Hard Drive disaster!! PLEASE Help !!!

[qzack96]

I used Acronis OS Selector: Rescue Media Buider to make a rescue CD.
I rebooted my PC and I was taken into OS Selector's GUI.
It seemed to only have picked up 1 of 3 hard drives on my computer. It only picked up my 320GB hard drive- my biggest hard drive and one with the most data. (I have a different OS on each hard drive.)
It then prompts me, telling me that it needs to resize the partition contained on that hard drive from 298Gb -> 298Gb. So I click next, etc. It immediately brought a progress bar which wasn't moving at all. I let my computer sit for about 5 minutes, and it moved 1 notch. I thought something was fishy, and I hit the reset button on my computer. I logged back onto XP(off my 80GB drive), and went into My Computer. I tried accessing the 320GB and was told that "F:\ is not formatted, would you like to format it now?". In a rush of panic and fear, I used a program called Testdisk to rebuild the hard drive's partition, as this program has worked in the past. I didn't solve the problem.

Every time I now try to access the hard drive from My Computer, I am given the message
"F:\ is not accessible. The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable"
I am extremely distressed about this, and I can't begin to explain how important the files in that hard drive are.
I REALLY REALLY need the information contained on this hard drive. PLEASE PLEASE give me some ideas on how to get the partition back, so I can access the hard drive like I used to. ANY help is much appreciated! Thank you !

PS. The hard drive is physically healthy, and has no mechanical problems whatsoever.

 

[etarhan]

consult one of the data recovery outfits available (google, search for "hdd data recovery", disregard data recovery programs, look for the companies). There's nothing you can do yourself. You have a chance of recovering **most** of your data, but the more you play with it, the less chance you will have.

 

[Zelandakh]

A low level formatter might do the trick. If not, a company will be needed.

 

[Grenage]

Make no changes to the drive, no more partition alterations or fiddles.

Run some decent recovery software, I've had good experiences with "get data back for NTF" but it does cost money.

"We can categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area" - Major Mike Shearer

 

[etarhan]

With all due respect, nobody who resizes or rebuilds the partition of a drive which contains any **required** data, without using the proper software skillfully, should be allowed to use a "decent recovery software" without extensive training.

By the way, zelandakh, if there has been no drastic change in the terminology lately, my rusty experience tells me that a low level formatter does what its name implies: it formats the hdd. I doubt if recovering data from a formatted hdd will be easier.

Good luck,
Engin

 

[Grenage]

Most recovery software is simple to use, I doubt qzack96 would have any problems.

That said, for future reference, do yourself a favour and don't restart a computer when it's modifying the partition table. /grin

"We can categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area" - Major Mike Shearer

 

[lhuegele]

I agree with etarhan - the nature of the post leads me to suggest qzack96 consult with some experts in the recovery field.

Good luck,

 

[vacunita]

Since its being picked up, I would try recovery software as has been suggested. And will also endorse GetDataback.

It has a free version which should let you see if your fields are recoverable before buying the full version.

A low level formatter might do the trick. If not, a company will be needed.

How exactly does low level formatting (which for all intents and purposes destroys all data on the drive) help the OP recover his important data?





----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

 

[Sympology]

Just readin through this and notice that you mention you have different OS's on different drives.
This 320gb drive; is it an NTFS XP?Vista drive or something like a Linux drive?



Most people spend their time on the "urgent" rather than on the "important."

 

[SimonDavies]

Following on from Sympology, you may simply be able to restore this using an OS disk and some Partition recovery utilities.

To me it just sounds like the Partition Table has been corrupted and you may simply find it easy to restore it using the OS tools.

Simon

The real world is not about exam scores, it's about ability.

 

[Zelandakh]

I got the terminology wrong then - I had a punter do it years ago in similar circumstances and we did something along the lines of creating a new MBR using the information on the disk. I thought it was called low level formatting which doesn't format the disk but recreates the partition map.

 

[linney]

This goes in to some detail about the MBR and Partitions.

Reinstalling Windows XP Home (Part 3): Creating partitions

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/896528

MBRWork - Freeware utility to perform some common and uncommon MBR and disk functions. Provided As-Is.

It can perform the following:

1 - Backup the first track on a hard drive.

2 - Restore the backup file.

3 - Reset the EMBR area to all zeros.

4 - Reset the MBR area to all zeros.

5 - Install standard MBR Code

6 - Set a partition active (avail on the command line too)

7 - Work with multiple hard drives.

8 - Remove EZ-Drive (You must boot directly to a diskette (by passing ez-drive)
for this option to show)

9 - Edit MBR partition entry values.

A - If no partitions exist in the MBR and no EMBR exists then this option
will allow you to recover lost FAT, HPFS, NTFS, and Extened partitions.

C - Capture up to 64 disk sectors to a file.

R - Restore up to 64 disk sectors from a file. This feature should only
be used by those who completely understand what they are doing!

T - Transfer/Copy sectors from disk to disk. This feature should only
be used by those who completely understand what they are doing!

P - Compare sectors.



The following are notes from the late Alex Nichol MS MVP (Windows Technologies)

"Go to

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/downloads-free-software.htm

look for MBRWORK in the free tolls and download it, put it on a DOS floppy (one made by formatting in XP and taking the MSDOS Startup disk option will do).

Boot that and run MBRWORK
Use options
1 (to back up the current state, so it could be restored with 2)
3 then 4 to delete the current code and tables
there will then be a possibility of using A
which will scan the disk for 'signatures' of partitions and rebuilt the partition table then
5
to install standard MBR code so the disk could be booted"






Data recovery.
PC Inspector

http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/UK/welcome.htm

http://www.restorer2000.com

http://www.runtime.org/hints.htm

Plenty of other recovery software listed here.

http://dmoz.org/Computers/Software/Disk_Management/Error_Checking_and_Repair/