Data recovery :(

[Kati]

Re: Data recovery

Ah, I didn't realise the freezer trick was also for the HD! :nerd:

I didn't either (until he said)

[FlamingParrot]

Re: Data recovery

It would be great if I could get the stuff out of that disk just by doing that! I had another HD die on my a few years ago but that was mechanical failure (you could hear clunk, clunk, clunk ) and someone on the other forum very kindly offered me to do it on a "no win no fee" basis (no data no fee). Sadly the data was all scrambled and none could be recovered. I thought the more I tried to use the disk whilst it was already failing the more scrambled the data got so I've not tried very hard with this one, which doesn't clunk. :nerd:

[Kati]

Re: Data recovery

gotta be worth a try FP

[garethp]

Re: Data recovery

If the cd/dvd's won't read because of scratches, then you can usually restore them by polishing them (on the underside, not the label/write on side).

Toothpaste on a cloth works well with small circular motions pressing quite hard.
If the scratches are quite deep, then you may need to start with something with a bit more oomph - like t-cut for the car, then finish with the toothpaste to polish it.

The hard disk may have a dodgy connector where the usb cable plugs in. It may be worth dismantling it to remove the hard drive and attach it to a cheap enclosure or usb adapter cable from ebay, etc.

As for freezing the hard drive - I wouldn't advise this. Modern hard drives have such tight tolerances these days, you risk causing damage due to thermal expansion & contraction.

[FlamingParrot]

Re: Data recovery

If the cd/dvd's won't read because of scratches, then you can usually restore them by polishing them (on the underside, not the label/write on side).

Toothpaste on a cloth works well with small circular motions pressing quite hard.
If the scratches are quite deep, then you may need to start with something with a bit more oomph - like t-cut for the car, then finish with the toothpaste to polish it.

The strange thing is that I have a disk that's quite visibly scratched yet it can be read without any problems, while the ones that are unreadable have very fine scratches if at all! :mmph:

Looks like none of the DVD+RW are readable and they don't look badly scratched at all (they've lived a sheltered life, I don't think I've even attempted to take them out and read them in 10 years!). Could this not be a problem with the file system not being recognised by Windows 8? I also seem to remember there being DVD- and DVD+, have not heard about that in ages, I thought modern drives read either format. :ohwell:

The hard disk may have a dodgy connector where the usb cable plugs in. It may be worth dismantling it to remove the hard drive and attach it to a cheap enclosure or usb adapter cable from ebay, etc.

As for freezing the hard drive - I wouldn't advise this. Modern hard drives have such tight tolerances these days, you risk causing damage due to thermal expansion & contraction.

I see... I may have an old USB enclosure or two lurking somewhere...

[ostell]

Re: Data recovery

I found that the RW media are not very reliable, very easy to lose the data on them. They seemed a good idea at the time, in that you could overwrite them but after so much trouble with my backups I just stuck to the write once media. It's so cheap.

[Crazy council]

Re: Data recovery

lol, I wouldn't advise putting a usb drive in a the fridge if you want it to work, it would work with CD DVRs, ( magnetic surface ).

If its a usb drive, windows could also be your problem. so could the power and speed its trying to run at ( make sure its usb1.1 or 2 )

testdisk and photorec are hard tools to use, but, can recover files even after format. ( these tools should definitely not be used/tuned to scan device drives ( pc, lappy, usb drive, sd card, phone memory...... ) looking specifically for files deleted by the person ) muhahahaha...

you should especially not purchase old PC/laptops/phones and run these on the drives, because you might be able to accidentally recover anything they have put on since the disk first spunn up. passwords, bankdetails and photos...

[FlamingParrot]

Re: Data recovery

I found that the RW media are not very reliable, very easy to lose the data on them. They seemed a good idea at the time, in that you could overwrite them but after so much trouble with my backups I just stuck to the write once media. It's so cheap.

Yes, RW media wasn't very reliable but even the major corporations were archiving stuff onto DVD-RAM. The problem with all this digital media is that it hadn't been around long enough for anyone to establish how long the media would be readable or what would happen to it over time. These days I subscribe to a cloud back-up service because external HDs do die whether you use them or not and DVDs, even the write-once ones, do become unreadable in time. The RW media I'm trying to read was all bought over 10 years ago, I've still got some blank disks I never used (and obviously won't be using them now).
.
The youngsters out there who were born holding an iPad will no doubt be wondering why anyone would want something as old as that but I have lots of documents, prints, slides, etc. over 20 years old all in perfect condition, yet the CDs from the late 90s had become unreadable by 2001-03. :mad2: :mad2: :mad2: The ones from that time got better but it seems certain brands were much better than others, I can still read some from 2000 but not others from 2006! :ohwell:

lol, I wouldn't advise putting a usb drive in a the fridge if you want it to work, it would work with CD DVRs, ( magnetic surface ).

If its a usb drive, windows could also be your problem. so could the power and speed its trying to run at ( make sure its usb1.1 or 2 )

This drive was working fine until around a year ago when I could see the files but started having problems copying or opening them.

testdisk and photorec are hard tools to use, but, can recover files even after format. ( these tools should definitely not be used/tuned to scan device drives ( pc, lappy, usb drive, sd card, phone memory...... ) looking specifically for files deleted by the person ) muhahahaha...

I've been acquainted with that sort of data recovery since the dark ages, I know deleting a file doesn't delete its data, just the index entry that tells the OS where to find the data and marks all the clusters as available. I also heard the less you use the affected drive the better because the data doesn't get overwritten. However, that's not the kind of recovery I'm looking for, I've not deleted or formatted anything, it's just a failing drive. :mmph:

you should especially not purchase old PC/laptops/phones and run these on the drives, because you might be able to accidentally recover anything they have put on since the disk first spunn up. passwords, bankdetails and photos...

I've never purchased a second hand laptop, as it is, the new ones don't last that long, one lived four years, another one only 23 months (it was a Samsung from PC World in case anyone is wondering). I bought this one from John Lewis because of the two year warranty as standard. :grin:

The two laptops that died I gave away without bothering about the data, to a trusted old friend who is a bit of a geek and got them working somehow, or connected them somewhere. :nerd: In both cases the machines didn't even start so it wouldn't have been possible to run a data shredding utility on the HDs, however, the data on them could well have been recovered by someone in the know so that's one thing to think about if you have a dead laptop. I don't know what people without geeky friends do with dead laptops, do they bin them? donate them? :confused2: That certainly is one thing to think about. Of course if your old machine still works and you just want to replace it with a newer model you can always run a data shredding utility before you dispose of it, the problem is when they're dead, what do you do with them to make sure no-one recovers your data if you don't want them cluttering up your storage room for the rest of your life. :mmph:

[Crazy council]

Re: Data recovery

maybe your usb drive has run out of available good sectors ( to many bad ). Its would be worth doing a surface scan to identify actual damage ( standard scans wont do this ), its most likely from what you describe. But, if it is that, If possible, image the drive first, as attempting to recover from surface damage can fubar it completely.

[FlamingParrot]

Re: Data recovery

Just connected the offending drive, I can see it (the old drive that clunked was no longer showing up) but not get into it. Can you recommend something I could use to image it?

[Crazy council]

Re: Data recovery

i dont know how to do it in windows, ? and i use testdisk to grab data from faulty drives/devices

testdisk is tricky to use, but will locate overwritten and damaged partitions that are not part of the F.A.T, if your usb has bad sectors were the FAT is written, you drive ither will show up s blank, or unformatted, but you may occasionally get access.

Probably a safer idea to download a linux recovery disk that has tools on it, boot into that, and plug in the drive to test it there, if i remember correctly, windows nearly continually writes to usb drive. i will see if i can find a friendly boot up disk. what computer or pc do you use ?

[FlamingParrot]

Re: Data recovery

i dont know how to do it in windows, ? and i use testdisk to grab data from faulty drives/devices

testdisk is tricky to use, but will locate overwritten and damaged partitions that are not part of the F.A.T, if your usb has bad sectors were the FAT is written, you drive ither will show up s blank, or unformatted, but you may occasionally get access.

Probably a safer idea to download a linux recovery disk that has tools on it, boot into that, and plug in the drive to test it there, if i remember correctly, windows nearly continually writes to usb drive. i will see if i can find a friendly boot up disk. what computer or pc do you use ?

That's what I thought about when someone mentioned Linux programs yesterday, I seem to recall something called Knoppix or something like that, probably 10 years ago. :nerd: You downloaded a bootable disk image, burnt it to disk and then booted up from there.

I have a newish Toshiba laptop with Windows 8. Fortunately it's one that's still got an internal CD/DVD drive.

[Crazy council]

Re: Data recovery

i use testdisk to recover partitions/boot sectors and files from failed disks.

Its just not so simple to use unless you use linux command line. I have never used it in windows,

that one that kati pointed to early has test disk on, its listed below. Just be super careful when using any program that can edit partition/boot info

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Livecd

list http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd

[FlamingParrot]

Re: Data recovery

i use testdisk to recover partitions/boot sectors and files from failed disks.

Its just not so simple to use unless you use linux command line. I have never used it in windows,

that one that kati pointed to early has test disk on, its listed below. Just be super careful when using any program that can edit partition/boot info

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Livecd

list http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd

Thanks, I shall take a look. :yo:

I've not messed with partitions for years, last time must be around 8 or 9 years ago, used to use Partition Magic and one day I found I couldn't install any more programs because the Windows partition was too small (but there was space elsewhere on the physical drive). I had been using PM for a few years so I thought it would be fine just to increase the size but I had to mess with more than one partition to make room and I ended up f*ng the whole thing up and when the machine restarted I got the infamous line saying the OS couldn't find a file called 'hal' something or other which was a sign of Windows corruption. I re-installed Windows on another partition and fortunately all my files were intact but I could see the old Windows system files all showing up as 0 bytes in size! As they say an Almighty C*ck up!

[ostell]

Re: Data recovery

Can you see anything at all on the drive? If not you could have a failure of the read heads. Windows detects the drive and knows what it is but when the drive tries to read it can't get the data. If that's the case then noting can be done. Well it can but I don't think you will pay that amount.