Sihlouette

One morning i turned on my computer and as it was booting a diagnostic came up checking all of my files on my external hard drive (Western Digital 250gig).
I left it to check the files, but after an hour or so it was still going, so i manually turned my computer off. i turned my computer on again and the same thing came up...but before it started i ordered for it to be canceled. My computer booted fine yet when i went to open folders in my external HD it said some files might be corrupted and i couldnt access the files in the folders.
I screwed around with the HD and some programs for a bit and eventually it ended up to where all the files in my external HD became 32bk...everything...250gigs worth of movies, music and programs became 32kbs each.
However when i looked at the properties of my external HD it said that the HD was nearly full with only 2 gigs spare.
I have brought my external HD into a shop and have runned recovery programs myself yet nothing has worked.
What can i do to recover all my files?

smz

Things are certainly easier if the drive has no hardware issues though if it's onboard cache is fried, that is an easy way to say buh bye without sending it to a pro data recovery company and getting charged way too much for a personal drive.

I think the program I use is Easy Recovery Pro, but it's at least a $500 program but it doesn't get any more thorough. I've had on average about 75% successful restores compared to 25% unrecoverable.

Though this is not a consumer program really. I just happened to have it. I used to to test drives after wipe them via Peter Guttman shredding before I ship a drive to someone such as a used drive sold on eBay. I run Gutman 3 times on small capacity drives giving me well over 100 wipes. Now that will destroy just about any type of recovery efforts.

The number #1 rule of a drive that you want to recover.
UN PLUG IT. Do not write to it. Do not boot from it. It is now a slave. The more you write the more your chances decreases of salvaging things. and never install the recovery program on the bad drive. I might also recommend removing the drive from the external case and placing it inside the case via IDE or SATA whichever applies. This might be a long procedure and the USB throughput will be a bottleneck.

Good Luck.

__________________
{{{{ Scott - 25+ Years HW & SW Expertise - Dos, Linux, Mac OS X, & Windows }}}}
Abit IP35 / Core 2 Quad Q6600 / APC 650 UPS / Antec 900 ATX w/Antec Trio 550 PS
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smz

Just for kicks. I'm going to upload a quick spec sheet on my recovery program for you to browse. I have to imagine there is a lower cost solution out there but this will give you an idea how the process works.

SMZ

Attached Images

er2005_sheet.pdf (459.8 KB, 4 views)

__________________
{{{{ Scott - 25+ Years HW & SW Expertise - Dos, Linux, Mac OS X, & Windows }}}}
Abit IP35 / Core 2 Quad Q6600 / APC 650 UPS / Antec 900 ATX w/Antec Trio 550 PS
EVGA GeForce 8400GS w/256MB / 320GB Maxtor SATA II HD / 4GB Corsair CAS4 DDR2
HP Laser P1006 & PS 2610 AIO / D-Link DGL-4500 Router / Dell 24" LCD / Macbook Pro

Sihlouette

thanks heaps for the help...i actually have that program so i will try and recover the files
Thanks again :)

Sihlouette

I have tried a few things with that program however i was wondering if i could just restore my external hard drive to an earlier date like i can do with my computer?
Any ideas?

smz

You are referring to what is known as Windows xp or Windows vista system restore. I don't believe that option is available for removable drives. If this drive isn't plugged in 24/7, i can almost guarantee it isn't supported.

If you are looking to bring it back to the last system restore point, that is something that can be done with internal drives but again external might be a different can of worms. I am not sure which method of restore you tried, but the most thorough way of grabbing as much as you can is not to search a single partition but search the whole raw drive and let it run as long as it needs... don't put a clock on it. I mean if you need to recover files and it's a necessity, the last thing you need to do is watch the clock. This is one of the best recovery programs I've used but who knows what caused this 32KB problem. but a hard drive has two copies of the partition table so in theory if you didn't do much more after you found this problem or the damage that was done wasn't too severe, most of the original data should be intact. that is why i recommend searching the drive as a whole and not just a partition within easy recovery pro.

Give me a shout if you need any additional tips. But unless someone comes out here and corrects me, and "part-time" external drive is not covered under the windows system restore point option. This is mainly to assist in restoring your operating system to a workable state.

SMZ

__________________
{{{{ Scott - 25+ Years HW & SW Expertise - Dos, Linux, Mac OS X, & Windows }}}}
Abit IP35 / Core 2 Quad Q6600 / APC 650 UPS / Antec 900 ATX w/Antec Trio 550 PS
EVGA GeForce 8400GS w/256MB / 320GB Maxtor SATA II HD / 4GB Corsair CAS4 DDR2
HP Laser P1006 & PS 2610 AIO / D-Link DGL-4500 Router / Dell 24" LCD / Macbook Pro

Sihlouette

Ok i will use that program and see what i can do...
Thanks for the help

MHigginbottom

This is a western digtal problem.
I had exactly the same problem today on the same piece of hardware.
Terrible!

No idea what to do - years of data I had as a back up gone!

smz

OK, I was not aware it was related to them. Porbably something that a firmware upgrade eventually fixed.

But remember the way partition tables work. There are TWO. so if One is all 32kb, the other should be intact and available for data recovery.

As a slave drive would be the perfect solution to run a program live Easy Recovery Pro to get back nearly everything. Now if the drive has been used on other partitions, etc since then if you haven't used the drive, everything is in your favor to get back what's rightfully yours.

Again, if you can PM me if you need further advise. I have saved data for people over the years for people that thought it would never happen.
No charge for the advise. Been doing this for 25+ years.

__________________
{{{{ Scott - 25+ Years HW & SW Expertise - Dos, Linux, Mac OS X, & Windows }}}}
Abit IP35 / Core 2 Quad Q6600 / APC 650 UPS / Antec 900 ATX w/Antec Trio 550 PS
EVGA GeForce 8400GS w/256MB / 320GB Maxtor SATA II HD / 4GB Corsair CAS4 DDR2
HP Laser P1006 & PS 2610 AIO / D-Link DGL-4500 Router / Dell 24" LCD / Macbook Pro

Ahunter

With this particular drive I have used several data recovery tools, including easy recovery pro, which are able to read the data using FAT1, FAT2 or ignore the FAT and try to find files without it.
All 3 of these options have failed to find any useful files - they just return a bunch of deleted files, not the files that are on the disk. Mounting the filesystem using either FAT gives the same result unfortunately.

Easyrecovery pro also has a raw recovery mode which has extracted a large amount of data but nothing that is actually readable. Everything is corrupt.

Can anybody offer any other advice or suggestions here as I am stumped and about ready to refer the user to a specialty data recovery company.

Thanks in advance.
Al