Maxtor hard drive failure (stuffed by CHKDSK)

[ER12345]

ok this is what happened (long story).

I had a Maxtor diamondmax 16 HDD (250GB)
2 partitions: 100/150
_______________________________________________________

I backed up my files on both partitions

I put in my winXP disk to format and install windows on another physical drive (Deskstar)

I got suspicious at that point because the windows installation recognized my 150 GB partition as an "Unknown partition with 100% of space free"

I decided i will worry about that later, and proceeded to format the other drive.

Format complete, but before windows isntall started, it ran CHKDSK on my 150 GB partition (on the non-windows physcal drive)

CHKDSK found errors with the IDE index of every single one of the files on that partition (or something like taht). It eplaced the IDE indexes and then proceeded to "recover orphaned file 123123 into file directory 123123" etc for every single one of my files.

I was wondering "WTH" at this stage and proceeded withi windows install on the other drive.

Windows installed fine. I tested my 250 GB hdd. the 100GB partition was 100% normal
my 150 GB partition however...

File name and sizes 100% correct
All files with size <540bytes were fine
All files with size >540 bytes were corrupted.

Now, i am guessing that all the data is intact...but one sector is not connected to the next.

So...what happened and is there any way of fixing this?

 

[PRPhx]

At this point, I would double check to ensure that ALL my data was backed up to someplace you know it's safe (like on a DVD or CD-rom). Then I would download the manufacturer's low level format program, install it to a floppy and zero out (return it to the factory fresh state) the drive.

At this point I would NOT trust the drive. If you have had this many problems, they proabably won't go away with a simple reformat (of course I could be wrong). After the low level format, restart windows, and let windows disk manager format the drive. IF you continue to have errors on the drive, I would begin to suspect the drive is going bad. If it's under warranty, send it off for repair/replace.

Some here may say this is extreme, but I have found that sometimes being extrme saves both time and frustration in the long term.

 

[Sival]

I echo the make sure your data is backed up advice. I'd then run Maxtor's Powermax diagnostic to check the drive for errors. If none show up, then do a low level format, reformat, and reinstall of Windows. If errors show up on the diagnostic, time for an RMA.

 

[ER12345]

i don't have another copy of the data.


And all my data is stuffed up


Is there anyway for me to get the data back? (after all...its still there...CHKDSK just pwned my file allocation tables)

 

[wolluf]

You can try a data recovery app - eg, getdataback which has a number of testimonials here (as do other products - google or search this forum to find them).

 

[directlyconnected]

When you tested the 250gig drive, how did you do this? If you have Partition Magic, then it should tell you about discontiguous files. Later.

Tim