HD crash need help bad!

[reddragon72]

need lots of help here. My WD 30 gig drive went south. I have used norton to recover the disk only to find very little of the original files remaining. I have over 7000 recovered lost chains. Now heres the catch of those 7000 lost chains turned into files are my family photo's. I need some way to recover those files and only those, the rest of the stuff I could care less about but the photo's are a must. Could someone help me with maybe a program to get them back, possibly get an old backup of the boot sector that is stored somewhere else on the disk. Those pictures are most important and there is about 500+ pics in there somewhere. Any help would be appritiated.

thanks
scott

 

[mr_kennedy]

well...

First of all, I think you might be best served to search the web for some information.

All I know about data recovery like this is that there are programs to do it, and companies you can pay to do it for you.

Here's the technical basics:

Data on your HDD is theoretically recoverable unless it has been written over six or seven times. When you delete something, all it does is mark the space used by that data as available. If sector x contains a text file and you delete it, it is still on sector x, however, you can no longer access it normally, and your computer will over write that sector.

There are also programs which provide security by writing over data many times when you delete it, making recovery impossible.

Just don't use the drive for obvious reasons if possible.

And don't forget to back stuff up!

 

[MikeT]

I have always found Spinrite to do a great job there you can find it at GRC.com. The programs been around just about forever (updated of course) and it takes forever to run, but it will recover files like nothing else I have ever used.

 

[Krieger]

thanks I'll have to check that link out, I've had a few drives just flat out die on me.

 

[Xaotic]

Here's one that may help. It doesn't hurt that it's freeware. It doesn't do damaged disks, but can recover data from missing or damaged FATs.

http://home.arcor.de/christian_grau/rescue/

 

[AntiHeiss]

All I am familiar with is Encase. Forensic data recovery. Short of that I can't help you program wise. If you need help with software or anything I can certainly help you out. Let me know if you do...

 

[reddragon72]

thanks for the help guys. I lost my main drive as well by accident when I tried formatting my d drive. I have now recovered the pics using my buddies easy recovery program. it was a little funky to use but it worked. I got everything off the drive and then reformatted it. I don't think it'll give me any more problems as I now know that it failed because my PCI bus speed was to high. I had a 42.23mghz bus going and it corrupted my c drive as well but it did look like it was hurt, but norton fixed the boot sector and fat so it works still. the other drive had to be completly formatted.since I got everything it took me all day to save the 30 gig drive and 12 cd later for backup, man I hope this is'nt going to be a repeat when I start overclocking it again, I just have to keep the bus down below 39mghz I guess.

thanks all
scott