlaup

 

[joydivision]

There is a free version of DOS you could load into a virtual machine, I can;t remember what it is called but I think PC DOS may now be open source.

 

[DCGPX]

Sounds as if they used Drivespace on the volume, pointless piece of software MS marketed with W95

I read an article somewhere about how you can check and what to do if you need to see whats on drive if it used.

If you can see files is there and drivespace files in root? I think that how to do a quick check, been that long since W95.

MIGHT be that.

 

[quinnlaup]

Sounds as if they used Drivespace on the volume, pointless piece of software MS marketed with W95

I read an article somewhere about how you can check and what to do if you need to see whats on drive if it used.

If you can see files is there and drivespace files in root? I think that how to do a quick check, been that long since W95.

MIGHT be that.

DCGPX and joydivision

Thanks for your help i believe that you are right Drivespace was used in this case do you know if its possible to do a repair install on the volume ? If iwas to use PC DOS where do i start?

regards

quinnlaup

 

[B Trevathan]

do you know if its possible to do a repair install on the volume ? If iwas to use PC DOS where do i start?

If you could do a repair install I would think it would make matters worse because of Drivespace is being used.

Didn't you make an image of this very old drive before you started working on it?

Upon booting have you tried pressing F5 to bypass your configuration files or tried F8 and do a step-by-step confirmation?

Would any off these boot disk and tools and info at this site help you?
http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm
http://www.bootdisk.com/dostools.htm
http://www.bootdisk.com/

Also found these:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/136899
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/133175
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/136337/EN-US

Other than PC-DOS there was Free-DOS.

 

[quinnlaup]

B Trevathan

thanks for your input but i was unable to clone the drive because the only partition i could "see" was the "host for c:" and not actually the c: I wont be trying the repair install i am trying to get my hands on a Microsoft Plus! Startup disk. I will also look at your suggestions.


regards

quinnlaup

 

[strollin]

With DriveSpace (also called DoubleSpace) the entire contents of the HDD was compressed and put into a single file. That always scared the heck out of me since if you had an error in that one file you lost everything!

You will need Win95 with it's built-in support or DOS 6.0 or above which should load drvspace.bin to access the files on the drive.

Don't try anything like chkdsk, defrag or any other file manipulation programs on the compressed image. If it were me, I would make an image backup of the drive first before I did anything.

 

[quinnlaup]

With DriveSpace (also called DoubleSpace) the entire contents of the HDD was compressed and put into a single file. That always scared the heck out of me since if you had an error in that one file you lost everything!

You will need Win95 with it's built-in support or DOS 6.0 or above which should load drvspace.bin to access the files on the drive.

Don't try anything like chkdsk, defrag or any other file manipulation programs on the compressed image. If it were me, I would make an image backup of the drive first before I did anything.

Thanks for your help i really appreciate it i have very little experience of Win 95 and dont even know where to begin with your suggestion could you point me in the right direction? Also how can i image the drive when acronis only recognises the "host for c:" partition? will it automatically copy everything including c:

regards

quinnlaup

 

[B Trevathan]

Windows 95 wow what a walk down memory lane this has been. Its hard to remember this old stuff, I used to could tell you do this and then that and boom windows would load.

I think this startup disk will work:
Windows 95 Version B
From: http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm
Link: http://1gighost.com/ed/jamiephiladelphia/boot95b.exe
But you will need a floppy drive and a 2HD floppy diskette (regular old floppy lol).

Its hard to believe I am talking about a disk and not a disc.

This shows what is on a Windows 95 startup disk and what two files were changed so you can access DriveSpace 3 compressed volumes.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/142943

If you can get a MS Plus! CD I think you can make a startup disk from it:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/136900

What about UBCD4Win or UBCD don't they have DriveImage on them, would that work to take an image of the drive or give you access?

 

[quinnlaup]

Windows 95 wow what a walk down memory lane this has been. Its hard to remember this old stuff, I used to could tell you do this and then that and boom windows would load.

I think this startup disk will work:
Windows 95 Version B
From: http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm
Link: http://1gighost.com/ed/jamiephiladelphia/boot95b.exe
But you will need a floppy drive and a 2HD floppy diskette (regular old floppy lol).

Its hard to believe I am talking about a disk and not a disc.

This shows what is on a Windows 95 startup disk and what two files were changed so you can access DriveSpace 3 compressed volumes.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/142943

If you can get a MS Plus! CD I think you can make a startup disk from it:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/136900

What about UBCD4Win or UBCD don't they have DriveImage on them, would that work to take an image of the drive or give you access?

I was just wondering is the link you provided for an MS Plus! disk or a normal 95 boot disk?

regards

quinnlaup

 

[KompuKare]

I would safe myself all the grieve of messing around with real drives by copying the DRVSPACE.000 file off the old drive, and using VirtualBox make a new Win95B Plus / Win98 / WinME machine (but then I still have those old WinDOS disks).

But yes, your best option is to find a Win98 WinME boot disk (floppy though) and if you don't have any floppy convert it to bootable CD. Then find your old PC and install the old hard disk and one other hard disk with a partition formatted FAT32 (no NTFS support on WinDOS). Boot from the floppy (or CD) and just xcopy with at least the switche /c (continue copying even if errors occur).

Unfortunately copy to network locations is not on unless you fancy becoming a DOS expert...

An other thing: no vFAT support in DOS so the filenames of anything you rescue will be in 8.3

 

[B Trevathan]

I was just wondering is the link you provided for an MS Plus! disk or a normal 95 boot disk?

The boot95b.exe link is for Windows 95 version B, I have no clue if any of the MS Plus! files will be the same or older versions than the Windows 95 version B files but I would think that the version B startup files would be similar enough to do anything you need a startup disk to do. I think version B was the last version of Windows 95, I think MS Plus! was an add on that came out between Windows 95 versions A and B.


From: http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm
Link: http://1gighost.com/ed/jamiephiladelphia/boot95b.exe

Here is whats on the disc:

Volume in drive A is BOOT95B
Volume Serial Number is 3505-18E3

Directory of A:\

08/24/1996 11:11a 93,812 COMMAND.COM
08/24/1996 11:11a 49,543 FORMAT.COM
08/24/1996 11:11a 18,967 SYS.COM
08/24/1996 11:11a 33,191 HIMEM.SYS
08/24/1996 11:11a 63,116 FDISK.EXE
08/24/1996 11:11a 15,252 ATTRIB.EXE
08/24/1996 11:11a 69,886 EDIT.COM
08/24/1996 11:11a 105,984 REGEDIT.EXE
08/24/1996 11:11a 142,353 SCANDISK.EXE
08/24/1996 11:11a 7,332 SCANDISK.INI
08/24/1996 11:11a 20,554 DEBUG.EXE
08/24/1996 11:11a 28,096 CHKDSK.EXE
08/24/1996 11:11a 76,496 UNINSTAL.EXE
05/29/1999 12:20p 377 CONFIG.SYS
08/24/1996 11:11a 25,473 MSCDEX.EXE
08/24/1996 11:11a 9,324 LABEL.EXE
09/26/1996 05:13p 34,262 CD1.SYS
08/24/1996 11:11a 3,878 XCOPY.EXE
08/24/1996 11:11a 19,019 DELTREE.EXE
08/24/1996 11:11a 41,472 XCOPY32.EXE
05/26/1999 04:45p 45 AUTOEXEC.BAT
11/21/1996 01:54a 16,504 CD2.SYS
08/13/1996 01:03a 19,984 CD3.SYS
05/11/1998 08:01p 41,302 CD4.SYS
08/24/1996 11:11a 46,656 EXTRACT.EXE
08/24/1996 11:11a 32,146 MEM.EXE
08/24/1996 11:11a 27,235 MOVE.EXE
08/24/1996 11:11a 6,658 FIND.EXE

29 File(s) 1,050,567 bytes
0 Dir(s) 117,760 bytes free


EDIT:
Whoops! looks like hidden files wasn't listed, also on the disc:

08/24/1996 11:11a 214,836 IO.SYS
08/24/1996 11:11a 65,271 DRVSPACE.BIN
11/17/1999 04:37p 6 MSDOS.SYS
3 File(s) 280,113 bytes


If you have a Windows 98 or 98SE CD, they can be booted from the CD.

A 32-bit or a NTFS file system can see a 16-bit file system, but I don't think a 16-bit or 32-bit file system can see a NTFS file system.

 

[B Trevathan]

If the startup disc doesn't help you and you can't slave the drive to a Windows 95B or 98 or 98SE computer running DriveSpace and mount the drive, you may want to have a look at this program I just found called DriveSpace 3 Disaster Recovery Kit.

Also did you ever try UBCD4Win or UBCD don't they have DriveImage on them, would that work to take an image of the drive or give you access?


DriveSpace 3 Disaster Recovery Kit
ftp://ftp.sac.sk/pub/sac/utildisk/ds3recvr.zip
found on
http://www.sac.sk/files.php?d=14&l=D

DriveSpace 3 Disaster Recovery Kit Info:

ds3recvr.zip 48.1 kilobytes

Special requirements: DriveSpace 3

Manually recover corrupted DriveSpace 3 drives. The "DriveSpace 3 Disaster Recovery Kit" is a toolkit for salvaging files and data from DriveSpace 3 CVFs (those .000 or .001 files) that have been corrupted beyond the ability of ScanDisk to repair. It is meant to assist someone who already has a good understanding of how data is stored on (ordinary, uncompressed) hard drives in manually recovering otherwise inaccessible compressed cluster data from within damaged CVFs, and then in piecing the recovered clusters back together into files. The kit contains a ReadMe file which explains how the programs work and how to use them, as well as explaining how drive data is organized within a DriveSpace 3 CVF. The programs themselves are command line utilities, and do not require Windows. Note that this kit is intended for DriveSpace 3. This is the version that shipped with Windows 95(b) OEM 2, with the Windows 95 PlusPak!, and with Windows 98. The programs have not been tested on earlier versions of DriveSpace, and probably would not work. Nevertheless, the information included in the kit may still be useful to someone attempting data recovery on an earlier-version CVF, and the programs could probably be modified appropriately with little effort

author`s e-mail adress
deant@cs.monash.edu.au


I read this from the kits ReadMe file, does your DRVSPACE file end with .000 if it does then maybe this explains why you only see one volume labeled "host for C:" it replaced the drive letter:

OK, the basics: A drivespace drive is just a file on the host disk, called a "CVF" (Compressed Volume File), usually placed in the root directory and usually called something like "DRVSPACE.001". On bootup, Drivespace looks for files of this name (and .000, .002, etc), and tries to mount them as drivespace compressed volumes. (I think if the file is a .000, this means drivespace hides the host drive and replaces it's drive letter, otherwise it adds the CVF as a new additional drive... I'm not sure though, and I think this can be overridden anyway). It is important to realize that, apart from the special treatment Drivespace gives to these CVF files, THERE IS NOTHING SPECIAL ABOUT THEM. You can safely copy or rename a CVF, you won't lose data (although DriveSpace won't find or mount renamed CVF's), and if you copy a CVF from one computer to another, you have effectively copied the entire drivespace drive - nothing else is needed.

 

[quinnlaup]

Thanks to everyone for your help and advice managed to resolve this issue by following B Trevathan's suggestion of slaving the Hard drive to a 98SE machine which i managed to get drivespace working on. Very happy to get this situation sorted out LESSONS HAVE BEEN LEARNED!!


regards

quinnlaup

 

[dbdawn]

Also how can i image the drive when acronis only recognises the "host for c:" partition? will it automatically copy everything including c:

Could you do a sector based image of the hdd?

 

[kagman]

I remember those days of compressing your hard drive with Stacker, then Doublespace/Drivespace... Personally I have a Virtual Machine that has windows 95, 98 and ME.... Because you never know when you will encounter a customer with a legacy OS.......

 

[KompuKare]

I remember those days of compressing your hard drive with Stacker, then Doublespace/Drivespace... Personally I have a Virtual Machine that has windows 95, 98 and ME.... Because you never know when you will encounter a customer with a legacy OS.......

+1

Although I haven't encountered any such customers yet though.

The initial reason for my virtualbox Win98SE was when I set up a virtual domain and tried to get both 98SE and Mac System 7.5 to join. Seem to recall that they only way to do so was to turn off pretty much all the authentication on Windows Server...