File Recovery - Ahhh!!!

[merc180k]

HELP!!!

My hard drive (slave) packed in and has lost all the data on it (pictures of my son since he was a baby). Apparently the data was corrupt and windows was unable to read the partition. The only option left was to format the disk.

I am now trying to recover the files and had downloaded Easy File Undelete, but it won't let me continue without a product key.

Does anyone have another good program I can use or any ideas of what I can do??

All input appreciated - and yes I know I should have had another copy!! Isn't hindsight wonderful?!

 

[Dec]

Download a copy of this... http://www.recovermyfiles.com/

Dec

 

[merc180k]

Download a copy of this... http://www.recovermyfiles.com/

Dec

BRILLIANT, THANK-YOU!!!

Is this a free copy that will recover my files fully?

 

[Dec]

I bought that program a couple of years ago for $69 to retrieve some important files that I deleted and then realized I needed. Works very well.

You can download it and use it and see the files that are recoverable BUT you cant recover the files until you buy the licence, that is the product key.so you will really be in the same boat as you are with Easy File Undelete.

Don’t know if there is a free one out their.

Dec

 

[AMGeed]

Be careful not to download any software, (free or not) to your hard drive. You could possibly overwrite the very files you want to recover.


Be careful about "free" software, as the photos are obviously valuable to you.

Have a short look at this-

http://www.antionline.com/showthread.php?t=254880

 

[stevesey]

A copy of this Ultimate Boot CD is always useful in these circumstances - plenty of undelete tools on it. One of the most used CDs in my PC rescue toolkit.

 

[merc180k]

Be careful not to download any software, (free or not) to your hard drive. You could possibly overwrite the very files you want to recover.


Be careful about "free" software, as the photos are obviously valuable to you.

Have a short look at this-

http://www.antionline.com/showthread.php?t=254880

The drive at the moment is blank, but I'm only after something to use once hence my reluctance to pay for the software.

Any other ideas?

 

[merc180k]

A copy of this Ultimate Boot CD is always useful in these circumstances - plenty of undelete tools on it. One of the most used CDs in my PC rescue toolkit.

Looks good. I take it I just email and ask them for the cd. And I presume there will be a charge?

 

[stevesey]

Click on any of the download mirror links, page down once - there's a list.

 

[Antharro]

If the drive randomly just stopped seeing the data on it, then this could be for any number of reasons. As has already been stated, do NOT write anything to this disc as you will risk over-writing what's already on there. If the disc is failing, then the more you access it, the worse the failure will become.

I have worked in the data recovery industry for many years and seen a lot of drives where people have tried to recover their own data and made the job a lot more difficult because of it. And now every other mom and pop computer shop thinks they can recover data because they can buy a piece of software...

A lot of the free/shareware applications that are available may work if the drive is in full mechanical working order, but if the surface of the discs in the drive, or the heads themselves are failing, these programs can often end up causing more damage.

Bottom line - if you are not happy running your own recovery, then DO NOT DO IT. Seriously.

What make and model is the drive?

You have a PM.

 

[Sp!ke]

You formatted the disk? Oh dear..... not the best thing to have done.

I'll dig out which (free) tool we use in the morning as I cant recall its name right now. Formatting the disk wont have helped matters much though.

 

[Antharro]

You formatted the disk? Oh dear..... not the best thing to have done.

Unless the drive has been zero-filled (unlikely in this case), then it is entirely possible to recover from either a quick or full format. All a format does (in very basic terms) is remove the information on the drive that points to where data is stored within it. Even though that information isn't there, any half decent recovery program can find the data that's still on the drive.

The only way to remove that information is to zero-fill the drive. There are multiple official standards across the world for removing data from hard drives securely - for example, the US Department of Defence and Royal Canadian Mounted Police have their own standards, and there's also the simple zero-fill method - overwrite everything on the drive with zeros.

Programs like DBAN (freeware) can securely nuke drives. Or if you don't want to re-use the drive or it's damaged, you could always use one of these.

 

[merc180k]

You formatted the disk? Oh dear..... not the best thing to have done.

I'll dig out which (free) tool we use in the morning as I cant recall its name right now. Formatting the disk wont have helped matters much though.

Formatting was the only option as it kept saying that there was a read/write failure then the disk dissapeared on next boot. Bios could see it but there was no formatted partition (or so windows said) when it re booted.
Have traced it to a faulty power lead inside the pc - looks like the power was interrupted mid write and caused the disk to fail. Have since turned the caching off and the disk is quite happy to be accessed now but still the matter of data recovery.

Once I get it back I'll be copying it all to the laptop as a back up and the ultimate plan is to replace the slave drive with a bigger external one....,eventually!

All the input and suggestions are appreciated - keep them coming.

S.

 

[masher_uk]

Nas?

I feel for you merc180k - A few years back I reformatted the wrong disk (drive letter had changed!) and used this to recover the data. Worked a treat.

Assuming you are able to recover your data successfully, you may wish to consider some sort of NAS (Network Attached Storage) device. Simply hangs off your LAN and you can either use it for dedicated backup or, like I do, as a simple file server for multiple PCs. I use one of these with two HDDs in a RAID1 configuration (ie one drive excatly mirrors the other, so if one disk fails it can be hot-swapped and the array is automatically rebuilt). You can even attach additional backup drives, if you're feeling especially nervous...

Hope that helps. Best of luck!

 

[SimonsMerc]

Get http://www.sysresccd.org/, burn it to a CD, and run photorec. Then if it has trouble retrieving all the photos (likely a physical problem with the disc), use ddrescue for the best chance to rescue the rest.

 

[merc180k]

Click on any of the download mirror links, page down once - there's a list.

I really must be doing something wrong to get this.

Downloaded the zip file and unzipped to desktop. Then used the file it said and it created another .iso file. Still following the instructions I then burned this to a cd and ....... nothing happened!!!

The file is on the cd but the pc won't boot from it! It's too good a bunch of programs not to have as a back up anyway - what have I done wrong?

 

[stevesey]

I really must be doing something wrong to get this.

Downloaded the zip file and unzipped to desktop. Then used the file it said and it created another .iso file. Still following the instructions I then burned this to a cd and ....... nothing happened!!!

The file is on the cd but the pc won't boot from it! It's too good a bunch of programs not to have as a back up anyway - what have I done wrong?

The iso file is a CD disk image - sounds like you just copied the iso file to the CD. What you need to do is chose the create from iso/image option in you CD burning software - that will then create the CD correctly.

HTH easy when you know how, not so obvious if you've not done it before - google "iso image" plus the name of your CD software and you should get some specific instructions.

 

[merc180k]

The iso file is a CD disk image - sounds like you just copied the iso file to the CD. What you need to do is chose the create from iso/image option in you CD burning software - that will then create the CD correctly.

HTH easy when you know how, not so obvious if you've not done it before - google "iso image" plus the name of your CD software and you should get some specific instructions.

Ahh - now it all becomes clear. Ta. Will give it a shot.