Need help with a strangely corrupted hard drive

[cyberia]

I have a drive that has gone caca in a very strange way. It is formatted as FAT32, is physically intact but suffers from some kind of data corruption. Here is what I have on it:

1) Let's say, it is called F:

2) It has four top level directories under F:
F:\Misc
F:\Music
F:\Save
F:\Videos

3) Two of them are accessible (Music and Save), and all subdirectories and files under them are readable. The other two are inaccessible because all subdirectories and files under them have strange names, weird dates and, most likely, wrong sizes. Under strange names I mean names consisting completely of special or unprintable characters.

Do I have any hope? I am comfortable working with any kind of drive rescue tools, including Linux-based. However, I have no clue what to try. So far, every partition and recovery tool I tried suggests nothing to fix the caca directories.

Thanks in advance.

 

[XxPrOdiGyxX]

Try running a chkdsk /r on it.

 

[cyberia]

Originally posted by: XxPrOdiGyxX
Try running a chkdsk /r on it.

I had thought about doing that but was not sure. Will it not cause a total loss of the corrupted files and folders? I would at least like to try something potentially less destructive.

By the way, I have a situation pretty much identical to this guy's:
Link

 

[Old Hippie]

Have you tried GetDataBack?

That's my favorite. :thumbsup:

PS. Checkdisk shouldn't hurt anything, but I'd try the recovery first.

Good Luck!

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: cyberia
3) Two of them are accessible (Music and Save), and all subdirectories and files under them are readable. The other two are inaccessible because all subdirectories and files under them have strange names, weird dates and, most likely, wrong sizes. Under strange names I mean names consisting completely of special or unprintable characters.

Haven't seen that kind of corruption since FAT was generally replaced by NTFS. It was pretty common under FAT.

Yeah, you could try GetDataBack for FAT.

 

[cyberia]

Thanks everyone for the tips.

Yes, I did try GetDataBack, but it was "finding" a supposed 2GB partition, so it was not helpful. I ended up doing chkdsk /r as Prodigy recommended. It converted all of the corrupted files into .CHK files. Some of them were fully intact, so I did not loose *everything*, but I still lost a lot. Oh well...

I still have to go through some of the .CHK files, but the problem is pretty much resolved. The patient is dead.

 

[RebateMonger]

Before you start adding more important data, be sure to run an extended memory test and a full hard drive diagnostics (using the drive maker's utility). Also, I suggest an ongoing backup system of some sort for data you can't afford to lose. Windows Home Server, which does fully automated backups of Windows PCs, is $150 at Newegg right now if you happen to have an unused 1GHz or higher PC laying around.

 

[cyberia]

Originally posted by: RebateMonger
Before you start adding more important data, be sure to run an extended memory test and a full hard drive diagnostics (using the drive maker's utility). Also, I suggest an ongoing backup system of some sort for data you can't afford to lose. Windows Home Server, which does fully automated backups of Windows PCs, is $150 at Newegg right now if you happen to have an unused 1GHz or higher PC laying around.

The drive is fine. I had given it a workout with Hitachi's Drive Fitness Test software. It was HP's asinine FAT32 implementation in Media Vault that caused the data loss.

But doesn't WHS have a data corruption issue?

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: cyberia
But doesn't WHS have a data corruption issue?

It never has when used as a backup system. "Power Pack One" for WHS is in public beta testing right now and should be released within a month. Microsoft has incorporated a fix for the shared data file corruption problem that was found. But even before the "fix", the problem was a very limited one and didn't affect the backups at all.

 

[cyberia]

Originally posted by: RebateMonger

Originally posted by: cyberia
But doesn't WHS have a data corruption issue?

It never has when used as a backup system. "Power Pack One" for WHS is in public beta testing right now and should be released within a month. Microsoft has incorporated a fix for the shared data file corruption problem that was found. But even before the "fix", the problem was a very limited one and didn't affect the backups at all.

I am actually looking for a server for media streaming on my LAN. Backup is secondary. I could keep a backup on a separate (perhaps an external) drive that could only be connected occasionally.

In other words, I would be upset about losing a significant portion of my library (thanks HP!), but it is not something that needs to be backed up on a regular basis. I can do it once a month if there is a significant addition to the library.

Being able to access data in one place and be able to stream it is the primary requirement.

 

[RebateMonger]

Well, WHS certainly can serve as a Media Server. In fact, it's designed for that, along with some other functions. But, truthfully, file servers are a dime a dozen.

No matter what file server you decide on, just don't keep anything important on a single hard drive or RAID array. WHS has a "file replication" mode which works something like RAID 1, but I wouldn't trust that, NOR ANY OTHER FORM OF RAID, as my sole location for data that I don't care to lose.