How to recover data and fix sectors

Discussion in 'backup, imaging & disk mgmt' started by Overkill, Jul 10, 2012.

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  1. Overkill

    Overkill Registered Member

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    I plugged in my maxtor 500 gb external this eve and windows gave me a pop-up to scan for errors so once I scanned and fixed the file system errors, my folder that had all my data that hasn't been burned to disc yet has disappeared...how can I recover the data and fix any possible bad sectors without losing anymore data?
     
  2. 2YsUR

    2YsUR Registered Member

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  3. claykin

    claykin Registered Member

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    You may not have "fixed" the errors. Its possible more damage was done during the file system repair.

    I recommend you stop further file system repair and purchase a copy of Spinrite from www.grc.com.
     
  4. jonyjoe101

    jonyjoe101 Registered Member

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    did you do a chkdsk x: / r (x = drive letter of drive) that is more thourough then the normal chkdsk windows does by default.
    If that doesnt work try testdisk, that always works for me. Both are free methods to fix the drive.
     
  5. Overkill

    Overkill Registered Member

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  6. Overkill

    Overkill Registered Member

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    I have spinrite and hdd regenerator plus a few other apps like getdataback and r-studio but not sure whch one to try first.
     
  7. Overkill

    Overkill Registered Member

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    Do you type that in run? or no?
     
  8. tgell

    tgell Registered Member

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    You need to type it at the command prompt. In Windows 7 type cmd in the search box and right click "Run as administrator"
     
  9. littleturle

    littleturle Registered Member

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    I encountered similar problem with my flash drive once and it was right before my sumbission of my thesis! DARN! I almost paniced.
    I tried some recovery software that could look into the data of the drive and receoved quite a bit of them, including some of my core source code and paper wrote. anyway, i lost a lot on images. I was not aware of this forum before. If i knew, probably i could have scored better without much loss.
    Any software to recommend? I sorta forgot what I used back then. =p
     
  10. tgell

    tgell Registered Member

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    See the link in Post #2. The thread lists a few programs that can recover data or repair partitions.
     
  11. claykin

    claykin Registered Member

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    Simple answer. Spinrite. I've used it for years and it has helped make many disks bootable or readable. This $90 program has saved thousands of $ in what would otherwise be professional data recovery.

    I have not had the same results with Testdisk. Wish I did since its free!
     
  12. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    claykin,

    Interesting. I have the opposite experience. It has never worked at all. Maybe my HDs were too far gone.
     
  13. claykin

    claykin Registered Member

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    Without knowing details, I can't really offer useful advice. However, I have found the leading cause of people feeling Spinrite doesn't work is due to impatience and not letting it run a full pass on the disk. With some problem disks Spinrite can run for days/weeks before it completes a full pass on the disk. I can count on one hand the number of disks that Spinrite couldn't help with.

    The above obviously excludes disks that are electrically dead, mechanically dead or otherwise undetectable to any controller.
     
  14. Overkill

    Overkill Registered Member

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    Oh ok thanks
     
  15. Overkill

    Overkill Registered Member

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    I will surely try!...Now will spinrite simply recover the data to where it was before it was lost or recover to a different area on the drive?
     
  16. andyman35

    andyman35 Registered Member

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    If you're attempting to recover data from a failing drive,I strongly advise you to image the drive first.This way you can perform data recovery on the mounted image rather than risking further corruption of the affected drive.

    A good resource to image a failing/corrupted drive is DD-Rescue which can be found on the Bootmed live cd:

    http://www.bootmed.com/bootmed/

    Of course you'll require a drive at least 500gb in order to create a forensic image,but these can be found cheaply now.It depends on the importance of the data you need to recover really.Personally I'd not trust a drive showing these errors for critical data,even if "repaired".I'd just use it for non-vital storage.
     
    Last edited: Jul 18, 2012
  17. Ashanta

    Ashanta Registered Member

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    Spinrite is a more efficient program than HDD regenerator in order to fix bad clusters and recover your HDD.
     
  18. Overkill

    Overkill Registered Member

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    Sorry for the delay, i've been busy offline...I just got finished with running chkdsk (took a few hours) and it said all sectors are fine but my stuff is still missing :mad:

    I guess i'll try testdisk next...i'll reply once that is done, not sure when i'll do it though.
     
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