Hard Disk Corruption

[Fx10]

Earlier this evening, windows popped up a small warning in the system tray telling me that D:\????? was corrupt and to run chkdsk on it. I immediately quite what I was doing and opened the drive in under my computer, and after a couple minute wait it produced the first level of directory information, but attempting to open the folders provided an error and no data.

I tried running chkdsk, but that just detected it was a NTFS drive, and then died.

Scandisk wouldn't start on it.

I did some quick research on the issue and tried running GetDataBack, PartitionDoctor, and Easy Recovery, but those all locked up while scanning the drive. When I tried to do more research, firefox locked up and I had to restart my system. Only to find that it would hang while loading windows. After disconnecting it, I was able to restart normally. I'm not sure if it would boot if I left it going long enough, but it's on my list of things to try next.

Does anyone out there have any advice on what I should try next?

 

[alzan]

Easy, just by a new drive, format it then restore your D: drive from your backup disks...sorry it was too easy, I couldn't resist.

If the drive is causing your system to hang or not boot, it's probably dead. If you could perhaps find a working duplicate drive (exact model and type) and swapped the controller board, there's an outside chance that you could get your data back. Other than that, your only option would be the various data recovery services (open your wallet and begin dispensing money, they'll tell you when to stop.)

alzan

 

[QueBert]

sorry I don't have a link, but I used a program called Prosoft Media Tools, it's DOS based and you run it off a bootcd. It saved my files when nothing else would, data/partition recovery can be really touchy system to system but look into it. If I wasn't half asleep I'd find a link for you. But it's a Dos program, not the Win version. It saved 99% of my HD that went haywire last week, can't hurt to try. It's possible the MBR is just corrupt if that's the case it's should be easy.

 

[Laputa]

Firmware corruption if you know what I'm talking about. If not, you can not fix it without a 13000 machine...

 

[montag451]

Laputa, I am confused now.

Anyway, depending on how shot the drive is, (and it is always worth changing the cable for a new one first, just in case), could try Spinrite6, or as Quebert said - prosoft media tools (don't know it myself, but if it works for one, can't be too bad.)
Would also try your hdd manufacturer's website for a tool that could check the drive out - do a non destructive test as your data might still be there.
If the drive has mechanically gone, then you are pretty stuffed unless you want to throw lots of cash at the problem (again as Alzan suggested that would be the case).
If it is the drive mobo, then, as Alzan said, it is possible, but not that easy.

 

[Fx10]

So after spending a day running spinrite on my drive, it found a huge number of bad sectors in the first 2.367 to 2.368 (around 20k) and took about 9 hours of scanning to get that far. I canceled the scan and restarted it at 3%, and after running for 2 hours or so it completed finding around 2k bad sectors. Going of of this, I'm assuming that my data is still intact, it's just that my file table is hosed (assuming that's at the beginning of drive). So even if I ran spinrite the month or so (it takes around 2 minutes to 'fix' a sector from what I've tested) it wouldn't ensure any data would be recovered if the FAT was hosed.

Does anyone out there want to recommend a good method or program for rebuilding the FAT on a NTFS drive?

 

[montag451]

Spinrite can be a little slow on some portions of the drive, but if you kept it running, you'd most likely find that it would take <12 hours to scan the drive all in.

Anyway, did you try a fixmbr command in recovery console?
or
fixboot?

 

[Fx10]

I haven't tried that yet, I've been reluctant to try anything large for feat that I may screw things up even worse. A friend reccomended that I try chkdsk with the /f and /r flags. How does that contrast with fxmbr and fixboot?

 

[montag451]

If you are worried about screwing data up, try chkdsk without the /r.
The /r repairs automatically - you might want to see what it finds before you let it repair it.

 

[Fx10]

What I'm mainly worried about it what if chkdsk tries to read from the bad sectors at the beginning of the drive, and 'locking up' as it repeatedly tries to access the corrupted data like the various drive scanners that I've tried running on it do.

 

[montag451]

As long as you don't use the 'r' switch, it will be read only.

 

[Fx10]

What does the /f flag do? Because it dies just running chkdsk on it's own.

 

[Fx10]

Well, CHKDSK was a no-go. I tried out TestDisk. Found out that my boot record was good (well, that's a relief), but my MFT and MFT mirror are hosed. Is there a way to rebuild it, could going to a professional data recovery business help?

 

[montag451]

Well,
2 more options for now...

Slave the drive in another system, see what you can recover.

or

dl Knoppix live, see if you can run a diagnostics on the drive.
It boots from the cd and doesn't need the hdd - won't write anything to it anyway unless you specifically tell it to. (and not known for its gentleness with ntfs partitions)

 

[montag451]

Or

http://www.stellarinfo.com/