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Hard drive problems

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Fozzy The Bear:

--- Quote from: lcddream on April 19, 2007, 08:29:02 pm ---If all else fails you can try performing a quick format on the disk which I believe won't destroy all your data just make it "invisible".

Then you can attempt using data recovery software to get the files back.

Worth a shot if you are out of options.

--- End quote ---

That would be a very very very last resort. Because even a quick format can destroy data. It can certainly destroy file names.

His best bet right now is to go with exactly the route he's going using PC Investigator. If that can see the files and is able to copy them to his new drive then he's saved the situation.

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)

SavannahLion:

--- Quote from: lcddream on April 19, 2007, 08:29:02 pm ---If all else fails you can try performing a quick format on the disk which I believe won't destroy all your data just make it "invisible".

Then you can attempt using data recovery software to get the files back.

--- End quote ---

Holy crap, no. I did something similar by rebuilding the allocation table of a 30GB drive once. It's like quick formating the drive, but there's a better chance to recover the file names. Since I couldn't recover all of the names, I had to scan the drive and recover the files... every single damn file that have ever been created on the drive since dot. I spent months creating dozens of scripts to sift through and recover the orphans.

Imagine looking at 40 different versions of the same image you've worked on for months trying to figure out which one is the latest iteration worth keeping. Imagine doing that with every single file, school reports, schematics, CODE!!  :banghead:  I must've revisited every porn site that was ever stored in the cache. :dizzy:

I don't want to imagine trying to sort through 150+GB of data unless there was a  :censored: load of money at stake.

lcddream:
i said if all else fails. i would certainly try it, if i had data that was valuable to me on the drive in question, and NO other options worked,and if of course professional help was out of the question.

sorry if i understated myself.

patrickmaher:
Good Ideas


--- Quote from: NickG on April 18, 2007, 10:21:37 pm ---seems like you lost the partition info.
You may need to try some "disk recovery", "disk rescue", or "data

recovery" software I tried  some free ones and got my data back with one

of them.  Can't remember the name...

--- End quote ---


--- Quote from: zaphod on April 19, 2007, 11:57:49 am ---Can you pop the drive from within the external case and plug it into your PC itself, as a slave?  There might be a chance the external case's controller has gone out and the data is fine.  I'd want to eliminate the case as being the problem before doing something drastic.

--- End quote ---

This could be a damaged file system, a failing hard drive, or a failing controller on the external case.

It sounds like you have already removed the drive from the external casing and hooked it up internally.
Then you want to use data recovery software to scan the drive and copy all found data. If PC investigator doesn't work you can try these:
Get Data Back http://www.runtime.org/gdb.htm
Ontrack EasyRecovery http://www.ontrack.com/easyrecoverydatarecovery/

You can select all data found by the recovery software and copy everything, but if the hard drive is failing you should decide which data is most important and copy it first. You can usually save your recovery state at each step so you wont have to rescan the whole drive if something goes wrong.

After you have recovered the data, if you intend to use the drive again you should download the diagnostic tool from the hard drive manufacturers website and do a full test.

If it is data you can't afford to lose you should have a professional do this for you.



Bad Ideas


--- Quote from: lcddream on April 19, 2007, 01:12:46 am ---connect it to a windows xp machine and  in the command prompt run:

chkdsk <your drive letter>: /f

then run

chkdsk <your drive letter>: /r

if you already tried this then sorry can't help.

only other thing to try is data recovery software

--- End quote ---

In your situation I would not use scandisk until after using recovery software to backup your data. You can't be sure it is a file system problem, if you run scandisk on a failing hard drive you will make things much worse.
It is possible that you got the hourglass because of a failing controller or hard drive and if Windows was unable to complete communication with the drive it may have marked it as a dirty drive. When you rebooted the PC it is possible that Windows saw the drive marked as dirty which would cause it to run the automatic scandisk during bootup. If this is the case you would have seen the progress of the scan during boot up. If Windows ran this automatic scandisk, it is possible it caused further problems (such as the "This drive is not Formated" message).



--- Quote from: lcddream on April 19, 2007, 08:29:02 pm ---If all else fails you can try performing a quick format on the disk which I believe won't destroy all your data just make it "invisible".

Then you can attempt using data recovery software to get the files back.

Worth a shot if you are out of options.


--- End quote ---

Doing a quick format wont help the situation. If the recovery software is unable to find your data, doing a quick format is not going to help it to find it.

RayB:
I know of a service that will recover the entire drive for $500.  ;)

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