However, there are times when you get this error while accessing a hard disk partition using boot floppy disk or CD. Occurrence of ‘Invalid drive specification’ error at this point of time can be serious as this suggests that the Windows partition is inaccessible, possibly because of corruption. This is when a Windows Data Recovery utility can come handy.

If you are receiving the ‘Invalid drive specification’ error on a new hard disk, the error might indicate that you need to partition and format the hard disk before using it. But in other cases, a boot disk can prompt this error when:

You are trying to access Windows XP or later NTFS partition using a boot disk that has been created for Windows 98 or earlier. The DOS command prompt in such cases cannot read the NTFS partition of Windows XP or later. Thus you need to use a different boot disk that is exclusive to the operating system and can read the partition. If no such disk is available, create NTFS recognizing disk.

If the above case doesn’t, you should make sure that your hard disk is correctly configured in the BIOS. An improperly set hard disk is not accessible by Windows.

If you get this error even if BIOS settings are appropriate, the partition to be accessed is corrupted. To resolve the issue, you can delete the damaged partition if you have a backup to restore the data. But to extract data from a corrupted partition itself, you need to use a Windows Data Recovery Software. Designed to run effective scanning algorithms, these Windows Data Recovery software are competent enough to restore lost or deleted data from Windows disks.

Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery is a high-end, easy-to-use utility that can recover lost data from Windows disks partitioned to NTFS, NTFS5, FAT32, or VFAT file system. Providing advanced features like, disk cloning, disk imaging, RAW data recovery, etc., this is one of the most efficient Window Data Recovery Software.

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File Repair Category

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Data Safety Category

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This information is stored in the boot.ini file, which is not a read-only file. Because of not being a read-only file, the boot.ini file can get corrupt or may contain incorrect entries, due to which the system would not start. In such circumstances, you should modify the boot.ini file using the Windows Setup CD. However, if that does not work then you should use a third-party Windows data recovery software to recover Windows data.

Consider a scenario wherein you are unable to start your Windows XP system. The following error message is displayed in a black screen:

“Invalid Boot.ini”

Cause:

The root cause of this problem is that the boot.ini file is either missing, damaged, or contains incorrect entries.

Resolution:

To resolve this case, you would need to refurbish the boot.ini file. This can be done using the following steps:

Configure the boot settings in the BIOS (Basic Input/Output Section) so that you can boot the system using a Windows XP Setup CD.
Insert the CD in the CD-ROM drive and start the system.
Press R to enter the Recovery Console.
Type ‘bootcfg /list’ and press Enter to view the current entries in the boot.ini file.
Type ‘bootcfg /rebuild’ and press Enter to scan the hard disks and display the various operating systems present in the system.
Perform the instructions as they appear on the screen.
When you are through with all the tasks, then type ‘exit’ on the command prompt and press Enter to exit Recovery Console.
When the computer restarts, you will see the ‘Please select the operating system to start’ message. Select the appropriate operating system in which you want to start the system.

If the system is still not starting and is still inaccessible, then you should try to reinstall the operating system after recovering the trapped data. To do this, you can use a third-party Windows data recovery software. These data recovery tools have rich user interface that make the Windows recovery safe and easy to perform.

The most effective Windows data recovery software that works on FAT, NTFS, and exFAT file systems is Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery. Having the capability to recover Windows files from different types of storage media such as iPods, hard drives, pen drives, etc, this Windows data recovery tool is compatible with Windows 7, Vista, Server 2003, XP, 2000, and NT4(SP6).

Though you do have sufficient amount of free disk space left in the drive, you may witness warning messages suggesting low disk space and you need to free some space. Such errors may push you to make fresh partitions deleting the older ones and thereby loosing all the data in the drive. Under such cases, you have to go for any Windows data recovery software to recover back your lost data.

As per the discussions above, the error message that you may receive can be read as follows:

“Low Disk Space. You are running out of disk space on <Drive Letter>”

Note: <Drive Letter> is actually represented by the the drive symbol of the particular troubled drive.

Resolution:

In order to determine whether the disk space of the hard drive is accessible or not, try running the Windows XP installation disc. Follow the below steps to resolve the above error:

1.    Reboot the system and change the boot device in the BIOS. Change the boot device to CD-ROM.
2.    Run the Windows XP installation disc and then restart the computer. If a prompt comes asking to start from the CD, press any key to continue.
3.    When Windows XP setup screen is displayed, press on ENTER.
4.    The EULA or the End User License Agreement appears, just press F8 to accept it.
5.    On the next step, when the Windows XP Setup screen appears and shows the current Windows XP installations on the computer, press on ESC for affirming fresh installation of Windows XP without repairing.
6.    All the partition information is displayed with the Windows XP Setup screen. Check, whether all the partitioned and unpartitioned space are listed correctly or not.
7.    If you found out that all of your hard disk space is not listed, then there must be some problem with your system BIOS, which is preventing the system to recognize the hard drive.
8.    Contact your motherboard manufacturer and update the system BIOS.
9.    If you found out that the hard drive space is listed correctly, then select the existing Windows XP partition and press D to delete the partition.
10.    Make fresh partitions and install the OS once again.

By deleting the partitions and making fresh installation, all the data from the hard drive will be deleted. If you don’t have backup of your data or failed to restore the lost data from the backup, you have to run Windows data recovery utility to recover all your data back.

Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery is one of the highly acclaimed windows data recovery utility, with which you can successfully recover any lost, formatted or inaccessible data from the storage media. The software is designed for Windows 2000, XP, 2003, Vista, Windows 7 and recovers the lost data from the FAT, xFAT, NTFS file systems based volumes.

Working on my computer installed with Windows 7 and XP operating system, is a great experience. It not only gives me the opportunity of working on different platforms, but also facilitates the loading of the system, in case one of the two operating system crashes. With all these thought in my mind, I decided to use the left over unallocated space in my system to install another version of Windows. Since the other two had been done for me by my provider, I thought of proceeding with the same using my knowledge of the system. But before proceeding, I took a backup of all my data, to help me in case my data went missing or refused to load. I would have faced the need to recover Windows.

It was a matter of a few minutes before I managed to install Windows Vista on the third primary partition. I then decided to mark the Vista partition as active using the Windows Disk Management snap-in utility. But to my surprise the computer didn’t start, and I found following error message:

‘NTLDR is missing.
Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart.’

Needless to say, all my data, including audios, videos, pdfs, documents, multimedia files etc were inaccessible.

Reason:

The reason behind such a behavior was that the Windows partition that had been marked as active, didn’t have boot files for any operating system. And, to choose an operating system as the default operating system, its system partition should be marked as active.

Resolution:

To resolve the problem, I used the following means to change the active partition:

• Tried to change the active partition by booting with a floppy disk, and then manually changing the active partition using disk utilities.
• Booted the system using the boot disk of Windows XP.
• Since, the previously marked active partition was FAT or NTFS formatted, recovery console could also be used to resolve the problem and recover Windows files.

But, all measures failed in my case, and I formatted the entire system as all the attempts for Windows data recovery failed. But after a few minutes, I realized that I did have a backup, and could have used that to recover my data. But now, I had no operating system. I used another system to recover data from my backup, but the backup failed me. I had lost everything on that system.

Devastated, I sat down on the laptop, and narrated the incident to my chat friend, who suggested to me that I should use Windows data recovery software to get back my data. I asked her to suggest me one, and I did get all my data back.

I downloaded and installed Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery, and sure enough, all my files were recovered. The software can be installed on any version of Windows, including, Windows 7, Vista, 2003, XP and 2000. It had a very simple yet a very easy to understand interface. With a detailed documentation, and read-only nature, it is an efficient and bankable tool.

On a Sunday afternoon, while trying to start your office laptop, it took unusually longer time and eventually stuck in the middle. Furthermore, it showed the blue screen of death or a black screen with an error message. The booting process got halted at that point and all your data remained inaccessible. The possible error flashing on the screen may be as below:

“No bootable partition in table”

Cause:

•    Most likely, the above error can be caused due to the corruption of the Master Boot Record (MBR). Another possibility is that if by any operation, you have modified the disk MBR or your system is not getting the one it is looking for.

•    Another ordinary possibility is that may be the system has been set to boot from any storage media, which doesn’t have any valid boot instruction set in the MBR. In simple, the system is trying to boot from a non bootable CD, DVD or a USB device.

Resolution:

•    Ensure that there is no CD, DVD or any other device connected to the system and moreover, check for the correct boot sequence.
•    If the above is alright and the error still persists, put the Windows system installation disk, and open the recovery console by pressing the key ‘R’ at the start-up. Then run the command ‘fixmbr’.
•    After trying the above options, if the problem remains unresolved, then the only way left is to make a fresh installation of the operating system.

However, if you don’t have any valid backup, then you have to use any Windows data recovery software in order to recover your valuable data.

These Windows data recovery software are capable of recovering any lost, deleted, formatted or inaccessible data from a Windows operating system based hard drive. Moreover, the software usually have Windows look-a-like user interfaces and come with detailed instruction sets.

Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery is a popular utility that recovers any Windows data from FAT, exFAT and NTFS file system volumes under any instance of data loss. The software is compatible with Microsoft Windows 7, Vista,  2003, 2002(XP), 2000 and comes with advanced safety features like hard drive cloning, creating image of the chosen volume, save scan to resume recovery of data later on etc.

During startup of my Windows Vista system, immediately after the splash screen, there appeared a black screen which had a moving progress bar. Along with this, an error message also flashed:

“A problem has been detected and Windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer.

CLFS.SYS

PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA

If this is the first time you’ve seen this Stop error screen, restart your computer. If this screen appears again, follow these steps:

Check to make sure any new hardware or software is properly installed. If this is a new installation, ask your hardware or software manufacturer for any Windows updates you might need.

If problems continue, disable or remove any newly installed hardware or software. Disable BIOS memory options such as caching or shadowing. If you need to use Safe Mode to remove or disable components, restart your computer, press F8 to select Advanced Startup options, and then select Safe Mode.

Technical information:

*** STOP: 0×00000050 (0×8AFBF028,0×00000000,0×84E2C363,0×00000000)

*** CLFS.SYS - Address 0×84E2C363 base at 82e1b000 Datestamp 4549acbc”

Cause:

Generally, this problem appears when the CLFS.SYS file is corrupt or damaged. This error is followed by non booting of your Windows Vista, thus leading to inaccessibility of the hard drive data. In such situations, if you have some important file or data, which is stuck in the system, then it becomes impossible to recover that data unless you have a backup. Otherwise you need to use ‘Startup Repair’ options to get rid of system booting problems.

But, if you cannot resolve the problem this way, then you’ll need to reinstall your Windows Vista to ensure your system starts to run properly. That done, to recover your data, you need to use effective Windows Recovery Software.

Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery is a trusted Windows data recovery tool that is compatible with Windows 7, Vista, XP, 2003, and 2000. Designed to run various recovery algorithms to recover data, this Windows Recovery Software installs on all FAT and NTFS file systems.

Scenario:

You are having an ASUS Pro31 Series laptop, where Windows XP professional operating system is installed. While fixing a problem with Microsoft Outlook, you are continuously trying to boot the system in safe mode and suddenly, the system failed to start, flashing an error message on the screen. You may have received any of the following error messages:

“Setup did not find any hard drives installed on your computer ”
OR
“Missing Operating System ”

OR
“Operating system not found”

Cause

The above mentioned error messages may appear due to any of the following conditions:
The BIOS does not detect the hard disk.
The partition that has been marked as Active is incompatible.
The partition that  contains the MBR is no longer active.
The first sector of the hard disk has been corrupted or there is any corruption to the MBR.
There may be some damage to the hard disk.

Resolution

As there are multiple causes behind the issue, you have to check in different angels in order to resolve the issue:

Verify, whether the BIOS lists and recognizes the hard disk.

Try the command fixmbr in the Windows XP Recovery Console to repair the initial sectors of the MBR.

This fixmbr can be harmful to the system if any hardware problem or virus related infection is present as in that particular situation, this command may make the partition inaccessible. Hence, it is advised to run the anti virus utility before running the fixmbr command.

If the above measures fail to resolve the issues and valid backup is not there with you, this is indeed a serious case of data loss. In this situation, you have to take the help of any available Windows data recovery software to recover your invaluable data back. These Windows data recovery utilities are so interactive that you don’t have learn the technology behind it.

So, what to do? Running Chkdsk utility doesn’t help in case of severe damage to the volume. But don’t worry, you have an updated backup, that can be used to perform Windows data recovery. The problem only comes, if you do not have backup with you!

The other day, I found that one of my volumes of the 2003 server hard drive was corrupt. Unfortunately, running chkdsk/f command line utility did nothing to fix my problem. Instead, my computer rebooted unexpectedly, and gave me the following Stop error message:

Stop 0×00000024 ( parameter1 , parameter2 , parameter3 , parameter4 )

Apart from the error message, when you check the System Log, following event is marked in it:

Event type: Error

Event source: EventLog

Event category: None

Event ID: 6008

Date: Date

Time: Time

User: N/A

Computer: ComputerName

Description: The previous system shutdown at PreviousTime on PreviousDate was unexpected.

This problem is caused due to passing of incorrect SCB (stream control board) pointer from the Ntfs.sys to the system, when Chkdsk.exe flushes its target volume. In case of corruption of target volume, the NTFS file system marks the target volume with a ‘dirty’ flag.

There are two ways of resolving this problem.

Download the hotfix that is available on Microsoft website. On applying the hotfix, chances are that you will recover your partition along with all your data.

But if in case it doesn’t help you, then you’ll have to format your hard drive to fix the file system problem. This needs to be followed by recovery of all the data that was saved in the drive using Windows data recovery software. A recovery software uses high-end scanning technique to scan and then gather together the pieces of   data that have been deleted owing to formatting.

Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery software recovers your data from Windows Server 2003, running on NTFS file system volume. Besides these, the software can recover data from FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, VFAT and exFAT file system volumes. This Windows data recovery software operates on other operating systems including Windows 7, Vista, XP, and 2000.

Considering a practical situation in which you have a Windows Server 2003 system. When you try to start the system. It fails to do so and stops at a black screen or hangs while booting.

Cause:

For this scenario, there could be the following reasons that are causing this issue:

Having conflicts with some Windows Driver that is hindering the boot process.

Incompatibility with some third-party driver that is stopping the system from booting.

Resolution:

To repair such issues, you should modify the registry entries for the concerned registries. However, you should be extremely careful in doing this or take assistance from some technician as any mistake while modifying the registries would definitely result in more serious damage. To modify the registries, you should perform the following steps:

Start the system in Safe Mode.

Click Start | Run.

Enter ‘regedit’ in ‘Run’ box. The Registry Editor window will be displayed.

Navigate to the following registry key

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SafeBoot\Minimal

Export this key to the following file:

SafeBoot.reg

Navigate to the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services

Export this key to the following file:

Services.reg

Edit this file by opening it in Notepad.

In this Notepad file, find all the entries matching to the following registry key:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SafeBoot\Minimal

After finding the matching registry keys, replace them with the following registry key:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services

Save the ‘Services.reg’ file and close the file.

Restart the computer in normal mode.

However, if this problem does not get solved by modifying the registry keys that means you are not able to recover windows files .  So, to recover the valuable data, using an efficient third-party Windows data recovery software remains the only solution.

One of the most reliable data recovery tools available is Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery that recovers inaccessible or deleted files from various storage media such as hard drives, pen drives, iPods, etc. Compatible with Windows 7, Vista, Server 2003, XP, and 2000, this Windows data recovery tool is supported by FAT, NTFS, and exFAT file systems. The tool is equipped with a Boot CD that enables to boot the system when it is not booting properly.