NTFS partition no longer partitioned/file recovery

Hi folks,

One of my drives is knackered. Windows identifies it as NTFS, gets the correct volume name and tries to inspect it during start up but after identifying hundreds of unreadable sectors comes up with an unexpected thingumy jig error and proceeds with the boot after completing the initial scan. Once in windows 'proper' the drive shows up as unformatted space with, of course, no volume label.

I'm currently running the demo version of 'GetDataBack for NTFS' and it is detecting files although the scan still has a long way to go, but hopefully it will atleast avail me of an idea of exactly what was on the disk at the time it went capput.

Any hints, tips, or spells much apreciated....

someone suggested this "acronis true image " http://eu.acronis.com/ to me. Aso is a trial but I don't know whether it will just create the mirror or whether you can use it to recover the files.
it is $50 or

Thanks, but True Image is for backup not recovery.

How did you get on with GetDataBack? It take's a while to scan doesn't it!?

I don't know I went to bed and let it get on with things....

It showed me a load of files which really aren't worth the registration fee to recover, but it can't be a particularly large portion of the HD's contents. The first time I ran recover4all it listed a load of files as having a 'perfect' chance of recovery, but subsequent runnings left it unable to seee the drive at all. This is annoying, theres obviously a load of data left on the disk, but I can't touch it....

At this point I would stop using data recovery software on it as it sounds as if it is in quite a fragile state. Recovery software reads files in the random state they are stored on the platters. It causes the heads to be all over the place.

You may need to consider data recovery as the drive sounds as if it is suffering from a progressively worse bad sector problem. It needs a sector by sector clone, which requires much less action from the heads as the sectors are read progressively 0 to x hundred million.

I've disconnected the drive while I sort a few other things out and gather my thoughts. I'm not going to splash out on a data recovery firm, I'm not even sure whats on the drive (just hope there are no photos waiting to be burnt and uploaded). Its the drive I normally use to transfer recorded programs from my PVR to my main PC for burning so I doubt there is much irreplaceable on their, but I will keep trying to recover data myself once I have ascertained what the best course of action is. Is it possible to get hold of a sector by sector scanner? Could you name any software that performs this task?

Thanks.

Unfortunately it isn't best done by software, there is one package we use, however I can't disclose our techniques due to an NDA over my head.

For an effective sector by sector clone you will need a specialist hardware tool hence why I suggested dr, fair enough tho if you have decided against that route.

Fair enough, thanks for the help. Is it a no-brainer to bin the drive, or is there a chance that it may prove reliable after a reformat?

A reformat is certainly not going to help in your case going off what you have described...