iPhone 3GS from AT&T. Free Shipping
Community Newsletter: Q&A: Ways to recover data from a corrupt hard drive?
- 10/10/08 3:51 PM
copy it to a new disk
by smfabac - 10/11/08 12:21 PM In reply to: Ways to recover data from a corrupt hard drive? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I suggest that you use Acronis Tru Image to copy the failed disk to a new hard disk and see how that works for you.
I had a client whose Windows XP home machine would not boot. At least it appeared that it would not boot. Leaving the machine alone for several hours saw it boot to the login screen. But it was real sloooow
after that and was unusable: Clicking on My Computer took 10-20 minutes to open up. There was some problem with the disk that
prevented Windows from working properly. I tried Symantic Ghost 2003 to copy the disk to another disk but Ghost puked with a message about bad sectors and aborted. Next I tried Acronis Tru Image to copy the disk to the new disk. Acronis also reported that there were bad sectors but importantly, offered the "ignore" option. I ignored the bad sectors and by the next morning, the disk had been copied and the new disk booted without complaint in the client's machine and everything was back to normal.
I have seen this problem twice on Windows systems. Always running on SATA drives, never on PATA. The drive was a WD and it failed the WD diagnostics and WD replaced it under warranty.
I have not read the rest of the posts to your problem. So someone else may have already suggested copying the disk to a new disk. From your description that some pegs were recoverable but the software you were using was only 10% completed after three hours sounds like the same problem my client experienced.
did you say
by slam5 - 10/11/08 3:57 PM In reply to: Ways to recover data from a corrupt hard drive? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
did you say that the drive stop working(as in spinning)? or it is spinning:holding it when power is on and see whether it is vibrating. if it is not spinning then the solution can be easy. power down the drive, tap it gently on the side when you apply power to it. it is an old problem with some drives. if it works, please make sure you do not use the drive after you recover the data. personally, i like spinrite.
Freezer option - don't dismiss it
by Ken664 - 10/11/08 4:22 PM In reply to: Ways to recover data from a corrupt hard drive? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
People may sneer but we had great success using the freezer method in just such a case recently (no thanks to your brand new machine Hewlett Packard!), and succeeded in saving and downloading a few thousand irreplaceable photos and videos my son had taken while on a coast-to-coast road trip (and had uploaded to the laptop for safekeeping, from his camera!!).
Before you start though you have to accept all may be lost, and anything you get back is a bonus.
We used Knoppix (a free linux system disc) on a bootable CD to actually run the laptop thus bypassing Vista and Windows (my very first foray into Linux, btw, I'm no expert). Just Google it and follow the directions to burn the boot disc.
We hooked up a backup Hard Drive, and after freezing the useless drive for a few hours, reinstalled it in the machine and managed to get going for 20/30 mins or so of downloading before it went back in to a coma. We repeated this perhaps 7 or 8 times and it kept coming back to life for variable periods and enabled us to get all the stored data off. It eventually died terminally and we sent the whole lot back to HP and got our money back [they had accepted the drive was mince and would be destroyed by them anyway and agreed for us to do this, I guess in the name of good customer relations, and didn't quibble about us over warranty stuff (which amazed me)].
Good luck
Ken
Hard Drive Recovery
by LostValley - 10/12/08 2:03 PM In reply to: Ways to recover data from a corrupt hard drive? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Try the hard drive manufacturers tools. Hitachi(old IBM), Seagate(maxtor, quantum?, etc), Western Digital. IF oem system/drive check their site for tools.
Sounds like FAT part of MBR out. lHardware specific tools may recover index. Be sure to read all screens carefully. Good luck.
HDD Regenerator
by markpcfixer - 10/13/08 5:01 AM In reply to: Ways to recover data from a corrupt hard drive? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
This program has saved my butt many times, I have had the exact same issue as yours on several client computers. HDD regenerator will run, usually over many hours, and will fix bad sectors and recover data on those bad sectors. You can find it at http://www.dposoft.net/. After that, from windows run chkdsk on the drive. Assuming your drive letter is d:, it would be chkdsk d:/r
HDD Regenerator
by sborsher - 10/13/08 6:41 AM In reply to: HDD Regenerator by markpcfixerMark the PC Fixer,
Thanks for that tip. I've read every response in this thread and that is the suggestion/product recommendation that I had not heard of or tried. I downloaded it and will try it on a laptop drive (if I still have it) which defied all other attempts.
Steve Borsher
Ways to Recover Corrupt Pictures from a Flash Drive
by sheshe1987 - 10/13/08 6:25 AM In reply to: Ways to recover data from a corrupt hard drive? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Would any of this software work for a flash drive? I have photos that I moved to a PNY Attache 8GB flash drive to get them off my computer...luckily before it crashed...and now some of them are corrupt. The music I moved over is fine...just affected some of the photos. When looking at the thumbnails, the affected ones either are pixeled, look like someone tried to turn them into abstract works of art or 1/2 the photo is missing. Some of the affected photos can be seen just fine nn the thumbnail view, but show their true selves when trying to edit or do anything else. Again, not every photo was affected...just a good majority.
All the photos were taken with a digital camera, and moved to the computer to free up the memory stick. Then they were moved to the flash drive to keep from losing them as I noticed the computer was giving me problems.
I've never had problems with this brand of flash drive before.
Thanx for any help!
Re: Restoring data from a flash card
by Gsosa--2008 - 10/13/08 6:52 AM In reply to: Ways to Recover Corrupt Pictures from a Flash Drive by sheshe1987Most data recovery tools work on flash drives too. I've used Data Rescue II successfully on Memory Stick and SD cards and always been able to restore from a formatted card. Never tried on a damaged card though.
Good luck!
Ways to Recover Corrupt Pictures from a Flash Drive
by abick - 10/17/08 4:54 PM In reply to: Ways to Recover Corrupt Pictures from a Flash Drive by sheshe1987yes, Knoppix can find those too. For USB, let Knoppix boot completely and then insert the usb key. It will also appear on the left side as an icon. **For everyone out there, I also use Winternals ERD Commander on a daily basis for data recovery. As well as many other funtions, it lets you search for missing files and simply copy them to a "temp" directory. Very helpful for recovering deleted files. I haven't figured out how to get the usb to read but am working on a solution. It can't be hot swapped with ERD as it can with Knoppix.
Ways to recover data from a corrupt hard drive?
by abick - 10/13/08 8:29 AM In reply to: Ways to recover data from a corrupt hard drive? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I haven't read all the posts but here's way I use almost daily. If the HD is seen in the BIOS, download a copy of Knoppix and make a bootable CD. Install HD as a slave on a running system. Boot with Knoppix. Once Knoppix boots you should see the HD's as icons on the left. Single click to go to the next level of the files. Mount both drives. If Knoppix sees the files you have lost, right click and copy to the other drive in a "temp" folder. Good luck. Need help or more instructions, let me know.
Al
Sometimes, inexpensive programs can do the trick!
by ssalava - 10/13/08 4:12 PM In reply to: Ways to recover data from a corrupt hard drive? by abickAfter transferring files and settings to 250GB Western Digital external HDD during a Vista downgrade to XP, I forgot and left it connected during the installation process. I accidentally deleted the partition on the external drive -- yikes!
I realized my error before I had formatted it. I went to the WD website and got a quote from one of their data recovery partners. Despite my careful description of the situation, they provided a canned quote of $600-$1,200 to recover my data.
Their high cost forced me to keep searching until I found Active Partition Recovery for Windows 5.1 via CNET. $40 and a few minutes later, my HDD was back in business.
See: Re: http://www.download.com/Active-Partition-Recovery-for-Windows/3000-2094_4-10792187.html?tag=lst-1
and http://www.partition-recovery.com/
I realize that this is a unique situation but I've read some advice on this forum that would have guided me to spend a lot more than I needed to.
How to recover a drive.
by melondrift - 10/13/08 6:24 PM In reply to: Ways to recover data from a corrupt hard drive? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
If you read this, read all of it, then use what you think you need to proceed.
If you're using microsoft, burn a bootable open ended cd (a boot disk, not an install disk) to the os that is on the corrupted drive. Then, burn "utility programs" to that cd (keeping it open ended so that you can add more info in the future if need be, like a competent virus scanner). For microsofts os's, you can use simple tools like fdisk, scandisk, chkdsk, and the like to fix most software problems that often arrise from use of such os's. If you're using linux, the same can be accomplished by burning a live cd of one of their distro's (use the one that is best suited for the computer you're working on), and use the tools that are already provided. For linux, there are extensive amounts of helps to nearly any question you could have for their os's, all you have to do is use an online search engine. Linux distro's are highly compatible with each other, so it is no problem to work on ubuntu from kubuntu or xubuntu, or whatever really.
Now, if you are worried that the os existing on the hard drive in question has been thrashed, once you are able to read the drive, get the stuff off of there. This can be done be simply moving it to the new hard drive, or, if you can only access one drive at a time, (this is what I have done to remedy such problems) get a usb storage drive. I got a 250GB usb hard drive for a very decent price, and it has been invaluable to myself, my family, and even some friends who have come to me for help.
Remember one thing if you are working with microsoft. Trying to fix one installation of windows from another installation of windows will end in tears. If windows vista is used to try to fix a windows 98 drive with problems, it will most likely thrash what's left of the drive, visa versa to all installs of windows. Lets say you had Vista on the non-working drive, if you put Vista from a different install package on the new drive and try to fix the old one, the new Vista could possibly thrash what's left of the old one. The windows boot disk can be from any source, as long as it from a similar os, I.E. use win98 boot disk to fix win98 problems, and use a disk made bootable by vista to fix vista problems (if that's even possible with vista).
I've fixed a couple of windows drives from a linux live cd without any problems, those were problems in which the os had corrupted the boot tables and not the system files.
I'm thinking that your problem could be the boot tables (these tables tell the computer how to talk to the drive and where to find the files, so use scandisk or fdisk (one of those usually works) for windows or if using linux then use cfdisk or any other linux based partition editors). Now, if you get into the drive and the system files end up being shot as well and you're using windows, you have to have the original install disk to fix that problem. The best thing to do when the system files are corrupted for any os is to save your personal info to elsewhere, wipe the drive and do a fresh install. (although, there have been occasions where I've gotten away with doing "System File Check" to fix that type of problem) "System File Check" for windows is different for each distro so check that one online, the "System File Check" for linux is "fsck" for all distro's (remember, do not have the drive mounted when running fsck in linux).
Luck to you 8-)
Melondrift
wasnt fun
by anitat29 - 10/14/08 7:24 AM In reply to: Ways to recover data from a corrupt hard drive? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
i had just recently lost my entire windows desk top,task bars and start up panel. i couldnt do anything. very upsetting, anyway i started my pc in safe mode. it than allowed me access to my windows, and i had to restore my pc to an earlier date and thank goodness when i restarted in regular mode my computer came back it was saved. i was worried that it would cost me alot to have repaired. but didnt
yah:)...but once restored norton saved my pc from the viris that attacked in the first place.
Try Gibson Research SpinRite 6
by dlee0754 - 10/14/08 12:12 PM In reply to: Ways to recover data from a corrupt hard drive? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
This may be the best hard drive utility out there. Go to http://www.grc.com to check it out. It is also the best place to check the security of your system and learn ways to plug all of the security holes.
Hiren’s BootCD or dexter’s SuperBoot CD
by mmd7 - 10/14/08 2:34 PM In reply to: Try Gibson Research SpinRite 6 by dlee0754Have a look into Hiren’s BootCD or dexter’s SuperBoot CD, they contain an exceptional software collection of all kinds of tools including SpinRite 6.0 and HDD regenerator, the list is very long. It is highly recommended for every one. I think many people will like SpinRite after reading about how it works and what it does with your data!
In case your hard disk is not seen by your BIOS and assuming the jumpers on the hard disk are correctly placed, the hard disk is correctly connected (data and power cables) and the cables are not bad, then I think you have either bad electronic part, or bad mechanical part in this case swapping hard disk controller board with a good one should solve the bad electronic part problem. Going further is risky task, replacing the mechanical parts by swapping the hard disk media with another exact hard disk with good mechanical parts.
| Forum legend: | |
 |
Locked thread |
 |
Moderator |
 |
CNET staff |
 |
Samsung staff |
 |
Norton Authorized Support team |
 |
AVG staff |
 |
Windows Outreach team |
 |
Dell staff |
 |
Intel staff |
