One Partition out of 3 cannot be reached

Hi All!
I have a terrible problem that I couldn't solve with Partition Table Doctor 3.5. I was connecting my 1.5TB sata HDD to my PC via SATA2USB adapter. After a while windows explorer couldn't see a folder so I plugged out the usb cable from PC, then plugged in again. When I open windows explorer, first partition on this HDD gives cannot be read-corrupted error. But, the remaining two partition is ok. What can I do to fix it, before attempting to data recovery process?

You have to do a whole process.

harddrivespecialist wrote:You have to do a whole process.

You mean recover the data inside of that partition with a recovery app, then format that partition? The last experience with recovery apps was awful because of the file-names i.e. it was shorten to 8 letters. Besides, it was not fully successful.

By the way, I even wasn't trying to write or read from that partition.

Image first

Is it about MBR or partition table? If I use mbrfix, would it be ok? I downşoaded Hirens bootcd 13, now looking that if there is something useful.

At the attachement, you can find the S.M.A.R.T. Report.

Attachments

ST31500341AS-9VS0XQJS-SMART.zip: HDDScan S.M.A.R.T. Report; (3.63 KiB) Downloaded 245 times

Bad sectors, image and replace

drc wrote:Image first

Thanks! Which application do you suggest to take its image? I think that they all have different file formats.

OK I started to make a backup(image) of 450GB partition with Acronis TIH2011. Then I will test with the app's explorer if it's possible to see inside of it.

Best thing to do is to image that drive sector by sector.

harddrivespecialist wrote:Best thing to do is to image that drive sector by sector.

Was it an option under preferences of ATIH2011 or it's not possible with it? Could you suggest me an app to do that? Thanks!

You need to clone your drive, sector by sector. Then use data recovery software on the clone.

In your case you need a cloning utility that understands how to work around bad sectors. Some freeware cloning tools are ...

dd_rescue: http://www.garloff.de/kurt/linux/ddrescue/
ddrescue: http://www.gnu.org/software/ddrescue/ddrescue.html
HDclone: http://www.miray.de/products/sat.hdclone.html

Comparison between ddrescue and dd_rescue:
http://www.forensicswiki.org/wiki/Dd_rescue

See the following thread for a discussion of commercial and freeware cloning/imaging utilities:

The Best Disk Cloning Hardware/Software:
the-best-disk-cloning-hardware-software-t10396.html

DDrescue is a multipass utility. It clones the easy sectors on the first pass and tries for the more difficult ones on subseqent passes. It can also clone your drive in reverse, effectively disabling look ahead caching.

fzabkar wrote:You need to clone your drive, sector by sector. Then use data recovery software on the clone.

In your case you need a cloning utility that understands how to work around bad sectors. Some freeware cloning tools are ...

dd_rescue: http://www.garloff.de/kurt/linux/ddrescue/
ddrescue: http://www.gnu.org/software/ddrescue/ddrescue.html
HDclone: http://www.miray.de/products/sat.hdclone.html

Comparison between ddrescue and dd_rescue:
http://www.forensicswiki.org/wiki/Dd_rescue

See the following thread for a discussion of commercial and freeware cloning/imaging utilities:

The Best Disk Cloning Hardware/Software:
the-best-disk-cloning-hardware-software-t10396.html

DDrescue is a multipass utility. It clones the easy sectors on the first pass and tries for the more difficult ones on subseqent passes. It can also clone your drive in reverse, effectively disabling look ahead caching.

I used Acronis to clone it then try to browse in the backup image, but didn't work. I don't think that I have a bad sector, because I wasn't doing anything on that partition. I was getting failed to read/write error at the windows's system try sometimes, because of my cheap sata2usb adapter. This time it was the same case, but now partition cannot be accessed.

My HDD is in NTFS file system, and I'm currently using windows xp. The apps you suggested are linux based. Thanks anyway.

OK, I started to clone with Roadkil's RawCopy Version 1.2. It's 420 GB, so it seems like it will take whole day.

Another limitation with my system is, my PC got stuck when I connect 1.5TB at the beginning of windows xp logo. So, I connect 2 x 1.5 TB after windows is started via sata. Most probably, Media Tools Professional v5.1 won't work for my case, because it makes a bootable cd directly.

reis3k wrote:OK, I started to clone with Roadkil's RawCopy Version 1.2. It's 420 GB, so it seems like it will take whole day.

Now, I have another problematic clone of my problematic partition. I realized that my problematic partition is Primary while remaining two partition on that disc was extension. Therefore, I am still think the problem is just about partition table, and don't know how to fix it. Instead of trying to recover my data, could you help me on how to fix my partition table? This harddisk was archiving purposes, so there were no OS in it.

reis3k wrote:Now, I have another problematic clone of my problematic partition.

How do you know it's a "problematic clone"? I don't use Roadkil RawCopy myself, but any good cloning software would list errors that it encountered e.g. when reading from the original disk. It's important for you to know whether your choice of cloning software was successful in reading your choice of partition, or not.

Personally I wouldn't just be cloning one partition, since your (not completely clear) problem description, suggests a problem with the disk (which could cause loss of data in all partitions). Certainly the disk has a non-zero value for Reallocated Sector Count, which indicates internal problems - although your zip'd mht file of the SMART values wasn't easy for me to read (I don't know about other members), so it is always possible that there was other useful information also contained in that file, when I ran out of time going through it...

reis3k wrote:Therefore, I am still think the problem is just about partition table

I politely disagree. A problem with the partition table (either unreadable or corrupted) would not cause the symptom that you described earlier i.e. "windows explorer couldn't see a folder". The partition table is not related to folders, but to what Windows displays as drive letters. Your other problem description ("HDD gives cannot be read-corrupted error") is not detailed enough to know the cause of that error. If you are cloning the partition which you were accessing when you got that error message, then it will be important for you to understand whether that partition was completely readable (i.e. cloned successfully) or not.

reis3k wrote:could you help me on how to fix my partition table?

No, because you have supplied no evidence that this is where the problem actually is. Diagnose first, act second. Guessing != diagnosis.

I'm only going to give one piece of advice, since this thread seems chaotic and out of control to me, and I don't have time to get fully involved in such chaos: Since your disk's SMART data suggests that the disk has a problem, I would suggest that you clone the whole disk (as you were already advised) - but if you don't want to follow the advice that you're given, that's fine. Your data; your choice

Once you've got that 1.5TB disk successfully cloned onto another similar disk then you can start to extract the data from that clone (using data recovery software if needed), onto yet another disk.

Vulcan wrote:
reis3k wrote:Now, I have another problematic clone of my problematic partition.

How do you know it's a "problematic clone"? I don't use Roadkil RawCopy myself, but any good cloning software would list errors that it encountered e.g. when reading from the original disk. It's important for you to know whether your choice of cloning software was successful in reading your choice of partition, or not.

I said problematic again because I have another partition in the copied destination giving the same error which is disk is corrupted" when I click the drive letter in windows explorer. I thought that app will create a disk image having an strange extension related with that app, but this app totally replaced that partition with the corrupted one.

Vulcan wrote:
reis3k wrote:Therefore, I am still think the problem is just about partition table

I politely disagree. A problem with the partition table (either unreadable or corrupted) would not cause the symptom that you described earlier i.e. "windows explorer couldn't see a folder". The partition table is not related to folders, but to what Windows displays as drive letters. Your other problem description ("HDD gives cannot be read-corrupted error") is not detailed enough to know the cause of that error. If you are cloning the partition which you were accessing when you got that error message, then it will be important for you to understand whether that partition was completely readable (i.e. cloned successfully) or not.

I get the error when I click the drive letter. Even drive name is changed to system default-local disk- from the one that I gave before.

Vulcan wrote:
reis3k wrote:could you help me on how to fix my partition table?

No, because you have supplied no evidence that this is where the problem actually is. Diagnose first, act second. Guessing != diagnosis.

I don't know how to exactly identify the problem, but I made a guess with small experience that I got before. I have 1.5 TB hdd partitioned into two first one is primary which is also the problematic one. I wasn't read or write to it. I was using my sata2usb adapter, after a while windows gave a yellow warning at system tray saying read write error to partition. When I connected the hdd again I couldn't reach first partition.

I cloned my hdd's corrupted partition with Roadkil's Raw Copy (Freeware) in a reasonable time. I didn't get any read or write error through this process. Then I used UFS Explorer 3.9.1 (Shareware) to start recovering. It created the folder tree structure. Then started to copy lost files not deleted with it. It is still doing its job with one file cannot be read error. EASEUS Data Recovery Wizard Professional was not flexible as this one.

In my comments above, I was just trying to avoid you making mistakes for what seems (to me) like incorrect analysis & assumptions of a problem with the partition table. Unfortunately, like the earlier part of the thread, your reply is not clear enough in English, for me to fully understand most of it

Therefore I cannot assist further. Sometimes communication & language problems make remote support impossible

You can use Microsoft's Sector Inspector to examine the partition table and boot sector:
http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/SecInspect.zip

Extract the above archive to the one folder and execute the SIrun.bat file. The procedure will generate a report file named SIout.txt.

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