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Roland
Advanced Member
Netherlands
9335 Posts |
 Posted - 29 December 2003 : 12:58:03
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I had my computer at work on last night so it could do some maintenance during the night. When I got back to work this morning I rebooted and was greeted by the Windows XP disk check screen that told me there was a problem on my external hard drive. Instead of exiting out of that, what I normally do, I let it run as I had nothing better to do at the time. I tell you, it's the biggest mistake I've made this year. Now the drive has an "unrecognizable file system", has "c:\windows\something.txt" as the drive name, and when I try to access it, I get asked if I want to format it.
Normally I wouldn't make a big deal out of it, but I was going to make backups of everything on that drive today as it contains all my clients' files (last backup was made way too long ago).
Does anyone know of a utility that I can use to try and save at least some of the data on the drive before I format it?
I've tried the drive on two computers, both with the same result, and I can't think of what else to try. If I lose all that info, I'll be set back several weeks in my work and I'll have to recreate a lot of files, so all suggestions are more than welcome. |
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Dave.
Senior Member
USA
1037 Posts |
Posted - 29 December 2003 : 13:08:09
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| Have you looked in "c:\windows\something.txt" (If there is a txt file in your c:\WINDOWS) for any clues as to what might have happened? |
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miperez
Junior Member
Spain
243 Posts |
Posted - 29 December 2003 : 13:36:11
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I heard some of my partners talking about a tool named "GetDataBack" some time ago, for a similar problem, but you know that using this kind of tools is kinda risky... you might really get your data back or you could definitely loose everything.
I haven't ever used it, I just remember the name, so I cannot provide you with more info, but maybe you can take a look at it and see what it looks like, or maybe other snitzers might have used it.
Good luck anyway!! |
Best Regards
Mikel Perez
"Hell is the place where everything test perfectly, and nothing works"
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Roland
Advanced Member
Netherlands
9335 Posts |
Posted - 29 December 2003 : 13:57:56
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| Mikel, it seems your suggestion for GetDataBack works. At least so far it seems to be finding the data, and it's discovered a bad sector. If this means I can get even 50% of my clients' files back it'll be great already. 50% is a lot more than 0%, which I'd have gotten if I'd formatted it ;) |
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miperez
Junior Member
Spain
243 Posts |
Posted - 29 December 2003 : 14:27:37
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Glad to hear that, Roland, I hope you can recover most of your data.
I have read some information about it when I have come back home, and as it seems to be read-only, I guess that the worst thing that could happen is not to get anything back, but it won't make things worse than before...
BTW, I'm proud and happy for having apparently been able to help a moderator, so I'll go to the kitchen and award myself with another piece of Christmas cake  |
Best Regards
Mikel Perez
"Hell is the place where everything test perfectly, and nothing works"
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wii
Free ASP Hosts Moderator
Denmark
2632 Posts |
Posted - 30 December 2003 : 01:53:18
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| I´m glad to have all my data burned on discs, just in case. |
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Gremlin
General Help Moderator
New Zealand
7528 Posts |
Posted - 30 December 2003 : 08:55:05
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| Just don't forget CDR discs have a limited lifetime, some cheaper ones start degrading after even just a year or two. |
Kiwihosting.Net - The Forum Hosting Specialists
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Roland
Advanced Member
Netherlands
9335 Posts |
Posted - 01 January 2004 : 09:44:45
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I got almost everything back, and the few things that were on corrupt sectors weren't important as they were on old backups. It was definitely worth the €80.
As for CDr discs going bad... I read several tests, and it seems to be true, but not necessarily for cheap CDrs only. Also the way you store them, the amount of usage (possible scratches that arise from usage), and such seem to be of importance too.
I had a total of 10 CDrs completely filled with the last backup, and those will be stored in the jewel case, in a dark place, and won't be used unless the drive goes bad again.
In any case, the majority of files that're on those discs will be burnt onto new discs during the next backup.
Does anyone know if making backups on DVD-RW discs (either DVD+RW or DVD-RW) is a good alternative to using CDRs? We're planning on buying an external DVD-RW/+RW drive so we can make backups on that every week (to cut the costs as DVD-R/+R/-RW/+RW discs are still expensive compared to CDRs), and then make a monthly backup on DVD-R/+R discs.
Tapestreamers are just too expensive, so that's why we're looking into DVDs. |
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Gremlin
General Help Moderator
New Zealand
7528 Posts |
Posted - 01 January 2004 : 17:55:40
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| DVD Backups work fine I personally use DVD-RW for some of my less important backups, in fact from what I've read they may even last a little longer than CDR's. Personally I do most of my important stuff onto Tape, if you look around on ebay or local 2nd hand sites you can pick them up fairly cheaply. I just last week brought a Surestore 12000 for $25 US which is a DDS2 Tape Drive with a 6 tape autoloader giving around 48GB Compressed capacity :) .. it's was in absolutely mint condition so a good buy imo. |
Kiwihosting.Net - The Forum Hosting Specialists
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Edited by - Gremlin on 02 January 2004 03:44:13 |
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redbrad0
Advanced Member
USA
3725 Posts |
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seven
Senior Member
USA
1037 Posts |
Posted - 02 January 2004 : 16:47:37
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Roland...
How long did it take for the software to do the initial scan of the drive sectors? I have a 57GB corrupt drive that I am trying to extract data off of and the scan has been going for well over 32 hours. It's at 42%, still working just sloooowww. 
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Roland
Advanced Member
Netherlands
9335 Posts |
Posted - 06 January 2004 : 14:10:11
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| I have a 120GB drive and it took a few (maybe 3) hours to do both the scan and the recovery. I had it as a FAT32 drive though, don't know if that makes any difference with NTFS drives. |
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seven
Senior Member
USA
1037 Posts |
Posted - 06 January 2004 : 18:45:33
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It got done with the first scan last week Thursday, now its doing a second scan, from last week Friday to today and only at 50%. The hard drive is really bad, but if I don't get any files after a weeks worth of this software running I'm going to see how far in the air I can throw it...
quote:
Originally posted by Roland
I have a 120GB drive and it took a few (maybe 3) hours to do both the scan and the recovery. I had it as a FAT32 drive though, don't know if that makes any difference with NTFS drives.
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