HD Recovery Tips - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

Phage · 01-22-2005, 09:48 PM

I have a Maxtor DiamondMax 16 250GB ATA/133 HDD which as I mentioned in my other thread (HD Access = Performance Loss?) stopped working recently. It is formatted in the standard XP NTFS, and when I run chkdsk on it Stage 1 reports:
File record segment # is unreadable.
where # is 6672 through 7251.

I have tried running chkdsk using /f and /r several times, and when using /r it will get to the second stage and say:
Correcting error in index $I30 for file 38.
and then I will get my command prompt back. In another case I got a whole string of:
Inserting an index entry into index $O of file 25.
after which it reported some unreadable segments and then deleted an index entry in $I30 of file 38 before quitting with an unspecified error.

What I would like is to fix the disk; I don't care if all the data cannot be recovered, several gigs would be acceptable losses but I really don't want to reformat the whole 250GB. Even failing that I would like the disk to be returned to usable form, as the worst case would be that the drive itself is shot.

So what are your suggestions for recovery?

cyrnel · 01-23-2005, 05:12 PM

Oy. Filesystem recovery can be tough in person. It's almost impossible remotely other than pointing to alternate tools. I dislike checkdisk. It has "checked out" too many customer GB's. Good opportunity for third party recovery software though.

I presume the problem was caused by the earlier drive configuration. When drives and the system can't agree on master & slave bad things can result.

If the files are important start by isolating the drive. Image it to another drive and work on the copy. <- disclaimer for an ideal world with many extra drives.

Most important, be careful not to write anything more to the problem drive. The more that's written/changed, the less your chances of recovery.

Does Disk Management say it's a basic or dynamic disk? (As a tip, avoid dynamic unless you know clearly why you're using that type. It is rarely the right choice and can lead to data loss when drives are moved between systems.)

With the problem drive powered off (and master jumpers set appropriately), download <a href="http://www.runtime.org/gdb.htm">getdataback for NTFS</a>. Install it on your main drive. Shut down, plug in the problem drive, do the jumper thing, boot again and if Jack the Ripper...er... checkdisk tries to run, stop it. Assuming you have enough space to recover your files, run GDB.

GDB doesn't modify the existing disk. It analyzes and copies what it can find. That means you'll need as much free disk space on another drive as the files you want to recover. It has a 30day eval period which should be plenty to attempt this recovery and be happy, or curse random internet forum assistance.

Little consolation, but I've noticed an interesting phenomenon that the longer you wait to recover critical data the less critical the data becomes.

Phage · 01-23-2005, 08:55 PM

Sage advice, but I do not have a 250GB drive laying around empty and there is no way I can fit the recovered data from the nearly full drive onto my also nearly full 61.4GB drive.
Fortunately there is not any data on there that is super-critical (although loss is always bad). My concern is getting the drive back into a usable state, and if the data that was affected is lost that is ok. Even if I lose 5-10GB of data it is still a drop in the bucked compared to the whole 250GB.
Is there a tool that will search down the corrupted areas on the drive and allow the option of not even trying to restore the data but to just fix the file system?

cyrnel · 01-23-2005, 09:38 PM

Don't know anybody itching to buy a new drive you could borrow for a day?

I'd still give it a shot. You'll at least get the first portion and find out how recoverable the rest might be. GDB will just stop when it runs out of space, it doesn't hurt anything.

I haven't seen another program that's as good at recovery. There are other pro-level recovery products but they work the same way. "Repairing" is harder and more error-prone since once directory structures are damaged much of the work is best guess. That means you might run a few passes before you get effective settings, and that's not possible if you're changing the directory each time. Try GDB on what you can, then use norton. Norton & other repair tools can be effective if the damage isn't bad.

If the problems were caused by a master/slave issue there's a possibility the damaged files were never written, and data was lost in driver timeouts. GDB could give you a clue here even if you don't set it loose recovering what it finds.

Slavakion · 01-24-2005, 05:15 AM

Spinrite. This program is supposed to be able to work miracles as far as data recovery. It'll take a while to run, especially on your meaty drive.

http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm

catback · 01-24-2005, 08:15 AM

If you wanna save anything on the drive your going to have to do file/drive recovery. If you don't wanna retain anything then just format. The whole just fix the bad part of the drive and leave the good part untouched sounds good on paper but can be a pain in the ass in reality.

cyrnel · 01-24-2005, 08:54 AM

Thanks for the spinrite reminder Slavakion. Haven't used that in years.
The world needs more coders like Gibson.

Phage, if you can pick up a copy somewhere that would be way up the list from norton for repairing.

God of Thunder · 01-24-2005, 01:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cyrnel

Thanks for the spinrite reminder Slavakion. Haven't used that in years.
The world needs more coders like Gibson.

Yes it does.

You need the latest version to read NTFS though. Just in case you were planning on using an old version you had laying around.

It's $89, but well worth the money. It has helped me recover data for several clients so far.

Phage · 01-24-2005, 03:01 PM

I got my hands on a Norton recovery disk and got the error "Unable to access drive D: The volume does not contain a recognized file system." when trying to repair my big disk (although my system disk was fixed a little). I will try to get my hands on Spinrite, but do you have any other suggestions?

Phage · 01-25-2005, 03:39 AM

Spinrite seems to be popular so I am using that now. Unfortunately the level 5 scan looks like it will take a very long time (listed as 36 days) so what level and settings should I run it at?

God of Thunder · 01-25-2005, 05:10 AM

Let it run, chances are once it gets past the trouble spot it will move faster.

I've had drives run all weekend before.

Phage · 01-26-2005, 04:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by God of Thunder

Let it run, chances are once it gets past the trouble spot it will move faster.

I've had drives run all weekend before.

30 hours in and .62% completed. I sure hope it speeds up, the estimated time to completion is 1875 hours!

Phage · 01-26-2005, 05:54 PM

Now it says that a SMART failure is predicted on the drive. If I understand correctly this means that it thinks there are too many bad sectors for it to hide. That cannot be good.

Is there a recovery method that can be run inside a week, or should I just reformat? Will the reformat even work or is the drive just shot?

God of Thunder · 01-26-2005, 06:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phage

Will the reformat even work or is the drive just shot?

I doubt it. Check Maxtor's website and see if it is still under warranty. Unfortunatley, we had a lot of bad luck with Maxtors at work. It seems as though they have had a rough time lately and have been forced to replace a lot of them.

My sister works for 5/3 Bank where they just replaced around 5000 Maxtors in their Dells nationwide. Every Maxtor I have sent back to Dell has been replaced by a Western Digital.

If I had paid closer attention to you post in the beginning, I would have mentioned this sooner. Sorry.

Good luck

Phage · 01-26-2005, 06:59 PM

No problem, if I had known more about Spinrite and spent the time comparing the SMART system stats it told me about I could probably have figured out that the 26,000+ bad sectors resulting in a ratio of -62 indicated that it was deader than Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. It is still under warranty, so at least I have that going for me. Thank you for all your help, I am sure what I have learned from this will come in handy in the future!

01-22-2005, 09:48 PM	#1 (permalink)
Phage Insane	HD Recovery Tips I have a Maxtor DiamondMax 16 250GB ATA/133 HDD which as I mentioned in my other thread (HD Access = Performance Loss?) stopped working recently. It is formatted in the standard XP NTFS, and when I run chkdsk on it Stage 1 reports: File record segment # is unreadable. where # is 6672 through 7251. I have tried running chkdsk using /f and /r several times, and when using /r it will get to the second stage and say: Correcting error in index $I30 for file 38. and then I will get my command prompt back. In another case I got a whole string of: Inserting an index entry into index $O of file 25. after which it reported some unreadable segments and then deleted an index entry in $I30 of file 38 before quitting with an unspecified error. What I would like is to fix the disk; I don't care if all the data cannot be recovered, several gigs would be acceptable losses but I really don't want to reformat the whole 250GB. Even failing that I would like the disk to be returned to usable form, as the worst case would be that the drive itself is shot. So what are your suggestions for recovery?

01-25-2005, 05:10 AM	#11 (permalink)
God of Thunder Talk nerdy to me Location: Flint, MI	Let it run, chances are once it gets past the trouble spot it will move faster. I've had drives run all weekend before. __________________ I reject your reality, and substitute my own -- Adam Savage

01-23-2005, 05:12 PM	#2 (permalink)
cyrnel Adequate Location: In my angry-dome.	Oy. Filesystem recovery can be tough in person. It's almost impossible remotely other than pointing to alternate tools. I dislike checkdisk. It has "checked out" too many customer GB's. Good opportunity for third party recovery software though. I presume the problem was caused by the earlier drive configuration. When drives and the system can't agree on master & slave bad things can result. If the files are important start by isolating the drive. Image it to another drive and work on the copy. <- disclaimer for an ideal world with many extra drives. Most important, be careful not to write anything more to the problem drive. The more that's written/changed, the less your chances of recovery. Does Disk Management say it's a basic or dynamic disk? (As a tip, avoid dynamic unless you know clearly why you're using that type. It is rarely the right choice and can lead to data loss when drives are moved between systems.) With the problem drive powered off (and master jumpers set appropriately), download <a href="http://www.runtime.org/gdb.htm">getdataback for NTFS</a>. Install it on your main drive. Shut down, plug in the problem drive, do the jumper thing, boot again and if Jack the Ripper...er... checkdisk tries to run, stop it. Assuming you have enough space to recover your files, run GDB. GDB doesn't modify the existing disk. It analyzes and copies what it can find. That means you'll need as much free disk space on another drive as the files you want to recover. It has a 30day eval period which should be plenty to attempt this recovery and be happy, or curse random internet forum assistance. Little consolation, but I've noticed an interesting phenomenon that the longer you wait to recover critical data the less critical the data becomes.

01-23-2005, 08:55 PM	#3 (permalink)
Phage Insane	Sage advice, but I do not have a 250GB drive laying around empty and there is no way I can fit the recovered data from the nearly full drive onto my also nearly full 61.4GB drive. Fortunately there is not any data on there that is super-critical (although loss is always bad). My concern is getting the drive back into a usable state, and if the data that was affected is lost that is ok. Even if I lose 5-10GB of data it is still a drop in the bucked compared to the whole 250GB. Is there a tool that will search down the corrupted areas on the drive and allow the option of not even trying to restore the data but to just fix the file system?

01-23-2005, 09:38 PM	#4 (permalink)
cyrnel Adequate Location: In my angry-dome.	Don't know anybody itching to buy a new drive you could borrow for a day? I'd still give it a shot. You'll at least get the first portion and find out how recoverable the rest might be. GDB will just stop when it runs out of space, it doesn't hurt anything. I haven't seen another program that's as good at recovery. There are other pro-level recovery products but they work the same way. "Repairing" is harder and more error-prone since once directory structures are damaged much of the work is best guess. That means you might run a few passes before you get effective settings, and that's not possible if you're changing the directory each time. Try GDB on what you can, then use norton. Norton & other repair tools can be effective if the damage isn't bad. If the problems were caused by a master/slave issue there's a possibility the damaged files were never written, and data was lost in driver timeouts. GDB could give you a clue here even if you don't set it loose recovering what it finds.

01-24-2005, 05:15 AM	#5 (permalink)
Slavakion Mjollnir Incarnate Location: Lost in thought	Spinrite. This program is supposed to be able to work miracles as far as data recovery. It'll take a while to run, especially on your meaty drive. http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm

01-24-2005, 08:15 AM	#6 (permalink)
catback Psycho Location: North America	If you wanna save anything on the drive your going to have to do file/drive recovery. If you don't wanna retain anything then just format. The whole just fix the bad part of the drive and leave the good part untouched sounds good on paper but can be a pain in the ass in reality.

01-24-2005, 08:54 AM	#7 (permalink)
cyrnel Adequate Location: In my angry-dome.	Thanks for the spinrite reminder Slavakion. Haven't used that in years. The world needs more coders like Gibson. Phage, if you can pick up a copy somewhere that would be way up the list from norton for repairing.

01-24-2005, 03:01 PM	#9 (permalink)
Phage Insane	I got my hands on a Norton recovery disk and got the error "Unable to access drive D: The volume does not contain a recognized file system." when trying to repair my big disk (although my system disk was fixed a little). I will try to get my hands on Spinrite, but do you have any other suggestions?

01-25-2005, 03:39 AM	#10 (permalink)
Phage Insane	Spinrite seems to be popular so I am using that now. Unfortunately the level 5 scan looks like it will take a very long time (listed as 36 days) so what level and settings should I run it at?

01-26-2005, 05:54 PM	#13 (permalink)
Phage Insane	Now it says that a SMART failure is predicted on the drive. If I understand correctly this means that it thinks there are too many bad sectors for it to hide. That cannot be good. Is there a recovery method that can be run inside a week, or should I just reformat? Will the reformat even work or is the drive just shot?

01-26-2005, 06:59 PM	#15 (permalink)
Phage Insane	No problem, if I had known more about Spinrite and spent the time comparing the SMART system stats it told me about I could probably have figured out that the 26,000+ bad sectors resulting in a ratio of -62 indicated that it was deader than Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. It is still under warranty, so at least I have that going for me. Thank you for all your help, I am sure what I have learned from this will come in handy in the future!