Summary:
I'm doing some data recovery on a disk which is partially failing. The disk is audibly making that famous Maxtor chirping. Disk management on Windows 7 cannot initialize the disk because of a CRC redundancy error. What is baffling is that when I run data recovery software, it appears the disk (which is only a 160GB SATA drive) is showing up as 10.5 PB!
So the key facts:
1. I would like to image the RAW data - if I can get to that point
2. I need to first know how to get passed- or how to ignore- the CRC redundancy error
3. I need to know why the drive is showing up as 10.5 PB- as this appears to be related to the CRC Redundancy Error
4. The disk is a 160GB Maxtor. The client accidentally formatted the disk, and needs me to recover the .JPG files from before the format.
5. I enjoyed initial success with RECUVA, but there were more than 70,000 "image" type files, so rather than go straight to recovering them, I made the mistake of switching software to attempt to completely reconstruct the entire disk.
6. Towards the very end of recovery, the recovery failed.
7. Disk now appears only in Disk Management, but without initialization.
8. Data associated with this failing disk appears to be corrupted to the point where Windows 7 sees this disk as containing 10.5 PB of data rather than the actual 160GB it should be.
To be honest when I ran the data recovery software (Get Data Back for FAT), I thought perhaps I was detecting some kind of network drive which I had not been previously aware of (which should be impossible since I am not attached to any network that I am aware of.)
So, rather than making a 10,000 word post, please look at this (and the attached screen capture) and just let me know what you think?
* I will be very prompt in answering any questions you might have.