Iomega 1TB usb drive gone bad with alot of photos :(

[Helpneededhere]

Hello,
My friend gave me an iomega eGo drive (https://iomega-na-en.custhelp.com/app/cust_alp/p/3,35) with the folowing story:
- she tried to copy (not move) about 13GB of new photos to the drive from a Vista PC.
- After seeing that the coping proccess is "stuck" for some 3-4 hours, she clicked cancel (she dosen't remember if she waited for the canelation window to close).
- She then switched the drive off (via its button) and disconeccted it from the PC.
- Pluging the drive back in to any PC eversince returns a "you need to format the disk in drive F: before you can use it" error (no one pushed "format" luckly).

There are ALOT of very important photos of her family and she can't lose them.
I have tried entering the drive with Ubuntu but i dont see it.
I have tried "recuva" but it cant scan the drive.
I tried "find & mount" but it cant mount it (gets stuck).
I tried CHKDSK /r but after alot of lines started showing errors, and reading in wikipedia that "Unreadable data is lost", i stoped (2-3 minutes into the proccess still at 0%) and just closed the cmd.
I am now scaning it with TestDisk 6.12 and its very slow and showing:
"Disk /dev/sdc - 1000 GB / 931 GiB - CHS 953869 64 32
Analyse cylinder 16951/953868: 01%
Read error at 16950/1/1 (lba=353.....)"

I am not an expert (as you can see LOL) on these issues, and therefore would like to get some advice from you guys as to how i should continue from here?

Thanks,
P.s - please note that i will do my best to understand instructions but try also to put them in plain word as possiable

[sathyan]

I have tried entering the drive with Ubuntu but i dont see it.
I have tried "recuva" but it cant scan the drive.
I tried "find & mount" but it cant mount it (gets stuck).
I tried CHKDSK /r but after alot of lines started showing errors, and reading in wikipedia that "Unreadable data is lost", i stoped (2-3 minutes into the proccess still at 0%) and just closed the cmd.
I am now scaning it with TestDisk 6.12 and its very slow and showing:
"Disk /dev/sdc - 1000 GB / 931 GiB - CHS 953869 64 32
Analyse cylinder 16951/953868: 01%
Read error at 16950/1/1 (lba=353.....)"

Your drive is failing .Stop using the drive and,
Do not run any tools on faulty drive, it will kill the drive faster.
You should immediately make a clone/image of the disk and try to recover data from the clone/image.
DIY is risky and the chances of getting a proper image of the drive is less due to the current condition of the drive , as you mentioned.
Take pro help to increase the chances of recovering your valuable data , and shouldnt cost very high.

[Vulcan]

@Helpneededhere,

Here are a few comments, all IMHO...

My friend gave me an iomega eGo drive
[...]
There are ALOT of very important photos of her family and she can't lose them.
[...]
would like to get some advice from you guys as to how i should continue from here?

Because your friend "can't lose" those photos, her statement already decides the situation and therefore the only advice is that you must not do anything to the drive - stop now! (In fact, preferably stop before now - see below.) Otherwise you might make the situation worse (as sathyan said), and potentially you could be responsible for changing the situation with your friend's drive, from one which a professional could successfully recover, into a less successful (or even unrecoverable) one.

Unfortunately some of your actions (especially, but not only, running "chkdsk") may already have reduced the chances of successful recovery by anyone else. I'm not going into all the details now, but as a short summary: chkdsk is not a data recovery tool, and it should not be run on a failing drive (which you seem to have). Even if a drive itself is OK, but has filesystem corruption, chkdsk (in r/w mode) should not be run without making a full raw clone of the drive first, in case its changes to the filesystem make things even worse. (The same applies to "fsck" in *nix.) Unfortunately most users are completely unaware of all the risks of running chkdsk / fsck.

Although there is a very big name data recovery company lab near Amsterdam, there are several other recommended DR companies in Europe, if your friend is prepared to ship the drive to other countries.

[I suspect I know what the reply will be - we'll see...]

[Helpneededhere]

Ok, thanks for your help guys!
I stopped using TestDisk 6.12 about an hour after posting (at 01%) since it only came up with errors.

I will pass this disk to a lab, but Amsterdam is my home and now i am writing to you from Barcelona, Spain. Anything good that you know around here? and please give me an idea of a price range u think is logical?
Should i notice or ask something about the lab to know that its a good one (in case you don't know a lab)?

Thanks alot!

[Helpneededhere]

Guys? anyone knows of a good lab in Spain?

[dobrevjetser]

You can contact Cesar Garcia http://www.onretrieval.com/

[Helpneededhere]

Thanks! i sent it to them, hope it will end up good

And thank you all for the quick and very useful help!

[Helpneededhere]

OK, some time has passed and the data was successfully recovered by OnRetrieval.
The problem with the drive was (in Spanish): "Fallo en Firmware y en bloques de cabezas, se precisa la reprogramación del firmware y calibración o cambio de los bloques de cabezas en cámara limpia."

I must thank you again for recommending this company, as they have done a fast (like a week in total), professional job, while offering a VERY good price!

I hope nobody needs them, but if you do- go to http://www.onretrieval.com/ and don't think twice!