Data recovery

Hello,

Short story:

I think a crash on a write caching enabled hard drive corrupted data. Tried running Recuva, RiteRecovery, MediaHeal, and AnyReader. They did almost nothing. Please help.

Long Story:

I was changing the intrernal component setup in my desktop which I've built up from a barebones over the past 7yrs or so and overlooked reconnecting the prosessor cooling fan power supply. WHOOPS, I know..!

System (XPpro) shut itself down after prosessor overheated. Now when I try to access a particularly important file in one of my hard drives I get a "G:\Organized is not accessible. The peramater is incorrect." window.

I think what happened is the write caching process was interupted and as it says in G>properties>hardware>properties>policies>write caching "a power outage or equipment falure may result in data loss or corruption"

I can see that the drive is 114G capacity, with only 5.7G free. But, if I select all but the inaccessible folder it all amounts to less than 6G. So, there's roundabout 100G that's inaccessible.

First I tried running running windows' Check Disk utility without selecting the "automatically fix file system errors" or "scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors" boxes because I didn't want the inaccessible file to dissapear from view in windows explorer. I thought it would finish with a report, but it just said it was done.

After that I backed up everything I could access then started digging.

Next I tried running Recuva. It didn't get any files. Third I tried RiteRecovery and its sister program MediaHeal They both failed to complete. The low available storage on that drive may have been a problem? Lastly, I tried running AnyReader. That recovered a file I think MediaHeal found before it froze... "System Volume Information" a 1.3K file.

I don't know what to try next. All the programs that claim to recover corrupted data I've tried so far have been dissapointing. So, Im hesitant to keep trying without some guidance.

Any suggestions, reccomendations, condolences, or even admonishment would be very appreciated.

Thanks so much,

Dave

 

Hi and welcome to the forum.

Hmm, these things happen, the important thing is that we must all try to learn from them but not repeat them

Ok, to try to give you some confidence that your drive still contains your data, I'd suggest you run the demo version of Recover My Files using the format recover setting.

While that's running, you can read up on how to use Testdisk because it's free and it may be able to get your data back. Study it well.

 

Here's some other freeware data recovery tools you might want to try:
http://www.majorgeeks.com/TestDisk_&_PhotoRec_d5561.html
http://www.majorgeeks.com/Ultimate_Data_Recovery_d5336.html
http://www.majorgeeks.com/Victoria_for_Windows_d5688.html
http://www.majorgeeks.com/Disk_Investigator_d1341.html
http://www.majorgeeks.com/DiskDigger_d5976.html
http://www.majorgeeks.com/Encopy_d5367.html
http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/UK/welcome.htm

Many of the paid data recovery tools have a demo mode that will let you know if the data is recoverable before you spend any money. You run the program and it will recover the data, but you won't be able to actually save anything until the program is paid for. Personally, I've used OnTrack's Easy Recovery Professional with great results. More info: http://www.ontrackdatarecovery.com/file-recovery-software/

Good luck! I hope this helps!

[dlb]

 

Thanks

I'll try a few of these then update.

 

The program that downloads as a piggyback in TestDisk's .zip gave me back 104G worth of files. I think it's called PhotoRec. But, the file system is completely gone. The files are randomly spread among 256 dump folders.

Any idea whether I should try Windows' Check Disk with the file sysyem and bad sector fix boxes checked before or after trying to rewrite with TestDisk?