External HDD has converted to RAW Filesystem, What should I do? :( (Hardware)

[bitterpillsweet]

Hi Everyone,

My external HDD is a Western Digital, My book Essential Edition 1TB and my OS is Windows XP.

I've always been particular about turning it on/off properly and safely removing the HDD before turning my PC off.

Unfortunately, due to the new arrangement of my desktop, the USB cable have accidentally disconnected a couple of times which basically is the same with not removing the HDD before turning off PC.

- And exactly 2 hours ago, I couldn't access it no longer. My Computer shows the drive but no luck at getting into it. It asked to be reformatted.

- I checked Device Manager > Disk Drives (with my xternal HDD selected) > Properties > Volumes > Populate and it says my filesystem is RAW

- From MSDOS, I also tried running chkdsk G: (G refers to my drive) and it says filesystem FAT32 then after that, it says something like 'cannot enter boot record'.

- From MSDOS too, I tried G: it will say "The volume does not contain a recognized file system. Make sure all required file system drivers are loaded and the volume is not corrupted"

What should I do now? I really really need to recover all the data inside it again, I have very important data (work related, personal related)... I'm really devastated and depressed about this.. almost up to the point of giving up everything.. I tend to get very emotional with PC probs cause I take care of it so well and I hate it when things happen..

I've now disconnected the extenral HDD completely from my desktop to avoid even more damages.

Hoping anyone can shed some light, thanks..

 

[Madxgraphics]

Hi Bitterpillsweet
Welcome to the forum...

Go HERE and download Recuva. Its a free recovery utility and is pretty good at what it does. Give that a try. You should be able to recover all your data. Let us know how you get on..

 

[bitterpillsweet]

Hi there,

When I recover the files (it's going to be huge), what should I do next? I'm guessing transferring them to my PC and then reformat my external HDD and transfer the data back to the external HDD?

Is that how it should be?

Sorry if that sounds n00bish

And thanks for the very warm welcome and quick reply

 

[Madxgraphics]

When I recover the files (it's going to be huge), what should I do next? I'm guessing transferring them to my PC and then reformat my external HDD and transfer the data back to the external HDD?

Is that how it should be?

Yeah that will be the way to do it. Recuva will prompt you to tranfer the files to a different location. Setup a folder on your desktop where you would like the recovered files to goto. Once that is done go ahead and reformat the drive and hopefully upi will be up and running fine after that. Must warn you though, Recuva can take quite a while, while recovering your files depnding on how many. So sit back and make yourself a few cups of tea.

 

[bitterpillsweet]

Thanks for the clarification

Mmm, I have another question. My PC currently only have 40GB. And I think I have more than 100GB to recover

What should I do about this? Should I get another external hardisc to transfer the files into?

 

[Madxgraphics]

Thanks for the clarification

Mmm, I have another question. My PC currently only have 40GB. And I think I have more than 100GB to recover

What should I do about this? Should I get another external hardisc to transfer the files into?

OK that is going to be a bit of a problem...Yeah you could get anothr disk or if you have a firend that has a pc that is willing to let you recover the files to that, you could go down that route..

 

[bitterpillsweet]

Hmmm, I think I'd be able to move my files to my apartment mate's PC. I just need to find ways to make both PCs connected so I can do that

I've been googling and I found out a lot of people have asked to use a software called 'testdisk' to fix possible boot sector problem

Do you think this is related to my problem?

 

[bitterpillsweet]

Hi Madxgraphics,

I don't think there's any luck with Recuva. When prompted to choose the location of files to recover, it hangs and I can't choose a disk drive. This is the same scenario as My Computer hanging and lagging

What should

 

[Ian]

I'm not sure you'll have any luck with traditional file recovery tools, you may need to use a disk repair tool first. You could try the Western Digital "LifeGuard" diagnostics on it:

http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=110&sid=3&lang=en

However, I would say that if you have important data on that drive that you really need to get back then I would not try to run tools on the drive and take it straight to a data recovery company. This is an expensive option (could cost a good few hundred quid, easily), but it means they can probably get the data off it. If you tried a few utilities first then it may mean that some of the data is destroyed inadvertently during some of the write tests that software will perform. If taking it to a data recovery place isn't an option then I think some disk repair tools will stand a reasonable chance of getting the data back.

 

[bitterpillsweet]

Oh no, I'm already running ZAR 8.4 (Zero Assumption Recovery) for the past 3 hours.. should I stop it RIGHT NOW?