Corrupted Disk!!

CyberWaste

Ok, so I have an external 500gb HD that I use to put all my files onto, and every few months I do a clean install of windows, everything fine when I do it.
Now today I did it, and before I installed I checked the HD and it was working fine, but now when I connect the HD to the PC, it says "cannot access disk is corrupted or damaged", something along those lines.
So is there anyway to recover the files on the drive or is everything....lost?!
Or am I doing something wrong?

Please be a way to get them back....:(

MunsterCycling

Have you updated to the latest Service Pack?

CyberWaste

Yeah I got it but still the same problem, I didnt drop the hard drive or anything so I dont know how it could get physical damage if it is, is there a way to recover the files with a program or check if its working or soemthing?

Will defragmenting the partition be bad?

And I cant check the drive for errors as "windows cannot access the drive".

Soundman

Make sure you have done all your system and windows updates as well as making sure that all your drivers are the latest?

CyberWaste

Soundman wrote: »

Make sure you have done all your system and windows updates as well as making sure that all your drivers are the latest?

Ok I accidentally cancelled the updates of these few ones, (look in the attachment), but I installed everything else I could, I cant find any more updates when it searches.

So is there anyway to redownload those updates with "cancelled" on them? I think one of them allows me to use the vista aero them as I cant find it under themes right now.

Ghost Train

might be time to try some file recovery software
this has worked for me before

http://www.pcinspector.de/Sites/file_recovery/info.htm?language=1

its slow and you'll need somewhere to save the recovered files

Soundman

One of those cancelled updates is your SATA Controller update. Could be the reason you are having these issues. Go into your Windows Update and on the left there is a link "Restore Hidden Updates". Try clicking that and see if the updates are shown again.

If not just try running the Windows Update a few times in a row and it might come up with something. That or else just go to the Manufacturer's website (Nvidia) and download the latest drivers from there.

encryptix

if doing them updates dont work could you try the drive on another pc?

CyberWaste

I got all the updates now and still no luck, tried on a different PC and same thing. I tried a Pc recovery program and half of the stuff is unreouverable, so that may be the best option.

But this may seem like a stupid question but, since I can recover deleted stuff with the program, is there anyway to recover the data that was on my internal pc hard disk, before I did a clean install of vista?

Ghost Train

CyberWaste wrote: »

I got all the updates now and still no luck, tried on a different PC and same thing. I tried a Pc recovery program and half of the stuff is unreouverable, so that may be the best option.

But this may seem like a stupid question but, since I can recover deleted stuff with the program, is there anyway to recover the data that was on my internal pc hard disk, before I did a clean install of vista?

depends. if you did a full format as part of the install, you probably won't get anything off the disk. If you did a quick format, there might still be some stuff on the disk the PC recovery program can find. But the more you use the disk, and the OS the more that data will disappear.

if there are photos on the disk... i found before that some were only half recovered. But I could still open them with irfanview and resave them as normal jpegs again.

CyberWaste

EDIT: Ah I figured it out what I was doing wrong, Recuva worked for me afterall, it was showing doubles of the files, and I didnt see the path and why they were unrecouverable, they were overwritten months ago with other files, but recuva still picked them up. Thanks for the help.

Standard Toaster

Spinrite

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