[SOLVED] How to fix raw drive with files on it

[Anston06]

I have an old hard drive that got corrupted and it won't boot up anymore. When I put it in another computer in disk management it said "Unknown", "Unallocated", and "Uninitialized". It had a weird symbol with a red arrow pointing down. It asked me if it was MBR or GPT, but after I selected MBR, it said "Error: Cyclic Redundancy Check" or so. I tried to search online if I could run chkdsk, but I can't since there are no volumes. I tried rebuilding the MBR using AOMEI. It did fix the "Unknown" and "Uninitialized", but it still says unallocated. There is a lot of data on it and I don't want to pay $50 for easeus or whatnot. Is there someway I can fix this or a free program that will recover ALL the files?

 

[fzabkar]

Are you able to retrieve a SMART report?

Can you show us the Partitions window in DMDE?

The CRC error suggests that the drive may have a physical problem.

 

[Anston06]

This is what CrystalDiskInfo says:

Yeah, I've never used DMDE before. It seems like cool software.

Here are the partitions:

 

[fzabkar]

The drive is failing. It appears that you have initialised it.

In DMDE you need to r-click the MSData (06) partition and select "Remove the Partition". Then you need to r-click the PRESARIO and PRESARIO_RP partitions and select "Insert the Partition (Undelete)". Write Changes and reboot so that Windows can re-examine the drive.

 

[fzabkar]

Choose Primary.

I would clone the drive with HDDSuperClone and then retire it from service.

 

[Anston06]

Thanks a lot

 

[Anston06]

I made a big mistake by running chkdsk on a drive I shouldn't have. I did it because there were files that I tried to open and Windows said were corrupt. So I stopped it while it was in the middle of working, and now the drive is "raw" and I'm unable to see my files. This continues this thread: https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/how-to-fix-unallocated-hard-drive-with-data-on-it.3736353/. I tried everything I could including deleting the partitions and inserting them back again in DMDE. How can I see my files again without using Recuva which will take several days?

 

[USAFRet]

At this point, it would be "several days" or "never".
Even then, Recuva is not any sort of guarantee of getting this back.

I would strongly suggest you take a clone of this drive, and do your potential data recovery on that clone.
The more you mess with this one copy, the more likely you are to losing it all.

 

[DSzymborski]

Let's keep this to one thread.

 

[DSzymborski]

True, what should I use to clone it?

Macrium Reflect is popular software for this purpose.

 

[fzabkar]

As you have unfortunately discovered, CHKDSK is data destructive. Its main intent is to restore consistency to a file system, even if it has to sacrifice some files in order to achieve this end.

At this point you should not write to the drive. As I suggested earlier, you should clone the drive with HDDSuperClone and then run data recovery software (eg DMDE) against the clone.

 

[fzabkar]

Macrium Reflect is popular software for this purpose.

I would not use Macrium Reflect on a dying drive. Instead data recovery professionals recommend ddrescue or HDDSuperCloe.

 

[USAFRet]

And in Macrium, go to Advanced Options, and select Forensic Sector Copy.
This captures ALL sectors, whether faulty or not.

 

[Anston06]

Okay, now how do I actually fix the "raw" problem?

 

[USAFRet]

Okay, now how do I actually fix the "raw" problem?

You recover the data first, if possible.
Only after that do you worry about "fixing" the drive.

ddrescue
HDDSuperCLone
Macrium Reflect Forensic.

 

[fzabkar]

I don't believe Macrium Reflect Forensic is an appropriate tool for this task. Ddrescue and HDDSuperCLone will avoid bad patches in the media, but I expect that Macrium Reflect Forensic will thrash around when it encounters these same spots.

My preference is for HDDSuperCLone, as its author has designed it to be aware of the "serpentine segments" in hard drives. Typically one finds that a particular head has become weak, and HDDSuperCLone then attempts to avoid this head on the first pass.

 

[mundial]

My preference is for HDDSuperCLone, as its author has designed it to be aware of the "serpentine segments" in hard drives. Typically one finds that a particular head has become weak, and HDDSuperCLone then attempts to avoid this head on the first pass.

Hi Fzabkar, what are "serpentine segments"? and second what selective head imaging always a feature of HDDSC?

 

[fzabkar]

When the drive traverses the user area from LBA 0 to max LBA, it reads several sequential tracks from one surface and then switches to the next head, reads another group of sequential tracks, and so on. If you watch the head while it is doing this, it appears to snake across the surfaces. Each group of tracks is a "serpentine segment".

You can see these segments in HD Tune:

How to determine number of heads using HD Tune:
http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=650

The following article explains it much better:

HDD from inside: Tracks and Zones:
https://hddscan.com/doc/HDD_Tracks_and_Zones.html

HDDSuperClone cannot directly determine if a particular LBA is associated with a particular head, but it makes an intelligent guess. Professional tools which access the drive at the firmware level are able to understand the internal LBA-to-CHS translation, so they would be the most appropriate tools for this task. Pro tools can also disable various features such as read retries, SMART, reallocation, etc. HDDSuperClone is able to do this for some WD models. In fact I believe the OP's drive is a supported model which will respond to HDDSuperClone's "WD slow responding" hack.

 

[mundial]

thanks - very interesting Fzabkar.