Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie
Hi there,
There is an issue with role permissions that is being worked on at the moment.
If you are having trouble with access or permissions on regional forums please post here to get access: https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058365403/you-do-not-have-permission-for-that#latest

Copying contents of a corrupt drive

  • 29-08-2006 6:01pm
    #1
    thehomeofDob
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,452 ✭✭✭


    Hey guys,
    I have a tosh320GB external drive.. and it's totally bolloxed. About 40 or so un recoverable sectors. I'm trying to copy the contents (about 250GB worth) onto another drive.
    I've used SyncBack to copy about 25Gb so far, but whenever I try to access the downloads folder (182gb) it crashes. I can't use windows as it runs into one file it can't copy/move and then stops the whole file transfer. Are there any other programs/utilites out there I can use?

    Thanks for your help


Comments

  • #2
    Khannie
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 37,485 ✭✭✭✭Khannie


    I'd suggest downloading the knoppix (linux) livecd (i.e. you don't install anything). The gnu tools are excellent at recovering data from damaged hard drives (I'm afraid I can't remember the name of them, but a quick google should tell you). I've used them myself before, and recovered basically everything.


  • #3
    Wertz
    Closed Accounts Posts: 11,909 ✭✭✭✭Wertz


    Gah, don't say this is the special offer model from PC world...I'm using one to back up my main machine while I get round to formatting.
    Did it just stop working or was it involved in an accident?

    Sorry I can't help with your specfic problem, just wanna know if I could potentially be asking a similar one in the coming weeks...


  • #4
    thehomeofDob
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,452 ✭✭✭thehomeofDob


    Yeah, it's the silver/metalic one with the bright blue/red LED in front. I've had it for about 5 or 6 months. Basically about a month ago I started noticing the read light (red) staying on for ages. Didn'd think anything of it, till it started happening more often than not.
    I got really worried when I tried to open my music folder and after 3 or 4 minutes of waiting and having the read light on, the folder comes up completely empty. Soon after opening up other folders gave me the error that the drive wasn't formatted and needed to be. Either problem (missing files, or format error) happened with about 20% of the folders on the drive.
    I tried running GetDataBack for NTFS it stalled at 66%, twice.

    Next up was a program my dad recommended Spin Rite. It basically veryfied the data on the binary level, read and wrote every 1 and 0 twice over, and tried to recover damaged sectors. Over half the sectors were fine, it recovered about 20 and there were well over 50 unrecoverable. (not toally sure on those figures, the log didn't save, but the number of unrecoverable ones was big).
    The scan took about 9 or 10 days straight, afterwhich I have access to most of the drive again, but copying any large amount of files just gives me errors when it finds one or two files it can't copy.

    I'm downloading Knoppix now, will give it a try in the morning.


  • #5
    thehomeofDob
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,452 ✭✭✭thehomeofDob


    Dammit!
    I've tried Knoppix - and it won't even mount the drive :(

    I've decided I'm going to strictly downsize what I view as an important file to keep, so I'm gonna go through the drive folder by folder and copy what I need. Still though, I'm running into problems. Any file that's corrupt, will partially copy to the new drive, the thing is, once it's partially copied, I can't delete it. Windows throws up a "File is in use" error. Knoppix won't remove the files either, just gives me an error too.

    I've had to format the new drive entirely, to remove 3 or 4GB of corupt files and I don't wanna continue copying things if I have no way of removing the bad files.


Advertisement