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Disk crash?! Invalid partition / Unusable backup file
An IDE drive (WD 160GB) in my company's only email server died and took all of the emails with it!
Fortunately, the drive hasn't fried, isn't making clicking/scratching noises, BIOS sees it fine and some utilities can detect the proper size of the partition.
Unfortunately, it's not readable in the email server or in any other computer as a valid NTFS partition. In "My Computer," where it would normally give the Total Size and the Free Size, it's just blank. When I double click on the drive letter that Windows assigned, it says "The disk in drive <X> is not formatted. Do you want to format it now?" Knoppix utilities don't help. ERD Commander 2005 can't seem to do anything either.
Fortunately, I keep nightly backups of the contents of this drive (Exchange 2000 Information Store) via NTBackup just in case.
Unfortunately, the backup file (.bkf) is apparently corrupt! When I went to restore it, I got the message "The backup file is unusable. You must erase it, or choose another file." My jaw almost hit the floor! I see some companies selling .bkf repair tools, but few can do ones with Exchange data, are quite expensive, and I would rather save as a last resort. Microsoft's KB article (http://support.microsoft.
Double-whammy! At this point, I feel that I have a better chance in recovering the files from the drive. Are there any programs I should try out? I'm desperate and just hope that this doesn't cost me my job! Thanks in advance!
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by: cods69Posted on 2006-03-21 at 20:36:21ID: 16254256
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