Urgent:Hard disk crashed

[rhitwick]

Guys, I've just lost 900GB of data.
At least 500GB of movies, TV shows
Rest P...

It was a 1TB WD external drive. Showing as RAW and asking to format before use. I've just recovered from Heart Attack and now feeling a suicide tendency...........

Trying with "Recover My files", but its recovering lots of 10MB files (I swear minimum file size in that drive was of 300MB)

Any other fcuking s/w plz...................

"Yeh duniaaaaaa...............
yeh mehfil.........
mere kam ki nahi, mere kam ki nahi"

[krishnandu.sarkar]

lolz.......u were storing 400GB of P??????????? :O

nyway

recovermyfiles may help u......try it.....(b4 committing suicide)

[Disc_Junkie]

Try PhotoRec.

[pimpom]

I've had good successes with PC Inspector.

I've been lucky so far. All the major data recovery I've had to do were for others. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

[Shadowfax2009]

Hey

Try Recover my files ...... Good at recovering files
PC inspector File Recovery .......Recovers most files ... but cant recover names
My Best bet will be Acronis Partition recovery Software .... I have recovered whole partition from formated hard drives with it ..... Do give it a try ... Its not free ....but U know ....

[vamsi_krishna]

All the best. hoping that you may recover at least 50% of the data.

[Ethan_Hunt]

Holy Crap! I'm just planning to buy a 1TB internal WD drive myself. By reading all these horror stories of crashing, it just gives me the heebie-jeebies!

Hope your recover your partition man. I can't imagine myself being in that situation & that too without a proper back up done. My 320GB WD HDD had also crashed about a year back. Although it gave me prior symptoms before dying. So had time to back up all my data on DVD's. I suppose this is a huge lesson learnt for regular back up albeit having a higher capacity drive. The higher the capacity, the bigger the risk of data loss.

[max_demon]

Use Test Disk - It will help for Sure , Please use TestDisk and it will recover the partition inact

[hell_storm2006]

Recuva. Free, light and very good!

[TheHumanBot]

please reply if any of this things works for you...
i was trying to GHOSTING A XP CD but epically fail and
losted 6 partitions and HDD in raw format

i have losted 300Gb of Music Collection ...
Good News is that i have reBuild my collection upto 83GB

so next time it will help me

i cant stop playing with my system

[max_demon]

^^test disk helps when th partition table is having problem . also can backup restore MBR

[desiibond]

@rhitwick, if you feel that that data is extremely important, you better contact folks at Steallar Phoenix Data Recovery or atleast someone from your city if they can recover. It's better to put this in professional hands than to do experiments with it.

the more data you write on that HDD, the less the chance is to get a full recovery.

once the data is recovered, get another 1Tb HDD and use it as backup HDD.

[Nithu]

Use R-Studio

[NucleusKore]

Try PC Inspector file Recovery

Any luck so far? No news from the OP

[desiibond]

looks like he is still in shocked state!!

[krishnandu.sarkar]

lolz......!!!

[hot zubs]

he needs more time 2 recover from his attack...

[krishnandu.sarkar]

Originally Posted by hot zubs

he needs more time 2 recover from his attack...

of-crs yaar.......aftr all he lost his 400GB of P***
Its really shocking....!! Hw 'll he survive?? Hw 'll he M*******TE now?????

[NucleusKore]

Come on guys

[TheHumanBot]

any software or hardware available for get him out of this sock

[rhitwick]

Extremely sorry guys, I couldn't reply ur posts.
The day it happened, I had to go for a trip next day. So couldn't do anything.

More about the trip and data recovery coming soon.

Thanx for ur support.

[rhitwick]

Originally Posted by Disc_Junkie

Try PhotoRec.

Tried. Couldn't understand...it was doing something but nothing came out. I had not had time to wait and watch so closed.

Originally Posted by pimpom

I've had good successes with PC Inspector.

I've been lucky so far. All the major data recovery I've had to do were for others. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

PC Inspector...anything dude, anything. I'm in such a condition that if u give me Gimp and say it recovers data I may also try that.

Originally Posted by Shadowfax2009

Hey

Try Recover my files ...... Good at recovering files
PC inspector File Recovery .......Recovers most files ... but cant recover names
My Best bet will be Acronis Partition recovery Software .... I have recovered whole partition from formated hard drives with it ..... Do give it a try ... Its not free ....but U know ....

Acronis...hmmm....why not?!!!

Originally Posted by Ethan_Hunt

Holy Crap! I'm just planning to buy a 1TB internal WD drive myself. By reading all these horror stories of crashing, it just gives me the heebie-jeebies!

Hope your recover your partition man. I can't imagine myself being in that situation & that too without a proper back up done. My 320GB WD HDD had also crashed about a year back. Although it gave me prior symptoms before dying. So had time to back up all my data on DVD's. I suppose this is a huge lesson learnt for regular back up albeit having a higher capacity drive. The higher the capacity, the bigger the risk of data loss.

It was not a partition. It was a whole drive!!!!! See I'm too skeptical about my data. Thats the reason I had TWO external backup drives for my data. Now my internal drive is well and good its one of those backup drives which went kaput. All my 2.5yrs collection is lost!!!
What do u do when ur backup drive cheats u?! :-X

Originally Posted by max_demon

Use Test Disk - It will help for Sure , Please use TestDisk and it will recover the partition inact

Mine is a External USB drive. Will it work with that?

Originally Posted by vishalgmistry

please reply if any of this things works for you...
i was trying to GHOSTING A XP CD but epically fail and
losted 6 partitions and HDD in raw format

i have losted 300Gb of Music Collection ...
Good News is that i have reBuild my collection upto 83GB

so next time it will help me

i cant stop playing with my system

What did u use?
Sorry for late reply.

Originally Posted by desiibond

@rhitwick, if you feel that that data is extremely important, you better contact folks at Steallar Phoenix Data Recovery or atleast someone from your city if they can recover. It's better to put this in professional hands than to do experiments with it.

Those were very much important. At least 300 to 350 movies I lost and I'm a collector not a casual movie watcher. Those are my life. Nobody dares to touch my drive without my permission. I don't lend it, I don't even move it from its place where it was kept d first day. Though the fcuking ***** betrayed me.

Professional help will be costly. Though if u've any idea how much they can charge, I'll look into it.

the more data you write on that HDD, the less the chance is to get a full recovery.

once the data is recovered, get another 1Tb HDD and use it as backup HDD.

I know and I've not done anything with that drive till now. Only searched with Recover My Files(RMF).
RMF was able to recover one P*** only nothing else.

And others, those 400GB were not for me. I don't collect them It was for my frnd who I promised to give when I meet him going home.

I'm a day-in/day-out person

[lywyre]

Try connecting you drive as slave internally, you said it was an external USB drive, might be some problem with the external interface.

Also, don't write again in that drive. I would suggest Get Data Back for NTFS, has always worked for me. Copy the recovered files to a different drive. Hope you have a spare 1TB of space.

[rhitwick]

Only "Recuva" recovered a few full length movies. Total 22GB of 900GB.

Took more than 24 hours to search+30 mins to recover.

I've put another search lets see.

Acronis...which one. I installed Disk Doctor but its useless.
Can't understand the functionality of those two DOS apps.

Anyone has any other suggestions.

Saw "Stellar" as a data recovery service providers, thought about approaching buth then saw "Capgemini" as their client. They will charge me millions to recover 1TB!

I guess I've to re-download everything again.

Guys tell me,
1> can there be any issues with my PC?
2> How do I ensure this does not happen again. Internal HDD is understandable but external??? There should be an explanation!
3> Does SSds crash? How much do they cost?

[desiibond]

are you using quality USB cable and update USB drivers.

[desiibond]

http://www.datarecoverymumbai.com/Se...-Recovery.html

[NucleusKore]

Originally Posted by rhitwick

Anyone has any other suggestions...................

Guys tell me,
1> can there be any issues with my PC?
2> How do I ensure this does not happen again. Internal HDD is understandable but external??? There should be an explanation!
3> Does SSds crash? How much do they cost?

1. You would be using FAT or ntfs filesystem. My 320 GB WD came with a FAT FS ! I formatted it to ntfs using Gparted. You can convert to ntfs without formatting from the windows command line
   
   convert X: /fs:ntfs /v
   
   where you replace X with the drive letter of your hard disk (See in My Computer).
   
2. Use more than one partition. Manufacturers ship with only one partition. Make two or three partitions using Windows disk management system or Gparted.
   
3. Always unmount your drive using the safely remove icon near your system clock.
   Windows Vista
   
   Windows XP
   
   Ubuntu
   
   Kubuntu (KDE 4.x)
   
   Kde 3.5.x
   
   
   If the system drive refuses to unmount for ANY reason, make sure no programs are running/writing/reading from/to the drive. If it still refuses to unmount, simply Shutdown your computer. All drives will automatically be unmounted.
4. Last and best solution, use a filesystem like xfs instead of ntfs. You can make xfs using Gparted which you can download separately or run from a Ubuntu live cd. This would mean that you would
   1. have to boot from a live Ubuntu cd/usb each time you want to transfer data, or
   2. Install Linux in the last 5 GB of your fixed hard disk for the same, or
   3. Install Linux in the last 5 GB of your USB hard disk for the same.
   This will ensure that viruses that can normally corrupt your filesystem in a windows environment will not be able to execute.

[rhitwick]

Originally Posted by NucleusKore

You would be using FAT or ntfs filesystem. My 320 GB WD came with a FAT FS ! I formatted it to ntfs using Gparted. You can convert to ntfs without formatting from the windows command line
convert X: /fs:ntfs /v
where you replace X with the drive letter of your hard disk (See in My Computer).

Thanx for the tips but I use NTFS only. FAT is not reliable

Use more than one partition. Manufacturers ship with only one partition. Make two or three partitions using Windows disk management system or Gparted.

Hmmm Good idea, but can USB drives be partitioned?

Always unmount your drive using the safely remove icon near your system clock.
Windows Vista
Windows XP
Ubuntu
Kubuntu (KDE 4.x)
Kde 3.5.x

If the system drive refuses to unmount for ANY reason, make sure no programs are running/writing/reading from/to the drive. If it still refuses to unmount, simply Shutdown your computer. All drives will automatically be unmounted.

Well I use the cache functionality for mass storage which does not require for right click and safe removal.
I guess though windows says it, I should stop doing it.
And, sorry all linux lovers, me not interested to move into linux.

Last and best solution, use a filesystem like xfs instead of ntfs. You can make xfs using Gparted which you can download separately or run from a Ubuntu live cd. This would mean that you would

1.
1. have to boot from a live Ubuntu cd/usb each time you want to transfer data, or
2. Install Linux in the last 5 GB of your fixed hard disk for the same, or
3. Install Linux in the last 5 GB of your USB hard disk for the same.
This will ensure that viruses that can normally corrupt your filesystem in a windows environment will not be able to execute.

Thanx, but its a too much activity to transfer a file.

And, thanx "NucleusKore", I'll look into ur suggestions in future.

[desiibond]

also, if you are using torrent clients, make sure that cache size is big.

[unni]

Ontrack Easy Recovery is a good software. I have used it a few times (1 year ago, now I don't know how good it is), though only for partition recovery and not for full drive recovery.

I think SpinRite could be the best solution for you. I have heard quite a lot of such horror stories in their SecurityNow podcast where SpinRite came to the rescue. Its not free and I have never used it.