Another HD bites the dust,.. Test Disk failed to recover dat

[Jovik33]

Well, my HD is been trashed and I would like to know if there is any chance to recover the data.

My laptop hit the ground two days ago (I was clumsy, I know), and then I had to take out the HD and run a chkdsk on it. It was everything ok and repaired the HD, so I actually could access all data inside the HD, but then....

The Windows 7 OS couldn't initiate and I decided to run the official Windows repair system. It reallly f****ed my HD, the drive (maybe) overheated and now there are bad sectors everywhere. I ran a recovery software and it can repair sector by sector, but it would take like 2 years to repair every sector in my HD. My question is... why would that happened? My HD was almost ok after the chkdsk !

I'm a little angry, I could have saved all the info before the repair procedure, but I didn't and I feel quite like an a***ole now.

I tried Test Disk with no success, so...
I would appreciate any opinion on the subject.

Thank you!

[dmarques]

Your drive heads are mostly sure failing, so it's a question of time (and tries) before they die completely.

It's better to check a pro because it's even needed to confirm platter condition. It wouldn't be the first time I would see after so much stress a big head crash.

[Touchclarity]

Chkdsk most likely didn't check the entire surface and so it ended up ok, but the drive was already badly damaged by then.

For future reference and for the benefit of others that may refer to this post, after a failure like the OP has had, NEVER run CHKDSK on the drive (or allow it to run automatically on booting) if you are experiencing the type of initial problems the OP has run into. Your first priority in cases like these should be to recover the data BEFORE any software / utility based repair attempt is made on the drive...

Running CHKDSK or similar drive repair rescue utilities on a drive that has been damaged in this way will most probably kill it - and it won't do your chances of recovering your data much good either.....

[lcoughey]

I ran a recovery software and it can repair sector by sector, but it would take like 2 years to repair every sector in my HD. My question is... why would that happened?

You are using damaged heads to read from a damaged platter and trying to fix the read errors caused as a result by writing back to the damaged platter with the damaged heads.

If you wanted to recover you data, you should have been copying the data from the bad drive to a good drive right away...preferably with a good data recovery clone tool, like DeepSpar Disk Imager or a software program like ddrescue.

At this point, I'd say your best bet is to stop and seek professional assistance before it is too late, if it isn't already. It should be noted that no professional lab is going to be able to undo the damage to the file system caused by chkdsk or the damage caused to the drive by the "repair" program. But, they should be able to recover what is left.

[laptokowiec]

Try ddrescue/dmde/hdclone to clone your hdd to another drive

[Keatah]

I feel cloning is out of the question if there is surface damage.

[Jovik33]

Ok, I just wanted to say thank you very much to all of you.

I will try to clone the disk as soon as I can get another with enough space

Thanks !