"The file or directory is corrupt or unreadable" (Windows XP, NTFS, External HD)

[amphibious]

So, I'm extracting an ISO file with IsoBuster on my external fireware hard drive. All of a sudden the extraction stops and Windows XP tells me there is an error writing to the disk. I unplug the drive and plug it back in. The drive listing in the My Computer window doesn't show the total size or how much free space there is, and when I double click it, it says, "The file or directory is corrupt and unreadable."

Great... I took the drive out of the case, put it in another case, tried it with USB, tried a different firewire cable, absolutely nothing. I've never had any problems at all with hard drives. This is a bit absurd, no weird noises, no slow transfers, just ZAP, gone!

Ugh... any ideas? Any freeware recovery utilities that could help me out?

Lame...

****Update

Ok... NTFS has somehow disappeared... Nothing will recognize the file system on the drive. I found a piece of software that will do a "raw recovery" and it looks like it's finding things. I may have to rename all the thousands of files on the drive as it's naming all of them things like "Fil01.jpg"

Ugh... what a pain in the ass. After all this is over I'm converting all the computers I use and all my families computers to Linux and reiserfs.

Any further information anyone could give me to help out at all would be great. Would Partition Magic help at all?


****Another Update

Partition Magic recognizes the drive as NTFS... apparently the drive name somehow got changed to ?e?.

After this program attempts to do a raw recovery I'm going to see if Partition Magic can somehow restore the NTFS structure.

 

[dclive]

If you can give it a drive letter, run CHKDSK on the volume to see if XP's internal repair mechanism can help you.

 

[montag451]

IS you external drive cooled with a fan? Is the fan working?

Just wondering

 

[amphibious]

chkdsk gives this error:

The type of the file system is NTFS.
Unable to determine volume version and state. CHKDSK aborted.

And no, there isn't a fan in the drive... I have six of these things, two of them are 7200rpm (the one that failed is 5400rpm) and haven't had a problem with any of them. :-/

 

[amnesiac]

I'm having the exact same problem with my drive. I have a Compaq firewire PCMCIA card, a WD160GB drive and a NEC 3520 DVDR hooked up each in a Vantec Nexstar2 enclosure.

The first time this happened, I inadvertantly pulled out the PC card which borked the drive. The second time, the DVDR had issues reading a disc, freaked out, and disappeared, taking the drive with it.


Here's what you do to get your data back, I'm hoping you didn't write any data to it:

1. Go to Disk Management console in windows.
2. Select the affected drive.
3. Re-partition it (same size partition) and QUICK FORMAT as NTFS.
4. You should have a blank drive.
5. Run a data recovery suite, like GetDataBack ($79) and you should be able to recover everything.

 

[amnesiac]

On a side note, can anyone tell me exactly WHY the firewire drive freaks out like this? I'm thinking of returning the FW card and going USB 2.0 if it's going to be this unreliable.

 

[Pr0d1gy]

Originally posted by: amnesiac
On a side note, can anyone tell me exactly WHY the firewire drive freaks out like this? I'm thinking of returning the FW card and going USB 2.0 if it's going to be this unreliable.

Pron?

 

[montag451]

Ah,
I remember now,

There is some issue with Firewire and XP - its starting to come back to me now.
I'll let you know when i remember more, meanwhile do a google for
xp firewire problem