Anthony R Anthony R

Failed HDD - Whats the best method

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Failed HDD - Whats the best method

from JoeUser Forums

Had a HDD go down a couple days ago and its been a pain. At first my windows installation went corrupt after it couldn't boot with that drive, but that was easily fixed with system restore. So I've been trying to fish the unbacked data off the failed drive and I'm still at it. The closest I came to mounting it in Linux was with Linux Puppy, but the files were read only and I couldn't copy them. Basically I don't care much about the drive, just the data on it. I was hoping I could fish the files out of there without attempting repair. Does anyone have a suggestion how to best do that? I know I may have one shot at this, so I've been careful.

190,219 views 34 replies
Reply #26 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting Anthony, reply 25

but it hasn't completely stopped deep scanning yet, so I figured I would wait until it says its done.

That.

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Reply #28 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting Anthony, reply 27

81% :congrat:
Well...... good luck when it's done!

Reply #29 from JoeUser Forums Top

Alright, at 90% I got a warning about many bad sectors remaining and to begin recovery as soon as possible. I paused the scanning and went to recovery.

Reply #30 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Yes, if it's taken that long it's having issues reading each block.  Copy/paste everything it has listed to a second drive...chances are the bad bits won't have much on them anyway....;)

Reply #31 from JoeUser Forums Top

It seems like quite a bit of data recovery at 90% from a drive that was totally trashed, so its pretty good. thanks again Jafo. 

Reply #32 from JoeUser Forums Top

A bit of a mixed result for me as the data recovery keeps freezing up. I've been just going after the most vital stuff.

Reply #33 from WinCustomize Forums Top

It's the 'vital stuff' that makes the time, effort and expense worth it.

Anything you get that you otherwise would not have....that's when you know you're winning...;)

Reply #34 from JoeUser Forums Top

Working it folder by folder I've been finding lots of stuff to restore... its pretty good to find at least some vital files on a totally trashed drive. Its unlikely I would find more files with any other method.