corrupted hard drive URGENT!

[mikee]

My friend's hard drive with all his files all of a sudden says it is not formatted and windows won't read it.

Here's what it says in checkdisk

label is skooter

file record fragment 8 is unreadable
file record fragment 9 is unreadable
file record fragment 10 is unreadable
file record fragment 11 is unreadable


inseart an index entry into index 50 of file 8955
inseart an index entry into index 50 of file 8955
inseart an index entry into index 50 of file 8955
inseart an index entry into index 50 of file 8955
inseart an index entry into index 50 of file 8955
inseart an index entry into index 50 of file 8955
inseart an index entry into index 50 of file 8955
inseart an index entry into index 50 of file 8955

and it just keeps going with that message.

can anyone help me get the files back?

this is urgent because he has been building a collection of music, tv movies etc for about 8 years on that drive.

 

[KSoD]

Has he run check disk on it? That would be the first step to take.

 

[mikee]

as i said in the 1st post

"Here's what it says in checkdisk

label is skooter

file record fragment 8 is unreadable
file record fragment 9 is unreadable
file record fragment 10 is unreadable
file record fragment 11 is unreadable


inseart an index entry into index 50 of file 8955
inseart an index entry into index 50 of file 8955
inseart an index entry into index 50 of file 8955
inseart an index entry into index 50 of file 8955
inseart an index entry into index 50 of file 8955
inseart an index entry into index 50 of file 8955
inseart an index entry into index 50 of file 8955
inseart an index entry into index 50 of file 8955

and it just keeps going with that message"

 

[KSoD]

Okay let me rephrase. What type of check disk did he run? Did he do the chkdsk /f? That would try to fix the issues with the drive.

 

[mikee]

i just ran the disk check that starts before windows. I am trying a few different recovery programs but all of them will find the files then you have to pay to recover them. the cheapest one is $150

 

[Jorsoft]

Try this real quick. Pop on your windows xp disc and boot to the Recovery Console (it's an option that will come up)

Type in chkdsk /f and try to run that to repair the drive. Hopefully it's not a mechanical problem.

 

[mikee]

I don't think it is a mechanical prob, I am running a recovery program right now which is taking hours but it is finding the files. It's called easus data recovery professional. I'm not sure what it is going to do with the files though.

 

[mikee]

The program works but the files are only visible from within the program but not to windows itself. I'm going to transfer the recovered files to my external hdd then format the corrupted drive and just copy them all back. Hopefully that works

 

[oldskool]

Mikee,

You have like 3 people suggesting checkdisk, and that's what I would say too. Why wouldn't you try it that way first? It could save a lot of time and aggravation, expecially if you aren't successful your way, because then you would still have to run checkdisk anyway. Using that utility would allow you peace of mind that the disk is ok, and then you could try other things knowing the disk is ok.

 

[KSoD]

He did try check disk. But not chkdsk/f which needs to be run to check the integrity of the drive and possibly try to fix it....