Idiotic Decision At 3AM Leads To Defrag Disaster - Any Help?

I downloaded Smart Defrag (v.1.11) from this very site and have used it to great success until, in a fit of idiocy, I used it to defrag a one-year old Maxtor One Touch IIIm (NTFS) without analyzing it first. The log said that the drive had only been fragmented by 0.4% to begin with, and the defrag process reduced that number by 0.1%. Oh well.

The problem is that Smart Defrag, bored with having nothing to do to my hard drive, decided to scramble my data instead. More than half of the folders come up with this error when I try to open them: "X:\Random Folder - The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable." I seriously wanted to cry. Why didn't I backup my backup before doing anything with it? As I said, it was 3AM, and my brain was switched off.

Is there anything I can do? Is the data still there, just disconnected from the file structure, or has it gone bye-bye? Is there an online solution, or will I have to bring the drive in to a recovery specialist? Is there a cure for early morning stupidity?

Thanks,

Waterface

 

Oh boy...I feel your pain. I'm sure there will be other suggestions/ideas but my first thought is to use one of the free recovery utilities to see if you can bring anything back. I have used many of them with success on my computer and others I have worked on.

Good luck!:major

 

You could try and defrag again and let it finish and the data should be accessible once it has done. if not you could try doing a system restore and restore the computer back before the defrag if that dont work you might be able to recover the data by finding a tool that does that.

If none of these dont work then im sorry to say the data is lost and you might have to reformat the hard drive and put everything back on again.

hope this helps

 

Hey there sorry to hear that sounds like something that would happen to me too.


Ultimate defrag is free for public, and it has the option to do a sector at a time to recover the disc although unsure how well it will perform given the nature of your issue.

Google it, its one of the better free defraggers that I have found in the last few years. Click on the block after scanning the hdd see if you can do it potentially one block / sector at a time if needs be. Ultimate defrag uses a unque algorithim to defrag to - so I dont know exactly the out come kill or cure...although I havent lost any hdd's due to using it.


Feel your pain my friend G luck with this one.:wave

 

Thanks to everyone for pitching in and offering me their two cents. What confuses me though is that two out of the three responses so far recommend defragging my addled drive again - is this really an option? I'm no expert (which is why this happened, and why I'm here begging y'all for advice!) but another defrag seems like two wrongs trying to make a right.

AbbySue suggested a recovery utility - any suggestions as to which one?

SexyAndy suggested a system restore - is that through a separate program or will Windows (I use XP) have a utility for that?

Again, thanks for all the help. I'm still hesitant about the second defrag, but I guess I have nothing to lose at this point (I've already lost it). Barring any other suggestions, I'll try what's been said so far and cross my fingers!

 

Windows does have a System Restore.
Go to Start
Help
Select System Restore.
Will NOT work if you have System Restore turned off, but don't figure that is the case here since you asked if Windows XP had one.

 

Thanks for pointing that out. Further question: Does this OS utility cover external HDs? I went through most of the steps of the Restore wizard and at no point did it ask me to specify a drive, which leads me to believe it will just do C:.

Idiotic decision #2 - the Maxtor One Touch has a built-in restore points system, but I use it as secondary storage and not as backup for my primary drive, so I disabled this function. So unless Windows does it for me, I'm SOL with this tactic.

Thanks anyway. I'm now going to be sick.

 

Hey there,

Well two options i guess, how good they are maybe other members can perhaps add info on.

You could try a repair install using your xp disc, you will also need you O/S number to reinstall. This may not get you back to 100 percent but should give you a working system again potentially use your restore drive from there..or

Not sure if imaging / ghosting would help with the fragmentation issue but it would be a good idea to back up the state that your unit to an image, before trying anything else that might disable your p.c hdd outright.

Mind you if the system is so hideously frgged a restore from an image maybe even worse havvent tried this so cant comment..sorry if this adds to the confusion .. l8r guy:wave

 

Hiya there!

I'd better watch out for that one! I've used Smart Defrag for the past coupla months without a hitch ... I'm sure its bound to happen ...

Well, personally I would first try defragging it again with Smart Defrag, yes. it MAY repair whatever damage it has caused. If that doesn't work, the other thing that MAY work is if you open up CMD, type chkdsk /r %: (where % is the drive letter designation) and say yes to whatever prompts come up.

Good Luck dude!

 

OK, so...

I re-defragged the drive with the latest version of Smart Defrag--which found loads of fragged sectors and claimed to heal all but 5 damaged folders (out of more than 700)--but to no avail. There is no change to what folders I can access.

I then tried chkdsk /r %:, but for some reason this command just keeps running into the brick wall of an "unexpected error" and shuts off. No solution there, methinks.

This round has been won by the drive; I guess I'll have to take it in to a forensic specialist and see if I can recover anything. I would hate to see five years of photography go down the drain so easily!

Thanks for everybody's two cents!

 

As long as the data on it is accessable, no really big loss if you can transfer it to another drive or CD.
The pain will be replacing (if desired) when you get it reset.
Short story, it could have been worse.

 

But ... you did substitute % for the Drive letter right??? So if it was your C: Drive it would be;

chkdsk /r C: