Page 1 of 1

photorec fails to recover files from HDD

Posted: 16 Nov 2017, 12:47
by dapsom
Hi all
I am kind of new in the file recovery story. I was forced to learn fast due to a damaged SATA HDD (blue death screen, windows 10). After many trials and software, I ended up now to testdisk and photorec.
So, BIOS recognizes the HDD (unbootable though), windows sees it but cannot open it (asks for format). The fs is RAW. Some software can see the content (files and folders after deep scan) but still unable to recover any files. Testdisk fails to analyse the HDD. Now I am running photorec and after 1 hour, I have the attached image. What am I doing wrong? I have the impression that if the content was really unrecoverable, I would never had the chance to see the files and folders by any software. Should I change something in the geometry or the file system before being able to recover the data?
thanks
David

Re: photorec fails to recover files from HDD

Posted: 17 Nov 2017, 07:00
by cgrenier
No need to change the disk geometry.
PhotoRec hasn't been able to find a single file header in nearly one hour, it's not good.
Unless your data were encrypted (ie. truecrypt), it probably means that the disk doesn't return the correct sector content.
If possible, remove the disk from its enclose and connect it directly via sata and try again PhotoRec Otherwise you will have to contact a data recovery company.