oh no!

doanster

Senior member
Jun 8, 2005
585
1
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Help!
I have a Maxtor 250 GB hard drive housed in an external case. I have been using it for about a month now - I transferred all my data to it.

Problem is, all of a sudden, Windows says I can't access the drive. It states that the disk is corrupted. I have a large amount of personal data on the drive that I need; is there I way to fix this? or at least recover most of the data?

Thanks
 

FlyingPenguin

Golden Member
Nov 1, 2000
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First thing to do is run a SCANDISK on the external drive and configure Scandisk to "Fix errors" and "Scan and attempt recovery of bad sectors". Hopefully they're soft errors that can be repaired.

If that fails, try downloading Maxtor's HDD diagnostic from their web site and run the full (Advanced) diagnostic. This will take an hour or more. The diagnostic will either pass the drive, or fail it. If it fails it it may offer to repair the drive, and you might get lucky and recover the data.

Failing that, I've had very good luck with a couple of disk recovery apps: Disk Commander and iRecover.

Hope this helps...
 

Harvey

Administrator<br>Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
35,057
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If your drive is an IDE drive that you mounted in the external case, the problem may just be a bad connector on the enclosure or a cable, either from the IDE drive to the enclosure's external connector or from the connector to your machine. To test this, remove the drive from the case and connect it directly to your motherboard to see if Windows will recognize it as an IDE drive.

Get the latest version of Maxtor's disk testing utility for your drive from their site and run the diagnostics. If your system can still read the drive, you may be able to transfer your critical files to another drive.

Both of these have happened to me. I had a connector on a mobile rack go bad, and, on a separate occasion, the "Smart Drive" function on one on one of my Maxtor 80 GB drives suddenly gave me huge failure warning. I just stopped and Ghosted the contents of the drive to another, new drive, and all was well (except the dying drive, of course).
 

tami

Lifer
Nov 14, 2004
11,588
3
81
i'm assuming the flying penguin means that the diagnostics may be determine that there is information that can be salvaged and may then ask for your permission to recover corrupted files.

a good program for data recovery is runtime's getdataback (for FAT or NTFS, depending on whatever filesystem you're using).
 

doanster

Senior member
Jun 8, 2005
585
1
81
Hmm... so it seems that my data still stands a chance of surviving w/o getting it recovered professionally.

So of the programs available are actually freely available on the web?

Thanks for the help ppl!
 

Harvey

Administrator<br>Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
35,057
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I'd still be looking at the connections, first. If you can connect the raw drive to an IDE channel, you may not need any recovery, at all.
 

ScrapSilicon

Lifer
Apr 14, 2001
13,625
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Originally posted by: Harvey
I'd still be looking at the connections, first. If you can connect the raw drive to an IDE channel, you may not need any recovery, at all.

;):thumbsup:
 

ThePiston

Senior member
Nov 14, 2004
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doanster, find a copy of SpinRite (website here, but not for download) http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm you may find it on P2P, but pay for it of you have to and if it works. it will fix any drive every time. don't run scandisk on it... you could lose everything. PM me if you want, I'll help you out
 

doanster

Senior member
Jun 8, 2005
585
1
81
no....
spinrite did not work like it promised!

i m gonna do a low level reformat i guess... this will make windows recognize the drive and hopefully i can find some software that will work in windows that recovers data from reformatted drives...

any suggestions on such software?
 

RKS

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
6,824
3
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Originally posted by: doanster
no....
spinrite did not work like it promised!

i m gonna do a low level reformat i guess... this will make windows recognize the drive and hopefully i can find some software that will work in windows that recovers data from reformatted drives...

any suggestions on such software?

getdataback as mentioned by Tami.

I just used it tonight to recover a corrupted disk and a cf card that was previosly deleted.
it is kinda cumbersome and makes its own directory and files from it recovers and you have to search for your recovered files and copy them to a reliable hdd. saved me a lot of grief.

 

doanster

Senior member
Jun 8, 2005
585
1
81
hmm... i lookd at getdataback... does it only run in a windows environment? i m not sure if it wuld work cuz windows wont even recognize the drive...
 

lansalot

Senior member
Jan 25, 2005
298
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Stop.

Download a LiveCD like Knoppix and give it a chance to at least look at the drive. You might find there is something about it Windows doesn't like, but that Knoppix will quite happily read. This depends on whether the error is physical or logical of course.
 

doanster

Senior member
Jun 8, 2005
585
1
81
Linux to the rescue! :D

I do have Knoppix on a CD... I'll give it a shot I guess. Do u know if it comes with any disc utilities?


 

lansalot

Senior member
Jan 25, 2005
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Just see if you can mount the volume's, don't assume you have to bother with a full-on rescue.
 

doanster

Senior member
Jun 8, 2005
585
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Originally posted by: lansalot
Just see if you can mount the volume's, don't assume you have to bother with a full-on rescue.

Hmm... can you give some more info? I am not sure what u r talking about...
thanks!

 

doanster

Senior member
Jun 8, 2005
585
1
81
Originally posted by: FlyingPenguin
I've had very good success with iRecover


I ll give iRecover a try too

as you all can tell I am starting to get really worried haha
 

lansalot

Senior member
Jan 25, 2005
298
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You should see an icon on your desktop like 'hda' or something, click it. If using standard knoppix anyway...
 

doanster

Senior member
Jun 8, 2005
585
1
81
Hmm... just one more question:
whats the diff b/w low and high level formatting?
if I wanna hav a chance to recover my data after reformatting, which is the way to go?

thanks all for the replies!!!
 

ender11122

Golden Member
Feb 17, 2005
1,172
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low level writes the entire drive with 0's and if you get the correct low level format from your manufacturer, sometimes it writes all the backup stuff over again too. I used it when my RAID setup corrupted my backup stuff that tells the drive how to operate. It really shouldnt be necessary in your case.
 

doanster

Senior member
Jun 8, 2005
585
1
81
Yea... so after I do a high level format, what are some ways to recover my data?
nebody kno?