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 Post subject: HDD Unrecognizable
PostPosted: March 22nd, 2018, 16:35 
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Joined: March 22nd, 2018, 16:05
Posts: 8
Location: Altea
Hi all, I seriously need some help...

Here is my story. First of all thanks for your attention.

3 days ago, while I was working, the computer got freezed and a blue screen showed up.


After that, I can't boot windows. I tried everything, repair start, booting in safe mode, booting on normal mode.. Nothing works.

When I try to boot on safe mode, the last driver getting loaded or the one that always is stuck is:
aswbidsha.sys

I tried unplugging the HDD and conect it to another computer, to backup files, but is not recognizable.

My brother tried a program called ntfs4dos from Avira wich allowed him to "navigate" through the HDD, and every folder seems to be ok.

He tried chkdsk but seems it can't detect the drive.

We tried to repair the system from the windows7 dvd, but nothing. We recently discover a "trick" that allows to open a notepad.exe from command console and choose open and copy the files to a flash drive. But it shows 2 disk partitions, one called "Reserved for the system" (C:) wich is about 100mb, and another one, (D:) which must be the one containing all the data.
But we can't click on that.

Today, my brother told me that is possible that the mbr is corrupt. Or the bootsec.

I posted all this information on another forum, and some users told me to boot from a linux DVD (linuxmint). They said that if I was able to navigate throw the files in nsfc4dos, maybe I could back up my files using linux.

I made that, but unfortunately, I couldn't access the drive:
Image
https://i.imgur.com/Xhd3kzP.jpg

Did you know any way for making again the HDD accessible? I don't mind if windows 7 (my OS) won't work anymore. I just want to be able to access my files to save them.

Seriously I think I'm at the border of a depression. I'm a solo game developer, I've been working in my project every single day, I only stopped working for eating and sleeping. Maybe it's sad, but that project was my life. If I can't save my files... I've lost tons of code, 3d models, music, 2d art, dialogues...

If anyones has any suggestion, idea, a possible solution... is all welcome.

Thanks a lot for your time and for reading guys/girls.


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 Post subject: Re: HDD Unrecognizable
PostPosted: March 22nd, 2018, 21:22 
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Joined: March 19th, 2015, 15:01
Posts: 1387
Location: isreal
send it to a data recovery pro (NOT to a computer tech/repair shop)


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 Post subject: Re: HDD Unrecognizable
PostPosted: March 22nd, 2018, 21:35 
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Joined: October 16th, 2013, 13:21
Posts: 713
Location: Brazil
I think Spildit ( in Portugal ) is near you. Try to get in contact with him, and stop doing things to the hard disk while you wait. The more you do to it, bigger is the risk of losing your files.


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 Post subject: Re: HDD Unrecognizable
PostPosted: March 22nd, 2018, 22:23 
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Joined: September 8th, 2009, 18:21
Posts: 15462
Location: Australia
I would clone your drive, sector by sector, with a tool such as ddrescue or HDDSuperTool.

Alternatively, connect your drive to another computer and examine it with DMDE. DMDE starts up in readonly mode. In the Partitions window, select the data partition and Open Volume. Can you see a Root folder? If so, expand it. Can you now see your file/folder structure? If so, select the folder you wish to recover and save it to another drive.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.


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 Post subject: Re: HDD Unrecognizable
PostPosted: March 23rd, 2018, 6:55 
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Joined: March 22nd, 2018, 16:05
Posts: 8
Location: Altea
Thanks jermy, rogfanther and fzabkar for the help! Really, I appreciate it.

fzabkar, can't believe it.. I downloaded DMDE, and after clicking the "?" for the "tutorial", It saw something like "for partition lost" and I do believe is my case.
HDD was "new" (less than 10 months), so I do believe (or want to believe) that the files are ok, it's like... don't know if the MBR, or something like a data table wich makes the HDD visible or recognizable is what is messed up.

Fortunately, MDME it¡s the first program that is detecting it.
Thanks a lot, I would have never find it without your help fzabkar.

I don't wish to get too excited, but it's the first time in days I'm smiling.

As you said, I was able to see the root, and subdirectories (after waiting some time every time I open a folder)
Image

I want to be very careful. Does it mean that the files can be recovered?
If so, I would like of course to buy the license.

At the moment I'm making a deep scan.

And again... thanks. Gracias, merci, arigato, gracies, obrigado.
Really.


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 Post subject: Re: HDD Unrecognizable
PostPosted: March 23rd, 2018, 8:36 
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Joined: March 19th, 2015, 15:01
Posts: 1387
Location: isreal
hammering the drive with software level is not the best idea (in a case like this:)
Layka91 wrote:
Seriously I think I'm at the border of a depression. I'm a solo game developer, I've been working in my project every single day, I only stopped working for eating and sleeping. Maybe it's sad, but that project was my life. If I can't save my files... I've lost tons of code, 3d models, music, 2d art, dialogues...


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 Post subject: Re: HDD Unrecognizable
PostPosted: March 23rd, 2018, 17:55 
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Joined: March 22nd, 2018, 16:05
Posts: 8
Location: Altea
Hello everyone. I'm pretty sure I sent an answer this morning, but I saw a message saying that a mod should verify my post,

First of all, THANK YOU ALL. Really, I appreciate it very much. Thank you.

Second, my apologies to the mod if my last message is pending to approval. I am saying again things that I repeated in the "past", but I wanted to respond and it has been a long time.

As I said in the other message, this morning I saw fzabkar answer, and I tried it with DMDE. And ... really, thanks. It is the first software that has recognized the hard drive.

Maybe I'm wrong, maybe the hard drive is dying (honestly, I do not care if I can back up at least some vital files), but I think that's weird; the hard drive was "new" (less than 10 months). The hard drive is from a laptop, but I never took it anywhere, it's always on my desk, so it's never been hit or something.

So I think (or I want to believe) that the files should be fine. I hope. Since I was able to copy a file using ntfs4dos. But I know there could be more mistakes and wrong sectors.

The only thing that scares me is that I was working on the game when the error occurred. Therefore, I do not know if it is more likely that there are more errors in the sectors where the files were opened at that time.

I'm not sure (I'm not an HDD expert like you), but I have the impression that the error possibly occurred as in the "beginning", some kind of table or database where the partition was defined, since not even chkdsk or linuxmint recognized it, but I was able to browse by launching folders with nfts4dos.

I'm sorry, I'm writing too much.

The fact is that MDME recognizes it, I can see the folders and subdirectories.

Image

This morning I started a Deep scan using MDME. It reached 58% relatively fast (about 2~3 hours). But after that, it started to run very slow. And after reading your new comments, I stopped it.

I noticed this:
Image

"Invalid partition table. Error loading operating system. Missing operating system."

On the deep scan, there 2 bars (one for the partition with 100mb, and another with all my data). The one with my data was fully green (fully till ~58%, it was not filled). The 100mb partition, was half red. I don't know, but I guess that the red zones indicates errors.

I didn't executed HDDSuperTool.

I'm planing my next step...
I have focused on "high priority files" that I need to recover.
Most of the game code is on the same directory, and there should not be very big..
Most assets are on a separate folder. This one is bigger sized.. Maybe 1~3gb.
About the music... This folder is huge, but I have a backup from.. 8 months ago I think. So if I recover a few new songs I am more than happy. But there are lots of wav files, so I not sure if it could be possible.

What you guys would do?

Again, thanks a lot for the help.


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 Post subject: Re: HDD Unrecognizable
PostPosted: March 23rd, 2018, 18:52 
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Joined: August 18th, 2010, 17:35
Posts: 3636
Location: Massachusetts, USA
CLONE! Not running scans or anything else.

_________________
Hard Disk Drive, SSD, USB Drive and RAID Data Recovery Specialist in Massachusetts


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 Post subject: Re: HDD Unrecognizable
PostPosted: March 23rd, 2018, 19:31 
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Joined: October 16th, 2013, 13:21
Posts: 713
Location: Brazil
Again, as people have already told you, clone the drive first. Do not keep running scans in it.


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 Post subject: Re: HDD Unrecognizable
PostPosted: March 23rd, 2018, 19:55 
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Joined: March 22nd, 2018, 16:05
Posts: 8
Location: Altea
I think I made a mess... after runing the scan on MDME, it's going too slow. MDME recognized the hdd after 20 seconds, now.. more than 5 minutes. Now linux says it has 53 bad sectors...

So... How can I make a clone? HDDSuperTool? Wasn't it bad?
I'm confused.
What software is recomended for cloning?

PS: I can't express my gratituted for all of your help. Seriously, that was the best on those horrible days. So thank you guys.


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 Post subject: Re: HDD Unrecognizable
PostPosted: March 23rd, 2018, 20:01 
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Joined: October 16th, 2013, 13:21
Posts: 713
Location: Brazil
Read again what people have told you.

The best option would be to send the drive to someone with the necessary tools and knowledge. That is the option that ensures the best recovery.

If you decide to not do that ( due to price, opinion, whatever ) then your second best decision would be to make a clone of the drive to another healthy one. Do not keep making the original drive working in vain.

For that, you can use ddrescue or hddsuperclone. As others already said, it may not be the best option, but if you will not pursue other ways, that is what remains.

Use a machine with both drivers connected through SATA, not usb, and do the cloning. Be prepared for it taking some good time , from hours to a couple days. And the risk of the drive dying in the middle of the process always exists.

If I had to summarize in a few words, you can pay for someone to recover your files, or you can risk doing it by yourself and having to pay much more later ( or not . Thing is like a lottery ) .


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 Post subject: Re: HDD Unrecognizable
PostPosted: March 23rd, 2018, 20:31 
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Joined: March 22nd, 2018, 16:05
Posts: 8
Location: Altea
Thank you guys


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 Post subject: Re: HDD Unrecognizable
PostPosted: March 23rd, 2018, 22:19 
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Joined: December 4th, 2012, 1:35
Posts: 3844
Location: Adelaide, Australia
Layka91 wrote:
I think I made a mess... after runing the scan on MDME, it's going too slow. MDME recognized the hdd after 20 seconds, now.. more than 5 minutes. Now linux says it has 53 bad sectors...

So... How can I make a clone? HDDSuperTool? Wasn't it bad?
I'm confused.
What software is recomended for cloning?

PS: I can't express my gratituted for all of your help. Seriously, that was the best on those horrible days. So thank you guys.


If you are determined to ignore the advice to get a pro to clone it (it should be a lot cheaper than a regular Data recovery job if drive is working somewhat as you describe) then:

-- get a desktop PC with a drive bigger than your dodgy one
- get http://www.sdcomputingservice.com/hddsuperclone live cd
- install both HDDs only, boot with HDDsuperclone (after reading through docs and becoming familiar with it) better still leave your dodgy one aside for a bit, get a DIFFERENT drive and practice.. taking notes until you know you are doing the right thing
- follow proper procedure to clone to a disk image
- use dmde on the image to recover files. or any other data recovery software, getdataback, r-studio etc.

I advise not to do a single thing more to your dodgy drive until you no longer say "I'm confused". If you are not 95% sure of what the outcome might be on a given operation, don't do the operation. Unless of course you decide that it is the last thing and you are fine if it doesn't work and drive dies.

the 4 P's.

Prior Preparation Prevents Poor performance

If you don't have the resources to do as above, find someone that does or build them up over time.


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 Post subject: Re: HDD Unrecognizable
PostPosted: March 24th, 2018, 8:50 
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Joined: March 22nd, 2018, 16:05
Posts: 8
Location: Altea
Hi again guys/girls,

I think I made the mistake of thinking my drive wasn't that bad.
I've lot's of pc's with hdd older than 10 years with 0 problems, so this was new for me.
I wasn't expecting a failure (or at least a failure that big) on an HDD wich is less than a year.. (edit: I asked my brother, It was bought exactly on February 2017 (new, of course). But I've been using it less than a year.)
Lesson learned.

== Questions for having in mind the future ==
Are WD drives that bad?
This is the first WD I had, I don't know, but I thought they were good.
Right after I found this forum, I saw a lot of topics saying "WD". I thought "what is WD??". Now I know, Western Digital.
I also saw lots of Seagate topics in this forum.
And I've been searching and they have a high failure rate:
https://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/ ... -Large.jpg

Do you recomend any reliable hdd drive's brand?
This was my biggest HDD (1tb). From your experience, biggest drives usually have more problems?
If so, I would totally preffer something smaller (but well... I know nowadays 1tb is considered small or at least the average).

Would you recomend 2 different partitions, 1 for OS and software, and anoter one for data? Does it make the data more easy to recover?
=============================


I'm hesitating the option of sending it to a data recovery company.
The idea of a random people possible having all my data, frightens me, seriously.
It's ~97% work things, but for example, my mom passed away from cancer a few years ago, and I have lots of family photos (luckily, all backed up (yay, some good news..)). But I understand that we all have families and personal things on our computers.
But I don't know how these companies work. If the heep your data or something.

I've been reading and I know (and understand) that prices vary deppending state of the HDD and the time they need to work on it.
But I need some kind of price range.
Possibly I'll had the money, but it will be an extra effort...

I found this:
https://www.ontrackdatarecovery.es/
And I found on some web that their "standard services" usually costs around 1.000 Euros (~1.235$)...
I don't know those prices are too high or is the average..

Spildit, do you know any realiable company in "our peninsula"?

Sorry for the long post. As always, I appreciate your attention and help.. really.
And sorry for my typos and possibly bad english.


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 Post subject: Re: HDD Unrecognizable
PostPosted: March 24th, 2018, 8:57 
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Joined: January 29th, 2012, 1:43
Posts: 982
Location: United States
Quote:
Seriously I think I'm at the border of a depression. I'm a solo game developer, I've been working in my project every single day, I only stopped working for eating and sleeping. Maybe it's sad, but that project was my life. If I can't save my files... I've lost tons of code, 3d models, music, 2d art, dialogues...

If the data is that important to you, why are you not taking the advice to send it to a data recovery professional? If you can't afford it right now, maybe you should think about saving up for it and putting the drive aside until then. It could still likely be an easy recovery for a pro. You are taking a chance by continuing to work with the drive, you could very easily do more damage and lose your data for good.

If you do insist on attempting it yourself for whatever reason, and do use HDDSuperClone to try to clone the drive, then I have something for you to watch for. If the skips keep increasing and get to a few hundred without any skip runs, then that would indicate that the drive is suffering from the slow issue. And being a 1TB drive from what I saw in the original post, it could show that it would take weeks or months to clone. If that ends up being the case then you should stop cloning it and rethink your approach to the situation.

_________________
http://www.hddsuperclone.com
Home of HDDSuperClone


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 Post subject: Re: HDD Unrecognizable
PostPosted: March 24th, 2018, 15:34 
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Joined: March 22nd, 2018, 16:05
Posts: 8
Location: Altea
I've stopped. I won't do the clone by myself. As said in my last message (wich didn't appear), I made the mistake of thinking that the hdd wasn't that bad. I thought at first it was some windows or drivers error, then when I saw all the folders I thought the HDD was fine. As I said, is almost new (I have the ticket... the HDD was bought in April 2017... (I thought it was in february but not, is even newer..)). And it was treaten good, it's from a laptop but I only use it at home.
The only thing is it was originally an external HDD, but with easily detachable bridge boards.


I'm searching for companies/experts around my zone.
This one looks good:
https://onretrieval.com/
They offered services for lots of brands like MacDonalds, Real Madrid, Spanish Police, etc.
But.. maybe is oriented for companies..

I found a table on a spanish forum with prices (from 2015). I remade the table in english for you guys:
Image

What do you think?

From what I told here, and your experience guys/girls... sincerely, what kind of damage do you think it could have?
I know it's not that simple.. but, what are your first impressions?
Bad sectors is something logical or mechanical?


As always.. thanks.
PS: I don't know why, but my large post always don't appear at the moment.


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 Post subject: Re: HDD Unrecognizable
PostPosted: March 25th, 2018, 19:05 
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Joined: March 22nd, 2018, 16:05
Posts: 8
Location: Altea
Oh my god... I think I must be noctambulant.

I've found a backup of the code and assets (everything excepting the music and sound fx) from last 20 february... Can't believe it...
Even thought... I made lot of things this last month... but it's something.


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