Recover Damaged Files From HD

[keving98]

I have a laptop hard drive (WD 320GB Black SATA) that is having problems. There are a couple of files I need off this drive -- a 6GB .pst file and a week old 80GB Acronis True Image backup on a separate partition. If I only got one of those two it would be better than nothing.

I haven't ran chkdsk yet because I only want to write to the drive as a last resort. I'll probably offer my friend the opportunity to send the disk to a data recovery specialist before I attempt chkdsk unless there's nothing a data recovery specialist can do for my situation.

The Windows 7 Pro system blue screens with a 0x000000f4 so all of these were tried with the bad drive in an external enclosure plugged into a Windows 8 Pro box or left in the laptop and accessed using a Bartpe or Acronis boot disk:
-- FWIW, Windows 8 checked the file system for problems but found none
-- Most other files are accessible and undamaged
-- I've tried booting to an Acronis recovery CD and restoring the .tib to a second hd but it fails
-- I've accessed the Acronis backup by double-clicking on it and by mounting it through Acronis but copying and pasting the .pst file fails after some time
-- I can access the actual .pst file on the C: partition but when I try to copy it to an external drive it fails with only 10 seconds left (so close)
-- I've tried using Outlook on my Windows 8 box to load the .pst file directly from the C: drive on the bad hard drive but Outlook becomes unresponsive and fails after a time
-- I've not been able to copy and paste the Acronis backup (.tib) from the bad drive to a hd in Windows 8 or an external drive using bartpe. I've tried moving the .tib archive to an external hd after booting to an Acronis recovery CD as well.
-- I'm sure I'm missing something else I've tried but I I've tried everything I know.

The question I have is:
1. Is there anything that can be done for these partially damaged files?
2. Is chkdsk going to be able to do anything for the problems I'm experiencing or is it only going to make the situation worse?
3. Can data recovery firms do anything with damaged files like these?
4. Is there anything that can be done with GetDataBack?
5. I've never had any luck with SpinRite but isn't this something they claim to be able to fix?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Kevin G

[bcometa]

It's great you didn't run chkdsk yet, as it may end up destroying your data completely (same goes for spinrite: http://www.300dollardatarecovery.com/spinrite.html). Your first step for attempting DIY data recovery would be creating a DDRescue image of the drive (you should NEVER work/recover from the bad drive). But, the safest approach (assuming your data is valuable) would be going to a DR pro and stop trying anything (since everything you are doing may be increasing the damage on the drive). GDB should be run on the DD image you create, not on the bad drive itself.
-Brian

[keving98]

Thanks Brian,

Good to hear I did something right. I've been running DDRescue from an Ubuntu Live boot disk for the past 24 hours and it's only "rescued" about 20% of the drives contents so far. I did let my friend know it would most likely be around $1,800 to recover her data using a DR pro and she didn't seem too keen on doing that. If I was off base on an estimate (I know it's tough to say without inspecting the drive), let me know. Thanks for the tip on GDB.

Kevin

[bcometa]

Hi Kevin,
Just given the fact you can access the drive with DDRescue means there is a good chance we can recover your data. The fact its running so slowly may mean a firmware problem or many bad sectors or weak head (or a combination of these). If it's a sector issue, we should have better success than you recovering the bad sectors. Hopefully we'll be able to get back all (or enough) of the sectors from the two huge and important files so they will work when opened. Our cost would be $300 if successful, no charge if not. See link below for more info (and you can PM or email me for any further questions - brianAT300DDRDOTcom).

[keving98]

Hi Brian,

Disregard the question about the $1,800. I visited the link to 300dollardatarecovery_dot_com and will consult with my friend about sending it to them.

Thanks again,

Kevin

[keving98]

Hi Brian,

My last post was sent before I realized you replied to the "$1,800" post.

Thanks for the help and I'm going to recommend she send it to you -- we'll see what happens.

Kevin