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HardDrive Crash


hboogz

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whatsup people..

I have an external maxtor harddrive that is about to die. It's giving me CRC errors and some read errors when i run chkdsk from within windows. I REALLY need to get the information off this drive. It's currently a FAT volume -- what options do i have ?

Is there a program that i need to download and crack to try and run a recovery ? anything!

Thx

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Thanks.

this is an external harddrive not an enclosure with an ATA drive in it. The drive responsds when i plug it in ( usb 2.0 ) i'm able to access some files but some files are not allowing me to access them and i'm sure it's realted to that part of the HD being corupt.

I need an app or a way to clean the drive so i can get these files.

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you mean, buy another external harddrive and disassemble it and put the problematic macxtor drive in this newly purchase external harddrives enclosure ?

don't see how that works -- could you explain further ?

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Thank you for replying man, but you really haven't read what i wrote.

If i could copy the information to another source i would not have even posted.

There are some files i can't copy; during the copying process it stops and dies.I'm sure this has to do with some coruption on the drive itself. Therefore, I'm looking for an app or anything to recover the corupt portions of this disk.

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http://www.diskinternals.com/products.shtml

Might do it thinking about it. If its a hardware error, ie the device cannot read the plattors correctly, then the software won't be able to get any sense from the device, kinda like a drunk guy. If the partition has fouled up, but the physical drive is OK then you can try a sector by sector analaysis of it, and get data back that way.

If the hardware is bust, and you can figure out that its the logic (the PCB on the top) then it is possible to obtain another 100% identical disk and replace that bit. This means you can get your data back, unless the dieing logic fubar'd your data.

If the platters or the heads are fucked in some way, your looking at a hefty bill for a lab to take it apart and do a manual data recovery. Not sure on the cost but I think it will be at least the cost of a replacement drive, depending on the amount of data on it.

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It should be worth noting that chances are there most certainly IS a regular harddisk inside that enclosure. They just don't want you to play with it.

Since it's gonna die anyways, grab what you can off the drive and then open the box up. See if you can do anything with the device. It might just be an USB controller chip that's going nuts in there... (and you could even try to put this newly bought drive in the enclosure to see if that'll make it tick again).

Just some thoughts.

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Probably best if you clone the drive sector for sector (I think Drive image will do that) then you have a copy you can play with - not sure how that will effect your data resoration of corrupt sectors with some programs though.

Anyhoo don't just throw the drive when your done try this:

http://www.dposoft.net/ - HDD Regenerator

It uses the drive heads and basicly trys to remove the magneticly polarised cluster.

Also you can just resize the partitions on the drive to leave the damaged sectors unused (that got me 2 more happy years use out of a drive once - dang IBM drives - Edit that and resoldering the power connector :roll: )

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exactly the type of information i was looking for. Thanks man.

First thing would try to clone the drive with an app that does sector cloning, like driveimage.

Now, considering this is an external drive that connects via usb will the HDD regenerator pick that up ? do i have an option to choose which drive to regenerate ?

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I think regenerator only works on internal drives (aka last time I used it, it was internal only via boot disk as I recall - been a while)

If I were you though I'd get a secondary system (something old ish) or remove your good drives from your PC when you try this stuff and plug the drive in internally

1) Because you don't know if the USB circuit is having a problem (or your drivers for such (unless your bios recognises USB to boot from)

2) The drive may have a power problem and well you want to minimise any loss here.

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I think thats just for Mechanical failures... since it seems this is just a few clusters it's probably going to be magnitised discs... or I could be wrong but wouldn't a drive head screw up generally knock out a whole drive platter?

Oh and the freezing thing is good for batteries :)

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