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Help! How to recover drive with bad sectors?
nqservices
Member
Hi all,
I know this is not an “hard-core hardware” forum, but I have a big problem with a hard-drive from my laptop and I really appreciate if anyone can help me recover my files.
Basically, the hard-drive has many bad-sectors and reach a time that it did not boot. So, I have connect the drive using a USA 3.0 external case to a Windows Server 2012 I have running on my office and run a full “chkdsk /f /r /x” and after 3 days running, it ended with an error. 
Now the drive shows as un-formatted on my server and when I try to run chkdsk again it shows the following error:
"Corrupt master file table. Windows will attempt to recover master file table from disk. Windows cannot recover master file table. CHKDSK aborted."
My first objective would be to recover the partition, but at this point I will be satisfied if I can just recover almost all the files.
I search on Google about software to try to recover my files or the partition, but there are so many, many, many options!! Some sites seem like a total scam..
I’m willing to pay for a commercial software. Does anyone has experience on this and can give me any advice of how to proceed or which software to buy?
Thanks
Comments
My success in the past has been pretty hit and miss (I say "in the past" because I learned long ago to have backups for anything important).
Anyway, I'd start by pulling the drive out of the USB enclosure and hook it up directly to a port on the motherboard and drive it from the computer's PSU. USB just adds another point of failure that you really don't want (not to mention potential slowness esp if your USB3 case is on a USB2 port or something).
From there I'd be inclined to follow the advice at: http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/Advanced_NTFS_Boot_and_MFT_Repair
...starting with the TestDisk program (Win/Linux/Mac versions available) and possibly looking at the commercial programs they mention if need be.
One note on commercial programs: before shelling out any cash for one, make sure it's got a demo and make sure that demo at least shows/sees all the files on the drive.
If the data's really critical and you've got the $, rather than mucking with the drive further you could always shop around for a professional data recovery service (the ones that'll even open up the drive if need be). Last I checked the ballpark price range was $1-2k with no guarantees though.
Anyway maybe someone's got some better advice but if not, that's where I'd start personally.
There isn't a need because you have backups of course so don't panic just buy a new disk and restore from that backup because you are a sensible person right?
Right?
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Thanks for the suggestions! I will look into that website.
Thanks. Your advise is really helpful.
Yes, I have backups of all my data on all my devices. But I was on holidays without internet connection, so all work done during that time is not on the backups. The laptop was damaged by the "always carefully" airport bags staff...
Any other advice or suggestions?
Okay that's very fair and I apologize for my usual crappy response. I hope you are aware a large amount of people asking these questions don't run backups.
I mean it's worth plugging directly into a PC and trying to maybe Rip a .IMG of the drive then if that's unrecoverable I'd send the drive to a specialist if the data is that important
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No problem! Holidays went good.. so i'm still in a good mood
Do you recommend any software to make the .IMG from a external USB case?
Thanks
You tell them to be good!
(:
Check SpinRite it is not free but it might work.
I have used testdisk to recover lost partition and one with all of the superblocks lost. You should be able to run it from any Linux. Additionally you can try force mounting NTFS from Linux.
I strongly suggest that you create an image of the whole drive right now, because you have no guarantee that the drive wont die whilst you are recovering files.
The drive is now connected to a Windows Server. What software do you recommend to create the image?
Thanks!
I had good expirience with GetDataBack NTFS from Runtime Software in the past.
It can create images and work with them, and does not require correct/visible by os partition/partition table.
May be worth a try...
I am a Linux guy therefore dd would be my tool of choice.
if SpinRite+testdisk can't help you are wasting your time outside of taking external services but that will be very expensive.
Thanks all for the advice. I will try my best.. but expectations are low at this point
If bad sectors occurred by a hardware issue (or by the always carfuly airport staffs), you'd be better off going to a specialist right away rather than trying other software methods since that can even damage it more.
GNU ddrescue is my go to tool for this sort of thing, but yeah, it's probably already toast.
I'd try doing a dd of the drive
It's now running EaseUS recover... time expected to finish is around 120 hours....
Just curious ...
Did you put your laptop in the check in baggage and didn't take it with you into the plane?
I only had one bag that is a cabin bag. But on Ryanair only first 90 passengers can bring the bag on cabine... as I was not in the first 90, I was unable to take the bag with me.
Does that satisfies your curiosity?
Yeah, because last time i flyed (in january) you only were allowed to take the laptop with into the plane and not in the bag.
From what I see on the news lately, it seems that in a near future ALL laptops and tablets will be prohibited to go in the cabine. USA is already making that to some countries.