A sort of dead hard drive...

[CHR1S]

I have the HDD from a staff laptop that is sort of dead.

It has smart errors and generally isnt healthy, however its working, to a fashion.

I can access the recovery partition, view contents etc fine however the main partition shows its drive letter and not much else.

 

I've attempted to fix the MBR, which now shows the partitions capacity but I still cant get it to do anything else. Can a hardware failure destroy a partition but still work?

 

TIA

[LeMarchand]

Is it encrypted?

 

I've had luck with TestDisk/PhotoRec in the past, but use with caution - I've also chosen the wrong option and blown away any chance of recovery.

[CHR1S]

Is it encrypted?

 

I've had luck with TestDisk/PhotoRec in the past, but use with caution - I've also chosen the wrong option and blown away any chance of recovery.

 

Not encrypted, its a personal laptop.

Im forcing a disk check at present to see if I can get anywhere with that. Getdataback just hangs when processing the drive/partition data.

Will give photorec a go once this finishes.

[CHR1S]

Its almost like the platters have been scratched, it can read anything before it and I assume after and the failed bit is the partition data for the failed one.

Going to try a photorec recovery and just hope for the best!

[Koldov]

+1 for Photorec (for file recovery) - Just a word on the options, I went full gung-ho on a teachers usb drive, with every option enabled and it just finished. It has taken over two weeks! However, knowing that the damage can spread I thought I would go for the nuclear option on the first run, just in case it became completely unreadable.

 

Testdisk its parent program can also do wonders apparently for fixing the disk so it is bootable again, but full of options that you REALLY have to know what you're doing to use.

 

Very easy to stuff the disk completely...

 

Windows had a drive letter, but no access. I tried numerous other options (including getdataback, unstoppable copier - that didn't even start, raw copy - the same, EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard, HDDRaw copy, Recuva and some others), which either hung, couldn't even see the drive or took hours to even find it.

 

Kol.

[CHR1S]

So in the latter scenario, did you fix it? Am I SOL?

[Koldov]

No, couldn't fix it!

 

I managed about 99% recovery of the files with Photorec though.

[synaesthesia]

Booting up with a linux live CD will often be enough to access those files without resorting to recovery as Linux tends to be rather more frugal with accessing windows file systems than Windows is.

[NB9457]

I had a similar scenario a few months ago, staff member had her lifes work on an external hard drive. Tried everything and in the end, plugged it into a Mac and it just worked.

[CHR1S]

Photorec sees the drive but recovers nothing

[gtg93]

Have you tried minitool power data recovery? https://www.powerdatarecovery.com/ - My go to for this sort of thing. Free version only allows you to recover 1GB, but if the data is worth trying to recover it might be worth paying for... There are a few of options on it, however in your case I'd try both Lost partition recovery and damaged partition recovery.

[CHR1S]

Have you tried minitool power data recovery? https://www.powerdatarecovery.com/ - My go to for this sort of thing. Free version only allows you to recover 1GB, but if the data is worth trying to recover it might be worth paying for... There are a few of options on it, however in your case I'd try both Lost partition recovery and damaged partition recovery.

 

Trying it now, been sat at zero % for quite some time. Think the drive is dead.

Even ubuntu couldnt mount it.

[difinity]

Remove the PCB from the hard drive, flip it over and check the contacts. If it's a Seagate or WD the contacts will be oxidised. This causes all sorts of errors. Clean with a pencil rubber then try your recovery attempts.

[Joanne]

secret option C: put hard drive in waterproof box / bag (eg/ sandwich bag) put in fridge / freezer for a bit. Try again. Sometimes cooling helps contacts back and will give you enough time to get stuff off!

[CHR1S]

Have you tried minitool power data recovery? https://www.powerdatarecovery.com/ - My go to for this sort of thing. Free version only allows you to recover 1GB, but if the data is worth trying to recover it might be worth paying for... There are a few of options on it, however in your case I'd try both Lost partition recovery and damaged partition recovery.

 

Bloody hell, it suddenly sprang to life and minitool has a whole drive of contents to recover. Im impressed.

 

Now its up to the user if she wants to recover "just" 1Gb for free or pay for the full recovery!

[gtg93]

Bloody hell, it suddenly sprang to life and minitool has a whole drive of contents to recover. Im impressed.

Now its up to the user if she wants to recover "just" 1Gb for free or pay for the full recovery!

 

It's my favourite tool - armed with this, it usually results in copious amounts of cider/wine/chocolate bern brought as a thank you for saving hours and hours of work.

[CHR1S]

Strangely, doing some testing with a good disk.

minitool seems to be recovering some full size (slightly corrupted) jpg files where photorec only recovers the thumbnail.

In a strange turn of events, photorec can recover way more thumbnails that minitool.

 

Does photorec have any more advanced recovery settings further than bruteforce to try and get the whole file instead of the internal thumbnail?

[gtg93]

Strangely, doing some testing with a good disk.

minitool seems to be recovering some full size (slightly corrupted) jpg files where photorec only recovers the thumbnail.

In a strange turn of events, photorec can recover way more thumbnails that minitool.

 

Does photorec have any more advanced recovery settings further than bruteforce to try and get the whole file instead of the internal thumbnail?

 

From memory, I don't think photorec had many options, however it's probably a few years since i used it so might be thinking of another tool - However just thought I've used Recuva in the past too - https://www.piriform.com/recuva - not often had a lot of luck with it but might also be worth a try if you haven't already

[Koldov]

Personally, I hate it when people just post a link, but....

 

PhotoRec Step By Step - CGSecurity

 

I didn't find it amazingly helpful, but I'm afraid I can't be much more help in guiding you through the best options for your scenario. I've only really had to use it 2 or 3 times and chose the default (apart from last time - which I regret seeing as how it took over 2 weeks to complete).

 

Photorec is probably discarding the corrupted .jpg files because you might not have chosen to keep them (if it is corrupted, the worth of keeping them is debatable).

 

Photorec also seems to disregard folder structure and filename attributes which isn't helpful, but as it seems to go for a more raw recovery is understandable (just annoying when you have 3 and half thousand files named f456873, f456874 etc...

[LeMarchand]

I think this is the way I've found stuff with TestDisk. May not be good for all scenarios, though! How to recover lost data using TestDisk | PCWorld