Calling "TestDisk" experts help fix External HDD

DominoDub

Hi Folks,

Any Testdisk experts out there ?

My Maxtor Touch II 300GB drive is now in limbo ..("The file or directory is corrupted or unreadable") have just downloaded TestDisk and can see the drive content via TestDisk(Thank God! had 2 years of CD to MP3 rips etc on the drive 200GB)

Have done a small test copy of a file back to my PC the files look OK.
I will get a new external drive tomorrow and hope to copy my collection onto the new drive.

Question : How can I get my original drive back working as a backup one with TestDisk ?

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


-Have tried doing a write to the Partition table but no luck.
-Drive sectors and cylinders pass ok.
-Could it maybe something wrong with the MBR etc

( I was just about to buy a NAS drive as a backup , drive must have known)

majiktripp

Not familiar with Test Disk myself but you may want to try HDD Regenerator 1.5 which is freeware and fits on a floppy disk/blank cd.
Has saved a lot of drives that have come my way long enough for me to get info off them.
It repairs bad sectors on the hard drive but does take a while to complete but well worth the try if its important data.

DominoDub

Thanks for the tip majiktripp.

I give try that one!

On the topic have you seen the price that company's charge for data recovery ! I may have to do a bit of pratice and training in it.

Capt'n Midnight

test disk has saved stuff for me before

it only modifies the sector that holds the main partition table and if you have them extended partitions too

the trick is to backup the partition table first, I will try to dig up something on that in windows / debug or microsfts disk editor

Capt'n Midnight

DiskProbe is the name of microsoft's disk editor - you can use it to save the partition table to a safe place on another drive. Then run testdisk again