MBR failure/data recovery

[lupi]

Looks like my old WD 750 hard drive may have just suffered a MBR failure after I tried to do a reboot. Since a local shop sells a WD black 2TB for just $10 more than the egg, about to head there to pick up a new one. I do have some data I'd like to pull from the old drive, how hard will it be to do so?

 

[lupi]

Got the computer up on the new drive, recommendations on software to get the old one working so I can pull my email and other data?

 

[BathroomFeeling]

Did you try fixing the MBR through the XP recovery console?

 

[razel]

This is assuming you don't have a hardware failure. I would actually try to run WD's Windows Diagnonsis 1st. Just do the quick test. After that then I would do a data recovery.

After the hardware check, I'd 1st try testdisk. It will run in Windows, is very powerful and free, but is text menu based. Use it to see if it can find your partition and rebuild your MBR and partition table. You can also try to find any one of the free partition managers from Paragon, EASUS, etc. Those are GUI based and are easier to use. They also include an 'undelete' partition function and they also rebuild your partition table.

If that fails then you're left to scan the disk to find your files using a file signature type data recovery. This is far less accurate. PhotoRec and Recuva (both free) do this. Here is where different software data recovery programs differ. They use different file signatures to identify your files. Meaning you'll get different results using different ones.
In my experience, they do very well with picture and music files.

If you're iffy about all this then try Knoll Ontrack. It's a golden oldie, but does both partition recovery and file signature. The trial version allows you to recover one file at a time. I'm not sure if it will do partition, MBR recovery for free, but you can use it to investigate and inform you of the problem then use testdisk or photorec to do the hard work. Have fun.

 

[lupi]

it's actually a seagate drive now that I've gone inside, but I'd expect them to have about the same utilities as WD.

Other than email, pictures is all I'd really like to get, couple saved game files would be nice but not nearly as needed.

I looked at it with the vista disk in, and it gave me a line of xxx total space and 0 usable space. At this point I unplugged its cable to prevent anything from accidentally happening.


I'm over 90% sure it's not a hardware error as I seemed to pick up some sort of spyware a month or so back and may have been over-aggresive in cleaning it up after I got an online account of mine hacked. Due to various software error messages I've gotten recently and a clean report after doing a memory scan I had been planning on reinstalling soon anyways.

Will look into those programs when I get home. If I could get something that turns the drive into a regular drive long enough for me to dump the folders I had saved on my desktop in addition to my pst folder I'd be happy.

 

[Elixer]

I had this happen once, and testdisk fixed the issue.
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk (free)

Well worth giving it a shot.

 

[FishAk]

So... you bought 2 of the 2Tb drives right? One to use as a backup? You probably can get the 750Gb drive working again, and just use it for backup- but it won't back up 2Tb.

The one thing you can count on is that the 2Tb drive will die at some point. When that happens, you will be glad you have everything backed up, and that you don't have to worry about it again like this time.

 

[lupi]

Nope, have a 500gb external as permanent backup. On this machine (my main comp at my office desk) I keep a folder on it identical to the folder on my backup drive. When I go to update my backup I drag the new folders I've added to my desktop into my desktop backup folder and then copy that folder onto the external.

 

[FishAk]

That is good, and an external drive is great for backing up occasionally to keep data safe. It's completely separate with it's own power supply, and not usually connected, so if you mistakenly delete something, you can salvage it from the external drive.

But...

I do have some data I'd like to pull from the old drive, how hard will it be to do so?

With an internal drive and an automatic backup program that runs often, your chance of the above problem is greatly reduced.

 

[lupi]

Like I said, other than my up to date pst folder, the majority of other items would be convenience to restore. Either game saves or data gotten from other sources that I would just have to reaquire.

The only item I don't know if I could recoup otherwise was a free d/l game that came with my latest video card that I had not transferred to optical yet.

 

[tweakboy]

The bigger the capacity of drive the more platters the more prone to hard drive breaking down and having bad sectors.

People dont understand this and just buy a 2TB drive,, well I guarantee that 2TB drive will die soon enough,, must have a back up image my friend.

 

[lupi]

It may die, but a 6 year warranty is good.

 

[piasabird]

A warranty will not recover your files.

 

[lupi]

That's why I backup. And given that I've only had 2 hardware related HD failures over the last 20 years, it's been working good.

 

[tweakboy]

You can fix your problem possibly by doing a low level format

Download a free app to do low level format

and it will clean up your MBR etc. If you have problem finding free software to do this let us know.. gl

 

[lupi]

Finally had some time to work on getting the data off the old drive. Seems the failure I had was the good ole seagate 7200.11 size 0 problem. Now I just need to find a cable so I can reset the controller and get the drive working again.

 

[lupi]

finally got around to ordering the cable and spent about 3 hours today casually working on it while watching some ballgames. Did it pretty much exactly per this link except I skipped the part about sliding some paper in to interrupt the motor contacts as I only had the LBA0 problem and not the BSY one. Only took about 3 minutes to complete once I got to the terminal point and when I reconnected data cables and put drive back into the system my drive is there with all the data just like before it went dark.

as i said, longest part was getting the cable set up. part of that was physically modifying it, the rest involved finding the vista compatible drivers for it (found another thread that says USB devices like this will only load drivers in OS when OS finds correct VID so once I found that out, a quick search got me a working driver filer).


http://www.overclock.net/hard-drive...cked-firmware-drive-fix-pics.html#post5527104