Hard Drive is Corrupt

[torrenter]

When I turned on my computer the other day, I saw that in the My Computer folder my so called Backup drive (F: Drive) said it was corrupt, and I could not access it. I'm just clueless as to how that could happen and whether there's any way I can myself repair/restore the drive without formatting it. I do not want to format.

The drive itself was a hand me down from my father who had initially bought the same PC as me (Compaq SR1180 UK). He basically gave me spare parts as he bought a new, dedicated gamer's PC outright. The two disks I now had were both 250GB disks, one WD, one Maxtor. I'm presuming that the disk my father gave me was the one that went corrupt, as Windows still loads up.

Both of these disks initially had 2 partitions, 1 which was used for to store a full PC/factory settings restore. Before I added the new disk, the disk I had had a separated partition of course. Then, when I added the new disk, I got rid of the backup partition as I was going to use the new, added disk to store the WindowsImageBackup file, as well as GBs of my documents, music, downloads etc.

Never did I think that the disk which was not the boot disk, would fail. And as I used my so-called 'Backup Disk' to store all my documents, music, downloads etc without putting any first on the C: Disk, I'm really stuck.

Help would be much appreciated.

 

[kimsland]

First try Checkdisk Xp, or Checkdisk Vista instructions

Then run a Drive Diagnostics on your HardDrive

 

[torrenter]

Hi Kimsland, to clarify on the make of my hard disk it is a Maxtor MaXLine® II 250 GB SATA 150HDD. And I've seen unfortunate reviews on it:

http://www.shopping.com/xPR-Maxtor-MaXLine-Plus-II-250-GB-7Y250M0

http://www.reviewcentre.com/reviews72605.html

The error I get on startup is something along the lines of:

"One of your disks, G: disk (it was originally a factory set recovery partition) is Fat 32, and needs to be check for inconsistency/ies.......

An unspecified error occurred." It then proceeds to load up Windows.

After reading up on Chkdsk for Vista and several utilities such as HDD Regenerator 1.61, MaxBlast 5, File Scavenger® Version 3, Recover My Files, SpinRite 6.0 and GetDataBack for NTFS V3.64 I'm not sure where to start.

You've said read Checkisk Vista instructions but in that link it goes straight to say, "Use Check Disk at your own risk" and "It could take hours to days to scan your hard drive depending on its size." - The data I have on it is in the region of 100-200GB.

Would any of the other programs (even if I have to pay for them) be any better/ more reliable than checkdisk??

 

[kimsland]

Recovery Software

Try this one: http://www.z-a-recovery.com/unformat-tutorial.htm
It is free for up to four folders down, ie
E:\Documents and Setting\UserName\My Documents\My Pictures
1,2,3,4 folders down

Here are a lot free ones to choose from
http://www.majorgeeks.com/downloads38.html

Yes there is a small risk involved with CheckDisk
If you are very concerned best to use the free recovery tools (no need to purchase anything, ever actually)

 

[torrenter]

Many thanks Kimsland. Apart from the one you mentioned, do you have an experience of the other programs I mentioned or an opinion on them? Thanks again.

 

[kimsland]

I've used them all

You try any\all when doing this work
I found ZAR the best (linked above)

I liked it so much I contacted the programmer, and asked for a key (yes that's right, I asked for a key!, mind you I did happen to mention that I have a few thousand posts over at TechSpot) Anyway, he gave me the key!

But, even registered it does the exact same thing
Excellent program, up to 4 levels down for free
Oh I have no affiliation with them or anything, or any other company

 

[torrenter]

Great, unless someone disagrees with you by tommorrow evening (GMT time, I'll be trying to recover my disk using that program.

Thanks, see you around.....

 

[torrenter]

Hello again Kimsland. I'm pretty sure I have files more than folders down, somewhere anyway, on the crashed disk. I suppose I'd have to pay for the full version to recover these?

Also, I've just found out about this prog called VirtualLab Data Recovery. Do you, or does anyone else have an opinion on, or experience of it?

Thanks again.

 

[kimsland]

Here are a lot free ones to choose from
http://www.majorgeeks.com/downloads38.html

You do not need to pay
All the Recovery programs mentioned are free and excellent in recovering data