Tech Support Forum - View Single Post - All files in Western Digital HD are 32kb!!!

~~wiseleo~~ · 07-23-2008, 05:30 PM

Was the diagnostic program CHKDSK?

*sigh* Sounds like one of its tricks. The reason why your files are now 32KB is because your drive has 32KB clusters. CHKDSK went berzerk and, because the controller malfunctioned (I don't think it's the heads), it neatly carved up your files into clusters.

Your hope right now is that maybe Photo_rec will find your stuff. It won't have original names anymore, as it ignores the FAT and the entire file system in general, but it is remarkably good at fully automatically carving out data from raw file systems.

Photo_rec is not just for pictures. The program recognizes well over 100 file formats and is invaluable in our line of work.

I don't trust the external enclosure. It probably is responsible for this.

Follow the steps I wrote in my signature. Let me know when you are ready to proceed. Attempting to recover data on a live disk is a terrible idea. I guess you see why I have a big warning about CHKDSK. :(

By the way, if that doesn't work, there are ways to piece together WAV files. That's basically taking the output of Photo_rec and removing all the garbage from waveforms. However, if a company like mine did that for you, the cost would be astronomical.

07-23-2008, 05:30 PM	#13 (permalink)
~~wiseleo~~ Troubled Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: San Francisco Bay Area Posts: 461 OS: Win 2003 SP2 My System	Re: All files in Western Digital HD are 32kb!!! Was the diagnostic program CHKDSK? sigh Sounds like one of its tricks. The reason why your files are now 32KB is because your drive has 32KB clusters. CHKDSK went berzerk and, because the controller malfunctioned (I don't think it's the heads), it neatly carved up your files into clusters. Your hope right now is that maybe Photo_rec will find your stuff. It won't have original names anymore, as it ignores the FAT and the entire file system in general, but it is remarkably good at fully automatically carving out data from raw file systems. Photo_rec is not just for pictures. The program recognizes well over 100 file formats and is invaluable in our line of work. I don't trust the external enclosure. It probably is responsible for this. Follow the steps I wrote in my signature. Let me know when you are ready to proceed. Attempting to recover data on a live disk is a terrible idea. I guess you see why I have a big warning about CHKDSK. :( By the way, if that doesn't work, there are ways to piece together WAV files. That's basically taking the output of Photo_rec and removing all the garbage from waveforms. However, if a company like mine did that for you, the cost would be astronomical. Last edited by wiseleo : 07-23-2008 at 05:35 PM.