Trying to fix NTFS corruption in external disk (no OS) 2

[grittyminder]

A while back I was trying to copy a large set of files from an NTFS formatted external disk drive to a personal server. The server froze and in doing so messed up the external disk NTFS partition (I know that there is nothing wrong with the physical disk itself because I ran a diagnostic on it).

So I want to run some Windows recovery tools on the disk (e.g. chkdsk, fixboot, etc.). However, the only problem is... I don't know how to get to the point where I can actually run these tools on the disk itself. For example, when I run the Windows recovery CD, the recovery program/tools do not recognize that the external drive exists (i.e. there is no drive letter automatically assigned to external disk, presumably because the NTFS headers are corrupted). Or, more specifically, I don't know how to make it so that the recovery program/tools are able to recognize that the disk exists (e.g. forcibly 'mount' the disk, or something like that).

Has anyone else been in this situation before? It can't be all that uncommon. Does anybody have any tips or useful information?

 

[grittyminder]

I'm so stupid. I just discovered the "map" command playing with the help menu.

Okay, so I just ran chkdsk on the disk partition (there is only one partition) and it says that "The volume appears to contain one or more unrecoverable problems." I'm going to continue trying to solve the problem on my own and post my progress here, but if anybody has any silver bullet type ideas please pipe up.

 

[linney]

The drive manufacturer will have free diagnostic software that is self-booting which will thoroughly check the condition of the drive.

Spinrite (not freeware)

http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm

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/

 

[grittyminder]

Wow, many useful links here. Thanks a lot, I appreciate it! I had to temporarily stop working on this problem due to other things going on, but I hope to start again this weekend. I'll post my progress!

 

[grittyminder]

I gave PC Inspector a shot. Pretty impressive for freeware--too bad it is not open source. Unfortunately, it wasn't able to see all my files (all 120 gigs worth). I don't know if this has something to do with the drive itself or is related to some limitation of the functionality of the software. Also, saving recovered files was a very tedious process. I wish that there was some way to automate responses (e.g. "ignore," "OK," etc.) to certain reoccuring errors.

PC Inspector's prognosis for my data wasn't the greatest, so now I'm obtaining a second opinion. I installed Restorer 2000 (demo mode) and it is scanning my drive right now. We'll see what it has to say...

 

[grittyminder]

Restorer 2000 (NTFS version) was able to identify *all* the files/directories on the external drive in 1/4 the time required by PC Inspector (PC Inspector was unable to identify the files of certain directories and sometimes had trouble identifying the correct names of files). It was also able to restore *all* my files. The basic version of Restorer 2000 only cost 29.98 Canadian dollars--well worth the money spent. I would wholeheartedly recommend Restorer 2000 to anybody else facing similar problems.

 

[linney]

A happy ending either way. I have never seen any consistency with data recovery, some work for some and not for others, it seems to be a trial an error approach to the one that will work, of course some don't work at all for the unlucky among us. At least the paid versions let you test before you spend money.