Corrupt external harddrive partition - data recovery tools?

[iceman]

Hi guys

I use a 300gig external hard-drive to store everything on, my images, capturing avi's while imaging, etc.

It's partitioned into two drives - a 100gig and 200gig.

Yesterday, the 200gig drive started clunking as hard drives do before they're about to die, then it died. :( :( :bashcomp:

I do have a backup, but the backup is about 2 months old so I would lose some data if I can't recover it :(

When I try and access the drive it says :

"file or directory is not accessible or corrupt".

I tried running partial table doctor on it, which knew that it was broken, but wasn't able to repair it. It finally suggested I should use a data recovery solution to get the data off it.

Can anyone suggest some free (or low cost) data recovery programs to save my data?

Thanks in advance.

[Maverick]

Hi Mike!

Does HDD spin or not:(?If it's spining :)try to freeze your HDD in sealed plastic bag for one hour and then try if you can do one more back up:thumbsup:.If it's working just copy/paste files to your PC.If it's not working get some recovery program like Acronis or Recovery manager;).There are some free programs like http://www.pcinspector.de/Sites/file_recovery/info.htm?language=1 :P.If using any program install your failed ext. HDD as secondary HDD in your PC and try recovery/backup with program you installed.

Hope you will have luck

[programmer]

Mike, I was looking for such a solution some weeks back, and none of the free tools were doing the trick for me. I then found one inexpensive tool (about $60 I think) that did the job without a hitch. All depends on the physical state of your drive of course, but if you use the trial version and see what happens, you'll know whether to fork out for it or not.

Unfortunately it's at home and I don't remember the name. If you don't have an answer by the end of the day I'll post something tonight.

Whichever program you get, don't use the drive until you have it.

[bird]

Mike, I've had to do this in the last, but under Linux, not Windows!

I used the "dd" tool under linux to take a sector-by-sector copy of the drive, stored this as a big file on my desktop machine and then played with that copy to do all the recovery work. This means you only have to fire the faulty drive up once to take the copy.

I guess there's something similar for Windows? You're much better off working with a copy like this than trying to use the faulty drive, in case it degrades further.

This assumes that the drive is still functional, if it's died completely then your only option may be to send it off to one of the data recovery places and have them disassemble it to recover the data.

cheers, Bird

[acropolite]

Mike, if the Hdd is clunking it may be because the platters are not spinning. I have, on several occasions, been able to coax the platters in to spinning by taking the drive out and rapidly twisting it, relying on the inertia of the platters to move past the sticky point.

FWIW I keep 2 copies of every image I have, one on my local machine and one on an external drive.

[iceman]

Hi guys

The other partition on the drive works fine - so I suspected it's sector based and not the physical drive itself.

programmer, i'd be happy to fork out $60 to get my data back. Let me know the name when you get home :)

Thanks for the advice so far.

[Omaroo]

Mike - what file system are you using, NTFS or FAT?

[iceman]

I believe it's NTFS.

[Dooghan]

Get a copy of :prey2: SpinRite (http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm) the HDD recovery, repair and maintantence program. I can tell you now it was the best US$85 I have every spent. It has fix every HDD problem I have ever had and has intercepted some before they become problems. It doesn't care what the OS is on the HDD. It could be NTFS, DOS, Mac, Linux, iPod drives etc. It works at a low level under the OS of the drive. The program is only about 200k (program or boot OS) and can be installed on a CD or USB drive. Give it a go and I bet it will fix the problem.

[iceman]

Thanks Dooghan - will try it tonight. :cheers:

[programmer]

Mike, I'm pretty sure it's this one:

Disk Doctors NTFS Data Recovery (http://www.diskdoctors.net)

Dumb name but it can detect files even if the file system is cactus. It's $99 thought not $60 :shrug:

Detection is free though.

[Tandum]

I use 2 free ones and can normally get lost files back with one or the other.

Google search for rest2514 and pci_filerecovery to find them.

If i can't get files back with them, then it's off to the lab for a large bill :)

[Sentinel]

Mike,

Get Spinrite as recommended from grc.com

[iceman]

I've downloaded it, but haven't been able to run it yet.

It only looks at internal drives, so it doesn't recognise/find my external drives. I'm trying to create a CDROM boot disk that has:

- boot software
- spinright
- usb drivers

I think i've just about got it now but will need to wait till this arvo/tonight to run it. Not having a floppy drive is a royal PITA when it comes to this stuff!

Failing that, i'm gonna have to take the external drive out of its casing and hook it up to the PC directly.

[netwolf]

I have not had much luck with dos usb drivers. Your better of taking the disk out of the enclosure and directly plugging it into you pc. I have heard much good about Steve Gibbs and his spinwrite and other software. Steve was a regular on Leo laporte Call for Help tv show. Fortunately thus far i have not had the need to try it out.

[iceman]

I finally got some dos usb drivers working and ran spinrite but it didn't find any probs in the high level scan.

I used some windows software (trialware) that did an extensive scan and found all the files, and they can be recovered, but now i gotta buy the software.

I'll give spinrite another go on the deep scan when I can afford for the computer to be booted in dos for 5 hours.

[Merlin66]

We "lost" a whole load of family photos ( never happened to the old shoe box system!!) and found the only program which could find them was ISOBuster.
You can get a trial download to see if it will work for you.
Saved my a*** and now is part of the software collection.

[iceman]

ISO Buster looks like it's just for CD/DVD's.. not HDD's.

[programmer]

Good that something found your files Mike. Which one was it and is it expensive?

[kamayok3]

Hi,

try a software from Runtime GetDataBack for NTFS.....

Regards,

Tommy

[SMR]

Yep. I've used this and it's been pretty successful. Works with external USB drives from Windows.

Steve