I have a WD Scorpio 320 laptop drive with a lot of UNC errors on MHDD. Windows will actually boot- but freezes soon after. I can read files and directories pretty well.

Tried to do an image with Acronis true image, but froze up due to the UNC errors I assume.

Whats the best way to try and read this drive - and skip the files/sectors with the UNC errors?

Without specialized tools : copy first ONLY unreplaceable and important files as you can see the structure and don't think about full copy.

I can see the folder structure ok. Windows accepts the drive for the most part. iastor.sys starts to give fits after copying a few files.

Copying files with windows explorer starts ok, but if I try to copy a directory, eventually it ties up windows (due to sector errors I assume).

Is there a better way to copy files on a drive with the UNC errors? I just want to skip files that are giving disk errors and move on to ones that will read ok.

This is the type of job the DeepSpar Disk Imager "DDI" or Atola is made for. These devices cost way more than sending to someone who owns the equipment and will recover the drive for you. http://www.deepspar.com/ or http://atola.com/ Of course the next time you power the drive off may be the last time it works as well seen that happen a few times. When drives are failing its a ticking time bomb you never know when it will decide to just lay down dead. The more you work with it the less likely recovery will be successful.

Just to be clear, I think you mean this is a customer's drive, and that alters my comments...


Yes, quite typical, for that (and similar) s/w running on Windows. Despite Acronis having a "skip bad sectors" option, that doesn't seem successful with many unreadable sectors. I would never use that s/w on a disk with read errors.


Yes, again, quite typical behaviour for Windows when there are lots of unreadable sectors.


There are several possible DIY options - but since this is a customer's disk, and we don't know their assessment of the value of the data and their attitude to DIY risks, then do you really want to risk their data with a DIY approach, which might make any later choice of a pro recovery attempt either more expensive, less successful or simply impossible?

IMHO the most "defendable" position for you (in case the drive becomes unrecoverable, without getting all their data back), and one of the more likely to be successful options, would be to sub-contract (outsource) this to someone with the equipment like networks mentioned - then you can say to the customer that you outsourced to someone with the right equipment, to reduce the risk (and increase the liklihood) of getting their data back.