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Panic mode: HD not working

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kitamesume:
^ thats dangerous, because the partition is marked empty(well you said so), setting up a partition might ruin whatever gets moved by doing the partition.

Bob2004:

--- Quote from: GoGeTa006 on January 17, 2012, 05:48:06 PM ---
--- Quote from: NaRu on January 17, 2012, 05:40:32 PM ---
--- Quote from: AceHigh on January 17, 2012, 04:19:56 PM ---Partition Magic can set a new format without deleting the files. It will take a while though.

--- End quote ---
+1

--- End quote ---

elaborate on that please. . .

from what Im understanding I can:

grab my 1 TB drive and make a 400 GB partition in which I can store 400 GB of the lost data in the other partition (so this program uses only empty space to make the partition?)

--- End quote ---

No, not at all. What they mean is the program has a feature for reformatting drives without deleting the data stored on it - useful for switching to a different filesystem. But whatever you do, DO NOT TRY IT ON YOUR BROKEN DRIVE. It is a really bad idea. I don't know how exactly that particular tool does it - it may or may not try and move files around (ie. write new data to the drive) which, in all likelihood, will pretty much destroy the data you're trying to recover. Even if it doesn't try and write any new files, it will write a new FAT and other bits and pieces, which even if it doesn't necessarily affect your data, will still involve writing data to the drive for no purpose (not to mention, I've known Windows to write a number of hidden system files to any drives that get connected, even if they're empty, provided it recognises the partition as being writeable), and so should be avoided. As Datora said, every time you try and access that drive could be your last, so don't do anything that isn't absolutely necessary.

I have a couple of ideas for how to fix it (I want to double check them first though, so I'll edit this post later), but if you want to recover your data, you're going to need to make sure you have enough free space on another drive first. Buy a new drive to recover the data onto if necessary, and don't touch the damaged drive until you have somewhere to recover it's entire contents to.

EDIT: Ok, the first thing you'll want to do is get all the data off that hard disk (whether it's actually usable or not) ASAP. That way you can try different recovery options, without having to worry about the drive dying at any moment. Basically, what you'll want to do is use a tool called DD to create an exact copy of your damaged drive, which will take the form of a .img file. You can then mount this file as a virtual drive and run recovery tools on that, or some tools might be able to work with the file directly.

Firstly, download the program from here: http://www.chrysocome.net/downloads/dd-0.5.zip

Then, extract it somewhere, open up a command prompt (start -> run -> "cmd" in XP, or just type "cmd" into the start menu's search box in Vista/7) and cd to the folder you extracted the program to.

Next, run the command "dd --list". It should give you a whole bunch of output that looks like this:

(click to show/hide)rawwrite dd for windows version 0.5.
Written by John Newbigin
This program is covered by the GPL. See copying.txt for details
Win32 Available Volume Information
\\.\Volume{aef46cf9-3e3d-11de-b8c6-806d6172696f}\
link to \\?\Device\HarddiskVolume3
fixed media
Mounted on \\.\c:

\\.\Volume{aef46cf8-3e3d-11de-b8c6-806d6172696f}\
link to \\?\Device\CdRom0
CD-ROM
Mounted on \\.\d:

\\.\Volume{6f41f4b2-d11a-11de-b318-001d4f88486c}\
link to \\?\Device\Harddisk1\DP(1)0-0+5
removeable media
Mounted on \\.\f:

This looks complicated, but is just a list of all the drives connected to your PC. You need to find the entry for your damaged drive and note down the volume name, which starts with \\.\Volume and finishes with the } (not the \ afterwards). So, if you wanted to recover the drive F: in the example output above, the volume name you need is "\\.\Volume{6f41f4b2-d11a-11de-b318-001d4f88486c}".

Finally, run this command:

--- Quote ---dd if=\\.\Volume{6f41f4b2-d11a-11de-b318-001d4f88486c} of=c:\usb.img bs=10M
--- End quote ---
Replacing "\\.\Volume{6f41f4b2-d11a-11de-b318-001d4f88486c}" with the volume name of your drive, and "c:\usb.img" with the file you want to write it to. The resulting img file will be the exact size of the damaged drive, so make sure you put it somewhere with enough space. The process will take quite a while as well (potentially several hours).

If you have any problems (such as not finding the drive listed, or not being able to read from it) post back here and I'll see what I can do to help.

GoGeTa006:
so I would need another TB hard drive? cause the drive's size is 1 TB, but I know theres no more than 600 GB there. . . ill try directly with the hard drive. . .Im hoping that its not on as much of a critical condition as you make it sound to be :P
i found some nice software for recovering data, just gonna get some money to buy a hard drive and we'll go from there. . .

I shall cross my fingers. . .

on a bright side:

I found a DVD bulk that contains around 30+ series of anime that was double backed up :D. . .its less than half. . .but theres some good stuff there


why are SSD so expensive :(

kitamesume:
because SSDs are literally SpeciallySoldDiamon ds(huehuehue), meaning its beautiful yet expensive... but not so big in size. though sadly they don't exhibit similar durability like Diamonds XD. well give it some more years and it'll improve, and seriously they should concentrate on reliability rather than speed... imho 500MB/s up:down is already neet but it having an insane failure rate? no thanks.

Freedom Kira:
Note that if you have a Linux machine or a friend who has a Linux machine, use that for dd instead of installing a new program. Linux can mount the resulting image right away as well, so you can read the drive image as soon as you're done, as if it was just another connected drive on the system.

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