iyousafzai
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File system turned RAW? How to recover data...
Hi,
Got a friend whos External Harddrive [freecome 160gb] has just stopped working. He first added a new USB 2.0 PCI card to his computer as he was running 1.1. Then connected his external and loaded a piece of software called CuBase then tried to open a file inside this software. However a windows error popped up saying something about content not available? Cant remember exactly what it was.
Anyway he disconnected the drive, connected it back up and now it shows as a RAW filesystem and therefore needs formatting etc. However he has a lot of important media so we really need to reocver it somehow. We tried a few recovery softwares but i am afriad it might not recover his files properly and will cost $100.
Then after some reading up, we heard it could by the boot sector is corrupt. Running testdisc confirmed the boot sector is corrupt. However before writing a new boot sector, we need to know if this will by any chance ruin the HD or cause the data to delete? Or is this the way to go forword?
If there is even a SLIGHTEST chance it might ruin the HD, what recovery software would you recomend. OR what should i try out next?
TBH i think the boot sector is the problem and thats what needs writing but i want to confirm before we do it that the data will not be deleted off the HD and it is fairly safe to do.
Thanks
Got a friend whos External Harddrive [freecome 160gb] has just stopped working. He first added a new USB 2.0 PCI card to his computer as he was running 1.1. Then connected his external and loaded a piece of software called CuBase then tried to open a file inside this software. However a windows error popped up saying something about content not available? Cant remember exactly what it was.
Anyway he disconnected the drive, connected it back up and now it shows as a RAW filesystem and therefore needs formatting etc. However he has a lot of important media so we really need to reocver it somehow. We tried a few recovery softwares but i am afriad it might not recover his files properly and will cost $100.
Then after some reading up, we heard it could by the boot sector is corrupt. Running testdisc confirmed the boot sector is corrupt. However before writing a new boot sector, we need to know if this will by any chance ruin the HD or cause the data to delete? Or is this the way to go forword?
If there is even a SLIGHTEST chance it might ruin the HD, what recovery software would you recomend. OR what should i try out next?
TBH i think the boot sector is the problem and thats what needs writing but i want to confirm before we do it that the data will not be deleted off the HD and it is fairly safe to do.
Thanks
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if it is that important, i would first try to make an image of it with Acronis drive manager; then try Testdisk; if anything is lost, you still have it on the image.
If this is not possible, and you want to be sure to have the data, try this recovery Cy : http://www.gillware.com/
If this is not possible, and you want to be sure to have the data, try this recovery Cy : http://www.gillware.com/
Ok, first it's always a good recomendation to make an image, as nobus said, if you can.
And second, TestDisk is on it's 6.7 version, so I think that it has changed a lot from the
last time you used it.
The documentation is very comprehensive and it's written in four languages, so If you still
feel lost after reading the docs, please let me know.
Also there is PhotoRec (on the same site) which recovers files from corrupted media.
Let me know how it turns out. Good Luck.
And second, TestDisk is on it's 6.7 version, so I think that it has changed a lot from the
last time you used it.
The documentation is very comprehensive and it's written in four languages, so If you still
feel lost after reading the docs, please let me know.
Also there is PhotoRec (on the same site) which recovers files from corrupted media.
Let me know how it turns out. Good Luck.
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in case you need the link to the software: http://www.ptdd.com/
ASKER
Apologies but as have said, it was for a friend and they have yet tried any recommendations due to having to backup before trying any method and having other important commitmants. However i will split points anyway.
Thanks
Thanks
ASKER
Slightly lost!
I used TestDisk as i said above in my original post and i thought it was only able to rewrite a new boot sector? Or at least thats all i used it for.
Could you give me a quick tutorial on how to use it (in read only mode to start with) so i can see my files and then how would i tell it to recover these files etc?
If i remember its a DOS based software and i only used it once and it gave a boot sector error, however the backup boot sector is fine and if i wanted to write this over. Thats when i closed the software as i was unsure and now led me to ask the question, is it safe?
So yeah, please explain a bit more if you could!
Thanks