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Any hope to recover data?

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  • Any hope to recover data?

    Hey, I'm hoping somebody here will be able to give me some guidance as I'm running out of ideas...

    Background:
    Partners computer decided randomly one morning that her system HDD doesn't work anymore. I tried all sorts of bios settings, cable and jumper combinations but the bottom line is that her computer would not recognize the drive even existed, not even at bootup let alone in windows after reinstalling windows onto her backup drive. I placed the damaged drive into my computer and not only did it not show up anywhere but it stopped my backup hdd from displaying in windows (told me it had to be formatted).

    I've determined that the only way I can get anything out of the hdd is to place it on an IDE channel all by itself. Luckily my primary hdd is a SATA drive so all I had to do was unplug my backup drive and we were in business, sort of...

    So windows now recognize the new piece of hardware and installs drivers for it. The problem now is that the Disk Management utility shows the physical drive (80g WD drive with 2 partitions) as only 7.5g in size. I assume that this space is what was left over from the 2 partitions. I also noted that my computer is VERY slow to boot past the windows loading screen when the damaged drive is attached.

    Recover My Files Results:
    Not good so far I'm afraid. I download the latest version and have tried to run fast and complete format recovers on the 7.5g physical drives to no avail. The search starts and it all seems OK but it runs incredibly slowly. I left it running overnight and almost 9hours later the search box read something like, "searching drive 0-80 of 16540064". Yes, that says 80 of 16 million. Now after 9 hours my very poor math skills tell me that I would have to wait somewhere around 100 years for that search to finish <?xml:namespace prefix = v ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" /><v:shapetype id=_x0000_t75 stroked="f" filled="f" path="m@4@5l@4@11@9@11@9@5xe" o:preferrelative="t" o:spt="75" coordsize="21600,21600"><v:stroke joinstyle="miter"></v:stroke><v:formulas><v:f eqn="if lineDrawn pixelLineWidth 0"></v:f><v:f eqn="sum @0 1 0"></v:f><v:f eqn="sum 0 0 @1"></v:f><v:f eqn="prod @2 1 2"></v:f><v:f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelWidth"></v:f><v:f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelHeight"></v:f><v:f eqn="sum @0 0 1"></v:f><v:f eqn="prod @6 1 2"></v:f><v:f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelWidth"></v:f><v:f eqn="sum @8 21600 0"></v:f><v:f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelHeight"></v:f><v:f eqn="sum @10 21600 0"></v:f></v:formulas><v:path o:connecttype="rect" gradientshapeok="t" o:extrusionok="f"></v:path><?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:lock aspectratio="t" v:ext="edit"></o:lock></v:shapetype>
    <v:shape id=_x0000_i1025 style="WIDTH: 12pt; HEIGHT: 12pt" alt="" type="#_x0000_t75"><v:imagedata o:href="http://forums.getdata.com/images/smilies/eek.gif" src="file:///C:/DOCUME~1/Rakesh/LOCALS~1/Temp/msoclip1/06/clip_image001.gif"></v:imagedata></v:shape>

    Oh and my computer that I'm trying to repair the drive on is WinXP Pro x64 edition. I don't know if this makes any difference but the stupid OS stuffs up so many programs that I never can be sure <v:shape id=_x0000_i1026 style="WIDTH: 12pt; HEIGHT: 12pt" alt="" type="#_x0000_t75"><v:imagedata o:href="http://forums.getdata.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif" src="file:///C:/DOCUME~1/Rakesh/LOCALS~1/Temp/msoclip1/06/clip_image002.gif"></v:imagedata></v:shape>

    So what now? Is there any hope left?<o:p></o:p>

  • #2
    Re: Any hope to recover data?

    The type of program needed to do what you're looking to do is by no means easy to use, might not work with X64, and probably won't do what you need. Now you might be looking into a simply file system failure, or you could be looking at corrupted sectors. We'll need some more information.

    What exactly does Disk Management show? If it's an 80GB drive, it should show an 80GB drive. If there are any partitions, it will show them, and if they're formatted, it will show that, too. If they are assigned Windows drive letters or can be, it will also show that. What exactly is it showing? Do you have a formatted, usable partition? Do you have unformatted partitions, or unpartitioned space?

    Provided it shows the entire physical drive as 7.5GB with no logical drive or as a single logical drive, you've experience a hard drive failure. You could attempt buying an identical model and swapping the PCBs, which is not an easy task nor is it likely to work even if done properly. If this is the sort of failure you're looking at, you'd need a forensics lab to retrieve data.

    If it's simply a few bad sectors and a couple of corrupted FATs or something of that sort, you might be able to do a simple chkdsk /r and fix everything.

    From what you're describing, it sounds more like a phyiscal failure that you simply haven't the means to work around.
    Last edited by Yawgm0th; 03-16-2007, 02:01 AM.

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    • #3
      Re: Any hope to recover data?

      I've found in the past that the HD recovery programs can take a long time in the damaged sectors - once they get passed that point - its a lot quicker
      http://community.smoothwall.org/foru...ic.php?t=20262

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      • #4
        Re: Any hope to recover data?

        Hi,I propose using Active@ Undelete. The tool is really powerful and can boot itself from disk if neededhttp://www.active-undelete.com/

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        • #5
          Re: Any hope to recover data?

          ARAX Disk Doctor is aslo a great choice to try. It worked perfectly for me in data recovery
          http://www.disk-doctor.com/

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