I've got an 80GB Hitachi drive, HTS723280L9A362. The customer really only needs the Outlook file. Naturally, the only 6 sectors of the drive that won't completely image are located within that file. I've had DDI setup to try and read each sector 10 times, with like a 10 second timeout. I've tried every configuration I can. On these drives, it just aborts when you try to read sectors ignoring ECC errors. I've tried rebuilding the PST file using every tool that's out there, but nothing works. Any suggestions on how I might try and read those sectors? Thanks.

Increase the retries?

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You don't have to backup all of your files, just the ones you want to keep.

hmmm only 6 bad sector in a 1.9gb pst file and nothing will rebuild it? I have a feeling there may be more wrong with the file then just those 6 bad sectors.

I guess that also depend on where those 6 bad sector are actually located in the PST File.

What programs have you tried to rebuild it.

you should try Advance Outlook Repair or to an extensive program like Paraben Email Examiner

Agree. See if header is correct and the complete file, albeit with "xx" data on the bad sectors, is coherent. See if you can see real data on the file, there are many ways eventually to extract the single messages that can be eventually reorganized later !

Thanks for the tips. I had every Outlook tool, except for the ones cleanroom suggested, so I'm going to give those a shot as well.

6 sectors is nothing, and if you have in the middle of the file you can do a pst repair.

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ZeBong
" что случилось в России - останется в России "
" Россия еще раз"

I would first start where BlackST said, to check header, to see if it makes sense, and if it's showing the 1,9gb of the file size.

Agree with some of the comments above, 6 sectors is nothing and shouldn't cause these problems. ~2gb PST is quite small these days and I've recovered PST's much much bigger than this with far more bad sectors.

Have you tried re-imaging to a new drive to see if the results are repeated? Try a selective image with DDI or DE.

Is other data on the drive ok?

Have you tried ScanPST or R-Mail?

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Data Recovery Ireland

in the past I was able to restore a 3GB PST residing on a next-to-die hard disk, with >300 sectors unreadable.

During the acquisition skip those sectors, filling the output with 0 (to preserve the right size and "geometry" of the PST file).

Then scanpst (if you have the Office suite with Outlook inside) should repair it.

As others said, 6 sectors are nothing in this case.