folder recovery?

[davsf]

I have this backup IDE drive (160g) which I usually connect using a
USB2IDE converter, and I hot-connect to my Win2000 (SP4) PC by
plugging in the USB2 cable. It works flawlessly, allowing me to copy
data from my C: drive over to this backup drive, and then I can unplug
the USB2 cable and turn off the backup drive. This has worked for me
for many years.

A while ago, before booting up, I connected this backup drive to my PC
as drive D: (using the secondary DMA connector, bypassing any USB2
cables). I booted up and went away momentarily while by system booted
up, and, to my shock, when I came back, the bootup process had
detected several folders on this backup drive that needed some kind of
conversion. On each line, it had asked the question (convert? Yes/No
Y), answering its own question with a "yes" and going ahead and
converting each of these folders to an unreadable format. Each folder
was now represented as a "FOUND00XX.CHK" file (where xx goes from 00
to 28), and then a no-extension file of the same name as the folder
was, with a standard size of 32kb.

So, I beleive the data that I had in these folders is still there,
but, I can no longer access them. Does anyone know if there is a
win2000 UTILITY that will convert these files back to their original
format (a folder with sub-folders and data in them). I do not believe
there was anything wrong with these folders because I had accessed the
data only moments before (but via the USB2 connectors) and everything
went OK.

This is devastating to me - I will NEVER connect my backup as a "D"
drive again, but, I need to recover these "converted" (LOST?) folders
somehow.

HELP! ANYONE?

Littleberry

 

[Dave Patrick]

What happened when you restarted the pc was chkdsk ran and found broken
chains/ lost clusters, then created *.chk files of them so you can delete
them and regain the otherwise lost drive space. They're not really meant to
be recoverable files. You can open them with a text editor and attempt to
copy the parts you need to another file. The drive may have failed.


--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

 

[davsf]

Thanks, Dave, for the explanation. I hadn't expected win2000 to
modify the disk without giving me a chance to reject the "chkdsk"
cleanup. In each case, a question was asked as to whether or not
"conversion" should take place, but, then an automatic answer of "yes"
was entered and zero time was given for me to respond. About 28 such
messages and replies flashed before the screen - to my dismay -
leaving no chance to stop it. Even though there may have been lost
pointers or something, I know much of the content was good because I
had recently used a lot of it. Now I can't get ANY of it. I assume,
from your response, that there is no utility to "undo" those ".chk"
files.

I only recently started using win2000 (over win98se), and this makes
me wish I had stayed with win98se.
I am wondering what other nasty unrecoveable suprises win2000 has in
store for me I had assumed that system desingers would ALWAYS allow
yout to decline automatic changes to your harddrive on startup..

Thanks again, littleberry

 

[Dave Patrick]

Unfortunately file system corruption and hardware failure are a part of any
operating system. Tough lesson to learn but you can't operate without full
backups of anything you can't afford to lose no matter the OS. You might
give one of the drive recovery services a shot.

--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

 

[Joep]

What happened when you restarted the pc was chkdsk ran and found broken
chains/ lost clusters, then created *.chk files of them so you can delete
them and regain the otherwise lost drive space. They're not really meant
to be recoverable files.

Still, they sometimes are and there are easier ways to find out than using
an editor:
http://www.diydatarecovery.nl/chkmate.htm

It's free, it worked for some didn't for others but maybe worth a try.

Regards,
Joep