On Sun, 18 Apr 2004 22:30:22 -0700, "Ray Grasso"
When Windows doesn't recognize the drive, there isn't
much you can do but delete the drive and try to format
Ever heard of "data recovery"?
Certainly, you need to stay OUT of Windows (because it writes to HDs)
and avoid the built-in "fixers" like ChkDsk.
You should have evacuated that physical HD as soon as you knew it had
"just one bad sector" (which is like having "just one cancer").
Data recovery doesn't always have to be $1000-and-hour clean-room
stuff (tho some jobs will need this level of intervention). If the HD
is physically OK, it's a matter of file system repair; a sick HD adds
that extra headache, and should be split off from the other problem.
When you say Windows "can't see the HD", can CMOS/BIOS see it? If the
HD cannot be seen by BIOS/CMOS at all from a PC that used to see it
fine, then you really are deep in trouble and need the big guns.
Forget about formatting the HD; it's not going to happen!
If OTOH CMOS/BIOS is happy with the HD but Windows can't see it, then
you'd need some low-level file system or partition logic repair. You
need someone clued for that, and especially you need someone who isn't
a "cowboy". May not need the clean-room, etc.
You can test the HD at the physical level using OS-agnostic
diagnostics from your HD vendor's site. Stick to the non-destructive
tests, i.e. the ones that do not write to the HD, and don't "thrash"
(stress-test) the HD until it's evacuated.
If the HD is physically OK, you have one battle to fight - namely,
repairing the partition logic so the HD's volumes are revealed, and
then repairing internal file system logic so data can be evacuated.
You should use a *raw* HD imaging app to prepare a copy of the entire
HD on a new HD to work on, so you can "undo" if you make things worse;
if that's not possible, then keep a rigorous log of what you do so you
can undo changes and so on.
If the HD is physically ill, it may not survive the imaging process
(sick HDs can have an hour or less of spin life left), and half an
image is no cigar. So in those cases, I start by "cherry picking" the
data I really want to see again, then copy the image off, then work on
the image on a known-good HD ("just one bad sector" = known-BAD)
If your file system is FATxx, you can use Odi's LFN tools (free
download) to evacuate the HD from DOS mode. These are stand-alone
replacements for the usual DOS file commands than can "see" Long File
Names even from raw DOS. The syntax...
LCopy D:\* C:\SICKHD /A /S
....will copy *everything* off D: to C:\SICKHD, and will step over dead
sectors with a minimum of retry thrashing and drama.
If your file system is NTFS, well, this is where that bites you in the
ass. Goodbye LFNs, as Odi won't work through an interposing driver.
www.systeminternals.com have a free NTFS reading driver for DOS mode,
but no LFNs, it hogs 300k DOS memory, and it doesn't traverse the tree
properly - so exect to have to chase one twig of the tree at a time.
Slightly less awful is ReadNTFS from
www.NTFS.com which is also free;
it's a non-TSR stand-alone app that lets you view and copy files or
subtrees. Takes ages to list each dir and doesn't "remember" dirs
it's been in, so you will come to hate MS's habit of using
gratuitously deeply-nested paths.
You can use BING (
www.bootitng.com) to do "smart" partition images,
but not sure if it has the all-inclusive "dumb" raw mode that you need
here. A smart image relies on file system logic to know what to
include, which isn't what you want when that logic is known to be bad
and you need to repair it. Not only would smart imaging leave out
material that isn't pointed to by the file system logic, it will
rearrange material on the destination based on file system logic.
If your volumes are FATxx, then the data recovery section of my site
may help you or your helpers. FATxx is a simple and well-documented
file system and recovery tools abound; FWIW, what I use is Norton
DiskEdit from the utils (the CD is still unused, all I need are the
emergency diskettes from the package).
If your volumes are NTFS, then there are recovery tools, but none that
I know of that are free; usually they are can't-save or time-bombed
demos. The file system is not documented by MS and changes whenever
MS feels like it, so FUD abounds; the closest thing to decent
byte-level docs are from reverse-engineering by the Linux community.
Final tip: While the HD or file system is sick, STAY OUT OF WINDOWS !!
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Tech Support: The guys who follow the
'Parade of New Products' with a shovel.
