Data recovery from hdd with corrupt master file table

[mz2193]

My computer crashed and now the hard drive has a corrupt master file table, which Windows could not recover. Of course, I hadn't backed it up in a few months, so I'm wondering what programs you knowledgeable people would recommend/have had success with in recovering files in similar situations.

I've tried TestDisk, but when I did "Analyse" it got stuck at a cylinder and stayed there for 12 hours before I gave up and closed the program. I also tried Active@ File Recovery; QuickScan can see what's in the ESP partition and another partition that has $MFT, $MFTMirr, $Boot, etc. but nothing in any other partitions, though I haven't tried a full SuperScan yet.

Also, I've read it's a good idea to image the corrupt disk and work on that instead of the actual hard drive. If I did that would I put the image on another hard drive? I only have a replacement SSD that I installed in my computer and the external hard drive that I use to back up data and am not sure if those are viable options (please forgive my lack of know-how).

Thank you for any help you can provide!

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Hey there, mz2193.

It's a good idea to clone a drive in this situation, however in your case those are not good options, so you could skip it. This is usually done whenever there's a possibility that the drive might fail while trying to recover the data or damage the partitions and/or files while trying recovery options.
You could give it a go with some of the suggestions from this article: http://pcsupport.about.com/od/filerecovery/tp/free-file-recovery-programs.htm

If nothing seems to work, perhaps going for a professional solution such as a data recovery company, would be a good idea.

Hope that helps.
Boogieman_WD