Hey at all,

Yesterday morning I decided to run O&O Defrag on my first HDD, a Seagate Barracuda. When I came home a few hours later, all I saw was a DOS-like error message, "wrong system, press key to continue" or anything like that. Since then, my hdd wouldn't boot anymore. It still shows the Windows XP startup screen, but then freezes.

I looked around a little bit in this forums and tried "MHDD" out. After about 6 hours it finished and showed me ~ 400 of these [S] errors, and ~150 of these [x] errors, the rest was was spread on the [<5ms,<10ms..etc.]

When I tried to access the drive under Knoppix, I was able to see at least the root directory with all its drives and files, but when I wanted to access a subdirectory, it showed me that it's empty.

I really need the data back from that HDD, since there are lots if important data I wrote, stored there.

Does anyone have a clue I could rescue at least some of the data? I read serveral times about a "PC3k", would that be helpful for me?

Thanks in advance,

LilaQ

try prosoft media tools good 4 data recovery

Hi,

U don't need PC3k for this issue. first clone the disk, I would suggest copyr, though I haven't used it yet. According to its description this is the best (and free) solution provided your drive is bellow 128G.
After cloning U may use a logical recovery SW on the clone to recover your files.
Pls note that the defrag may significantly reduce the success rate.

regards,
pepe

Hi lila, don't be panic.
for data save, you better follow pepe, you need first clone the harddisk to the new one. you may try using prosoft, or copyr.DMA, or other tools that provide clone disk feature.
after that, you may try using recovery software to get back your data. I suggest using r-studio, its a good software for recovery.

Tony heryanto

Thx for all your replies, I will try all that.

Btw, do you think I could use / repair this hdd for furture usage? Because it's a 200gig hdd and a new one isn't really cheap.

What could I try after rescueing my data to repair / fix that drive?

Thanks again in advance,

LilaQ

Hi,

after getting back your data U may try to zerofill/erase the drive completely. There was a topic some days ago in this forum about a utility called VivaRD, it will probably do the task
However there is no guarantee your drive will be OK.
But... this is a pretty new drive, it should be under the warranty period, why don't U have it replaced?


regards,
pepe

Yea, I guess that would be the best way. But it's the third (!!!) Seagate Barracuda I will return.

Atm I try to recover my data with RecoverSoft Media Tools / Data Rescue. But both programs often hang up on some files even though theses files are markes as "excellent". Does that mean these files are lost?

no that means that the files are in good condition and can be easily recoverd

But why do both these programms lock up on several of these files?

Are there any other similar tools I could / should use?

ty

LilaQ

Hello,

Did U manage to make the image of the bad drive?

pepe

I managed to make windows boot with the drive attached and I successfully recovered ~90% of my data with R-Tools


Thank you very very much for all your tipps. I'm gonna return the hdd later today to get a new one (hopefully soon, I'm running out of space after the recovery )

LilaQ