Problems with repairing a RAW drive.

Using TestDisk to repair the filesystem
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AstonFrench
Posts: 2
Joined: 12 Sep 2013, 01:47

Problems with repairing a RAW drive.

#1 Post by AstonFrench »

Hi there, I'm currently having troubles repairing my media drive and hoped that someone here might be able to help out a bit. I'm reasonably savvy, but this is my first disk failure so I'm rather out of my depth!

Background:
120GiB SSD C:
1TiB Programs&Documents HDD E:
2TiB Media HDD F: (failed), with pagefile.
Windows 7 64 bit.

Computer was working just fine a few days back, then packed it up and brought it home from uni. Upon powerup back home, took 4-5 minutes to go from the initial Windows splash to login (typically <30s). Upon login, F: was unresponsive in My Computer and a notice popped up saying my pagefile location was absent, so the pagefile had been temporarily relocated to C:. Opening Disk Management, I could see the physical drive listed there as RAW format. I then loaded up a free utility (iCare Data Recovery) to scan the drive, and it appears that at least the majority of the files are still present and seemingly untouched.

On a friend's suggestion, I then tried TestDisk. Using the basic analysis, it also shows primary (sole) partition, and that the file contents appear intact - but I then realised that it wasn't detecting the "Microsoft Reserved" partitions that it did on my functional E: drive. I followed your TestDisk basic guide first, and following the Write and reboot phase there was almost no change - apart from the time from Windows splash to login was back to normal, and Disk Management displays a 129mb Unallocated block at the start of the physical volume, but no other change.

I then checked the Advanced->Boot options for the drive, and the Primary and Backup boot sectors are apparently OK and identical. I've also run a chkdsk with results that I'm not able to interpret:

Code: Select all

C:\Windows\system32>chkdsk /f F:
The type of the file system is NTFS.
Volume label is Media & Backup.

CHKDSK is verifying files (stage 1 of 3)...
  213248 file records processed.
File verification completed.
  74 large file records processed.
  0 bad file records processed.
  0 EA records processed.
  0 reparse records processed.
CHKDSK is verifying indexes (stage 2 of 3)...
  224972 index entries processed.
Index verification completed.
  0 unindexed files scanned.
  0 unindexed files recovered.
CHKDSK is verifying security descriptors (stage 3 of 3)...
  213248 file SDs/SIDs processed.
Security descriptor verification completed.
  5863 data files processed.
CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal...
99 percent complete. (331776 of 36534912 USN bytes processed)
Unable to read the Usn Journal $J data stream.
Finally, I've attempted a Repair MFT via the Boot->Advanced options in TestDisk, but seemingly with no result. Can anyone suggest what the problem or solution may be? Ideally, I'd like to try and just repair the drive in place as buying a replacement drive would be awkward - but I can buy a replacement if this drive is actually farked rather than just partially corrupted.

... the thought of ripping all my hundreds of CDs and DVDs again is horrific :lol:

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cgrenier
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Posts: 5432
Joined: 18 Feb 2012, 15:08
Location: Le Perreux Sur Marne, France
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Re: Problems with repairing a RAW drive.

#2 Post by cgrenier »

Run TestDisk, Advanced, select your NTFS partition, List ?
If it works, you may use it to copy all your files to another disk. It will be faster than ripping all your CDs/DVDs again

AstonFrench
Posts: 2
Joined: 12 Sep 2013, 01:47

Re: Problems with repairing a RAW drive.

#3 Post by AstonFrench »

I don't have another drive big enough, so I'll have to buy one. Is the drive physically damaged, then? Or will I likely be able to use it again after DBANing it?

UPDATE: Following this, I had problems with my system completely failing to boot. After disassembling the computer, I found the SATA data cable for the F: drive was welded onto the drive, and at a weird angle. I'll be ordering a new drive, and seeing if I can transfer the stuff over.

Thanks very much for your help and fast reply, Christophe. I look forward to using your excellent tool to try and recover my data :)

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