harddrive problem

[shdwsclan]

I have a hard drive problem.
I have a Seagate 400gb sata on a Promise SataII 150 TX4.
This drive has no mechanical problems, but the file system seems to be damaged. The drive keeps dropping off of windows which makes recovery very difficult.
I have used
Knoppix 4.0
BartPE October Full Build
Seagate Seatool
Ontrack EasyRecovery Pro

Knoppix is good in the recovery but there is no NTFS write support so I have to back up to my mp3 player.

The small files come off fine and I can recover 300 mb max per session before the drive drops off of Knoppix.

BartPe has the tools but the do not seem to work.

Ontrack's Diagnostic Disk finds and test the drive fine
Ontrack's Recovery Disk does not find the drive and therefore the drive cannot be recoverd from.

The MFT seemed to be the culprit and I have ran chkdsk, and partition disk doctor on the drive to fix the MFT but it seems to have only a minor affect.

Below is the failed snippet from the diagnostic log file.

File Structure Test Result:

Partition 1 (NTFS (400 GB) Digital Video) Result: Failed with critical Errors

The following errors were found while scanning the volume:
- One or more errors were found in the index
- One or more errors were found in metadata file records


NOTE: Any report of possible errors in the file system tests are for
informational purposes only. We suggest you should consider testing with
the official file system diagnostic utilities for your operating system.
Seagate is not able to assist with troubleshooting or reviewing
file system test results.

I have attached the full diagnostic file.

I have a real problem recovering large files over 300mb, can anyone recommend a tool or app that can do the recovery well?

 

[Bruce]

Are you absolutely positive it is seeing the full amount of the drive?

Did this suddenly happen after a reformat?

 

[shdwsclan]

The data is there, there was no reformat.
The drive just suddently dissappeared from my computer.
Using safemode, I caught a balloon popup about $MFT error.
The full amount is there, and correct free space is detected. Currently, I'm trying to explore all the functions of bart pe.
A good solution would be an app that will backup files raw without file table information. Ontrack was an option but the emergency disk wouldn't find my drive....
I've heard of people having trouble with FTs but none of them had anything like my problem.....the wierdest thing is the drive dissapears from window(probably because it tries to write to a damaged ft).
Even using Knoppix, the drive drops off in read only mode.

 

[sPlAtOiD]

Have you ever used SuperWinPE.Its better than knoppix.Problem im not sure if its legal or not.I have several copies and they are a great tool for backing up.

 

[sPlAtOiD]

http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showforum=2
You can also check out this link..

 

[shdwsclan]

I use bartPe which is built on winPe but I've never heard of superWinPe.
It doesn't matter if it is illegal, if microsoft actually redeveloped winPe and not just left it as a crummy useless command prompt then people wouldn't have to fashion their own tools in it.

Ill try superWinPe after playing around with BartPe some more. The drive still seems to drop off even in bartPe. Specifically, i really need an app that detects the drive on the controller, has usb support, and can recover files without partition information or file table information. Or...any other possible solutions are welcome....

 

[shdwsclan]

Winternals ERD commander seems to be recovering very well, It doesn't lock up. I'm using an illegal version( but I'm not sure because they give you the 1 seat liscense for free and this is what I have) currently, but If all goes well, I will be purchasing the software to support their development. $149 is a lot more affordable than paying some service $400-4000 + the cost of media to put it on. I solved the problem myself for now, but I will look into superWinPe.....

 

[SHAWN]

I know this sounds retarded and simple, but did you try to run a chkdsk?

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/chkdsk.mspx



Edit: forget it, i can't read...

 

[shdwsclan]

I'm not sure what the problem was, but I recovered the data.
I RMAed the drive to seagate.
This is the first time I had a failure from seagate.
I tried to format the drive, but the format would even fail when it tried to build a file structure.
The drive was tested on 3 different controllers.
All the controllers were updated to the most recent bios.
All the operating systems had 48-bit LBA support.
All of the operating systems were WinXP Pro SP2 or greater.