Hi all!
My HDD went RAW and I used HDD RAW COPY tool to try and save as much data as I could.
And I did, but in process I made a disk image, compressed image to be exact with file extension ".imgc".

Can someone help me please, and tell me how to open/extract/convert/mount... imgc file type!?

The .imgc file is around 230Gb which is about right when you compress my ~300Gb of data, so
I believe the files are there. Only need to open the image.

ANY HELP is welcome!!!
Thanx in advance!!!

Try to use HDD raw copy to extract the compressed image to a good working hard disk of larger capacity(500gb)

Select the source as the file and destination as the hard disk.
Then, if necessary , run recovery tools like R-studio on that drive

@gringo48,

What capacity was the (whole) disk drive, which you cloned with HDD Raw Copy into that imgc file?

First of all: thank you for reply!

The drive I cloned is 1Tb, and it was filled with around 300Gb of data.
I made a .imgc file on another external HDD and that file is around 230Gb.

So now, I formatted the 1Tb drive who became RAW, and maybe I can
extract .imgc to that drive with Raw Copy Tool?

If I manage to do that, I will immediately copy the saved files from that
drive, just in case!

As always, there are risks with any DIY recovery attempt, so make sure that you realise and accept that you might make the situation worse! If you choose to go ahead and accept those risks, then...


Therefore if you follow the suggestion from sathyan, then you need to use a 1TB (or bigger) disk drive to restore from the imgc file - not 500GB.


You seem to be "rushing", which is a bad plan when doing DR. I would not have formatted the drive, and you have just increased the possibility of making your situation worse, as you are relying more (or, depending on exactly how you formatted the drive, perhaps relying totally) on the imgc file. If there is any problem with that file or its contents... And depending on the original real problem (still undiagnosed) then there can still be more possible problems waiting to be discovered...


There are many reasons why I would not write to the original 1TB drive at this stage, but if you like taking risks, then of course it is your choice what you do.

However just think: How do you know that the original 1TB drive is working well enough, to be used for this? How do you know what caused the original problem - perhaps the drive itself is faulty? How do you know that the imgc file really contains what you want, and so how do you know that you won't be overwriting the 1TB drive with rubbish? etc etc

Summary: The purpose of my earlier question, was just to understand the correct size of disk drive to restore the imgc file - now we know that should be 1TB (minimum). However I would not recommend writing to the original drive again (unfortunately you have already done this), until you are 100% sure that you have the data from that original drive restored somewhere else.

@Vulcan

Thank you for your in-detail replay! I really appreciate it!
Now to the HDD problem. Well, the drive went RAW suddenly; one day it was working fine,
the next, windows wants me to format the drive. It said: drive is RAW, and after that message
it said the drive has 'cyclic redundancy error'.
I tried a bunch of recovery software to save the data and all failed because of the cyclic redundancy error.
Only Raw Copy Tool made an image file out of it.

After that I quick formatted the drive and tried with Recuva and later with Get Data.

I'll see to find a new 1Tb drive to extract the imgc to.

Vulcan is right, and answered your doubts very clearly.

Do not use the old (failed) drive till you are sure you have got back all your data back.
(recheck if you have got all the data back and that all your data is good)


Dont use the failed drive to store any important data again(chances are that it may fail again soon), so trash the drive and keep multiple backups to be safe.

@sathyan,

Thanks

@gringo48,

Assuming that your data is not very important and that you have therefore decided to take the risks of further DIY recovery attempts instead of paying for professional help, here are a couple of comments, now that you have given vital new information:


It's not a big surprise, but that is new information from you and it explains why Windows reported the filesystem type as "raw". There are multiple types of CRC errors which can occur - this error message is likely to be problems reading from the disk surface (UNC). You could gather the SMART data from the drive to help confirm this diagnosis.


Not necessarily a usable image file! As the HDD Raw Copy web page says:

... so it is possible that some (or most, or all) of the sectors from that drive, were not included in the imgc file. This is exactly why I said before, that there may be more problems waiting to be discovered. It depends how many sectors could not be read from the original drive.


As sathyan said, that is a much better plan than writing back to the original drive. I suggest that you fully erase (i.e. zero-fill) the whole of the new/different 1TB drive and thoroughly test this drive, before you restore the imgc file onto it. Do not touch the original 1TB drive.

A good suggestion by Vulcan that has to be followed to avoid contamination .
This will affect your results when running Recovery tools , which may be necessary in this case.
good luck with your data.

@Vulcan
Thanks
And wishing a great year ahead.


And a great year ahead for all HDDGURU forum guys

sir
plz tell me that which software use to open .imgc file?

Some background of what you have done so far, what you have made the image from, what your end goal is, your disks you have available, and possibly your skillset and knowledge would be helpful.

The above posts actually explain what you need to do: get a disk and restore the image to it.

did you create the imgc file?

did you read this whole thread?

cheers