Unable to Boot from Hard Drive I/O Error and Error 0xc000000f

jumanji said:

Please go ahead with this: Copy & Paste - in Windows Recovery Console

Tried it before nothing but boot X: and the CD show up.

tried it again just now, same thing.

I guess ill proceed with a full scan using PW

If it helps to clarify, I originally installed win 7 to unallocated space, I did NOT create any partitions for anything.
Windows 7 ran smoothly until Friday night (crashed to black screen, forced to shut off computer).
Restarted Computer.
It booted into windows no problems.

I ran a Check disk scan and after it finished the computer restarted and gave me:

Error 0xc000000f "Boot Selection Failed because a required device is inaccessible."

I proceeded in trying to fix it and ended up using Windows repair disk to open command prompt and: DISKPART>LIST DISK> SELECT DISK 0> CLEAN> EXIT> EXIT

I did not understand that cleaning would basically delete all my data on the hard drive.

Currently when booting from the Hard Drive it asks for Boot Media to be inserted.

Right Now I am running full scan using Partition Wizard.

OK, then back to Partition Wizard and Full Scan.

Once you initiate Full Scan, just don't sit in front of the computer twiddling your fingers :). It is going to take a long time. So get away, start doing other work, peeping in just once in a while to check the progress.

Report what you find when complete. If possible take a photo shot of the partitions shown and upload. Otherwise you have to verbally describe the partitions found and all other information on that screen.

jumanji said:

OK, then back to Partition Wizard and Full Scan.

Once you initiate Full Scan, just don't sit in front of the computer twiddling your fingers :). It is going to take a long time. So get away, start doing other work, peeping in just once in a while to check the progress.

Report what you find when complete. If possible take a photo shot of the partitions shown and upload. Otherwise you have to verbally describe the partitions found and all other information on that screen.

Alright Thanks for the help ill post back again when its finished! fingers crossed.

It will take sometime for me to compose my post. So please wait. I am at it.

jumanji said:

OK, to recover the data from your system drive you have to connect an external drive with adequate space before you run PhotoRec.( To make it easy to follow later, please create a folder named Recovery in the external drive on another PC and connect it to your PC #1 you want to recover data from.)

Now boot into DOS and Run Photorec.

First window will show you two drives 1. Your internal drive and 2 your external drive. Select your internal drive > [Proceed]
Second Window:Select [Intel] Intel/PC partition and press ENTER key

The next (third) Window may or may not show your System Reserved partition - I don't know . In any case it is irrelevant since we do not want to recover anything from it.

What I see from your post is: There is P Unkown start:0 0 1 121601 end: 80 63 Size: 1953525168
(It is unknown because the Filesystem is not seen. Exactly the reason why PW could not detect the start of that partition.And exactly why we are using PhotoRec. Even without a file system, PhotoRec can reconstruct the files from the file type signatures and attributes. You can read about PhotoRec in the website)
You will select it and and then with the right Arrow key move the cursor and highlight [File Opt] and press ENTER key. Do not SEARCH. That is the mistake you did. (Please see 4. Third Window in my guide)

In the ensuing Fourth Window by default all file types are selected. If you know what file types you want to recover you can deselect the unwanted file types and retain only the file types you want to recover. That will speed up the recovery process..

Now follow the rest of the steps in that guide.

In 11. Tenth Window you have to select the destination which is your Recovery Folder you created on the external drive.

Go to my post My external hard drive suddenly became unllocated: and follow the process from Screenshot 7 onwards. ( Screenshot 1 to 6 are relevant only for Test Disk)

Once you have reached and selected the destination Press C

If another screen comes Press C

The whole process is interactive where you have to read the screen and take appropriate action.

It will be much easier to guide if I see the screenshots of each screen as you proceed but in your case that is not possible since it is running on DOS.

Does not matter. Take your own time to read , reread and understand the whole process . PhotoRec is very safe since it does not write anything to the drive being recovered. Even if you make mistakes you can go back and redo it.

I am only hoping that data recovery succeeds.

I am now retiring and will be back only after another 8 hours from now.

Ok, i was able to follow until it comes to selecting the place to save the recovered files,
I went to screen shot 7. When i press the left Arrow key, the farthest I can go is to "Directory /" :
in which I see:
Directory /
drwxrwxrwx 42 42 4800 8-Dec-2014 12:54 .
drwxrwxrwx 42 42 4800 8-Dec-2014 12:54 . .
drwxrwxrwx 0 0 0 a:/
drwxrwxrwx 0 0 0 b:/
drwxrwxrwx 0 0 0 c:/
drwxrwxrwx 0 0 0 d:/
drwxrwxrwx 0 0 0 e:/
drwxrwxrwx 0 0 0 f:/
drwxrwxrwx 0 0 0 g:/
drwxrwxrwx 0 0 0 h:/
drwxrwxrwx 0 0 0 i:/
drwxrwxrwx 0 0 0 j:/
drwxrwxrwx 0 0 0 k:/
drwxrwxrwx 0 0 0 l:/
drwxrwxrwx 0 0 0 m:/
drwxrwxrwx 0 0 0 n:/
drwxrwxrwx 0 0 0 o:/
drwxrwxrwx 0 0 0 p:/
drwxrwxrwx 0 0 0 q:/
drwxrwxrwx 0 0 0 r:/
drwxrwxrwx 0 0 0 s:/
drwxrwxrwx 0 0 0 t:/
drwxrwxrwx 42 42 3520 8-Dec-2014 12:54 temp
drwxrwxrwx 42 42 192 8-Dec-2014 12:54 tools
drwxrwxrwx 0 0 0 u:/
drwxrwxrwx 0 0 0 v:/
drwxrwxrwx 0 0 0 w:/
drwxrwxrwx 0 0 0 x:/
drwxrwxrwx 0 0 0 y:/
drwxrwxrwx 0 0 0 z:/
-rwxrwxrwx 42 42 4028 8-Dec-2014 12:54 1394cd.sys
and then it goes on with -rwx files and ends with
-rwxrwxrwx 42 42 1831 8-Dec-2014 12:54 zap.com

I'm using PhotoRec 6.14-WIP, Data Recovery Utility, September 2012, from Hirens Boot CD

I've gone through all of the A-Z:/ (i highlighted each one and then hit enter and they all looked the same) and i just cant find my External HD or Recovery Folder, I Have an 8 GB USB and it did show up on the first screen.

Ill check back later tonight I'm heading out to school to get homework done and study a bit for finals this week.

I see you are there.

You are using Hiren's boot CD.

Unfortunately I am not conversant with it. I do not understand why it is showing some 26 drives.

( May be you have to come down to my level of creating a bootable DOS pendrive, from which you can run PhotoRec. Then we will be speaking the same language :))

Anyway, I presume you have created a Recovery folder in an external drive/pendrive.

What is its capacity?

Now shut down your PC #1, plug in that external drive/pendrive, switch on the PC, boot into PhotoRec from your Hiren's CD and let me know what are all the drives seen by PhotoRec in the first Window - complete details.

Today I shall have to run around a lot on Personal work and so my presence here will be sporadic.

I shall still be peeping in once in a while.