robump

Hi

My HDD got currupt and is now in a RAW state when i plug it in windows asks me to format it, but i have important documents on it.

I first tried to recover it using testdisk but it said the partition couldnt be recovered!!

So then i used r-studio and thank goodness it could read my files, i thought i was safe!!

I recovered by .doc files and to my horror when i opened them in word they are all blank, every single one!!

Please help!!

Thanks in advance.

Rob

raptor_pa

If previewed in R-studio with the viewer loaded, were they readable? What do the properties show for size of the files?

robump

Thanks for replying

I tried to view them in preview mode and i could not load them!! I opened them in HEX and they were blank!!

Now im worried!!

Is there anyway to get them back or am i wasting my time??

raptor_pa

In hex view, was it 00? What were the details of the drive's failure? Were the filenames correct?

robump

Hi

The files names are all correct, but when i go to "view" all the code is 00 00 00 00 00 etc so im guessing there is no data there.

The drive first failed becuase of the MBR i think, so i plugged it into another XP machine in a external drive and started to copy some of the data accross and the whole pc froze, i left it and tried Cntrl Alt Del but nothing worked so i turned it off and restarted it and when it had booted up i just got, windows needs to format this drive before it can be used, or something.

Anything i can do?

Thanks for the continuing help.

raptor_pa

If the file contents are zero'd then there really isn't anything to recover. Did you run chkdsk against this drive by any chance? If so it may have remapped the directory entries to empty space on the disk. Just saw this with a drive we had for recovery. Did you have r-studio scan the drive and check the file signature check box on the options? If not ou could try that. The filenames won't match - will be something like 123456.doc and would rewuire manual viewing, but if it is a bad pointer in the directory it could still find your files. You can limit the file types it will look for by clicking the file types button next to that checkbox. These files will be in a directory called hmmmm - cant' remember 100% Other recognized files, found files - something like that, and listed by file types...

robump

Thanks so much for your help,

I did that search as you asked, but it came up with no .doc files but 60000 text files, i think im gonna cut my loses, but thanks for all your help, i have managed to retrieve some of my files.

Thanks again,

Rob