Lost Data on USB Drive - Recommendations

[The Computer Dood]

I have had a External USB hard drive for several years now, that has
been working flawlessly. I had power problems that wiped out my System
disk on my PC. I replaced the whole PC, and reattached the USB drive to
a new system (refurbished XP box) and it worked fine. Several days
later, I could not see the drive mapping. I unplgged the USB cable, and
switched USB ports. The pop up screen went crazy a few times, and then
stopped. After that, when I attach the drive, it maps, but I have
massive file corruption. I ran a SCANDISK (WinXP-PRO) and it has errors.
I tried a copy of "SPINRITE" that my company had, but the XP box does
not boot to the USB, and therefore does not see it, since SPINRITE boots
from the CD directly. I have two other HD's and it seems them fine.
Does anyone have any suggestions to try and recover. This was supposed
to be my "BACKUP" DISK. I felt because it was USB, it would be more
resilient than a direct attached drive. (WRONG!!!!)
I have tried to switch the USB disk to another computer, but witout results.
Thanks in adavance.
Eric H.

 

[mscotgrove]

I have had a External USB hard drive for several years now, that has
been working flawlessly. I had power problems that wiped out my System
disk on my PC. I replaced the whole PC, and reattached the USB drive to
a new system (refurbished XP box) and it worked fine. Several days
later, I could not see the drive mapping. I unplgged the USB cable, and
switched USB ports. The pop up screen went crazy a few times, and then
stopped. After that, when I attach the drive, it maps, but I have
massive file corruption. I ran a SCANDISK (WinXP-PRO) and it has errors.
I tried a copy of "SPINRITE" that my company had, but the XP box does
not boot to the USB, and therefore does not see it, since SPINRITE boots
from the CD directly. I have two other HD's and it seems them fine.
Does anyone have any suggestions to try and recover. This was supposed
to be my "BACKUP" DISK. I felt because it was USB, it would be more
resilient than a direct attached drive. (WRONG!!!!)
I have tried to switch the USB disk to another computer, but witout results.
Thanks in adavance.
Eric H.

www.cnwrecovery.com

The demo will show you what files could be recovered.

If no logical files are possible, a Raw Image will give the files on
the disk

Michael Cotgrove
CnW Recovery

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

www.cnwrecovery.com

The demo will show you what files could be recovered.

What part of

"but I have massive file corruption"
"I ran a SCANDISK and it has errors"

did you miss?

If no logical files are possible,

a Raw Image will give the files on the disk

And what good will that do him?

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

I have had a External USB hard drive for several years now, that has
been working flawlessly. I had power problems that wiped out my System
disk on my PC. I replaced the whole PC, and reattached the USB drive to
a new system (refurbished XP box) and it worked fine. Several days
later, I could not see the drive mapping. I unplgged the USB cable, and
switched USB ports. The pop up screen went crazy a few times, and then
stopped.

After that, when I attach the drive, it maps, but I have massive file corruption.

What is the nature of that file corruption?

I ran a SCANDISK (WinXP-PRO) and it has errors.

What is the nature of those errors?

I tried a copy of "SPINRITE" that my company had,

but the XP box does not boot to the USB, and therefore does not see it,
since SPINRITE boots from the CD directly.

And doesn't need/use WinXP, therefor that is irrelevant.
What Spinrite needs is BIOS access to the drive.
But if you have file corruption due to filesystem corruption Spinrite is of
no use to you, unless that particular corruption is due to bad sectors in the
filesystem administration.

I have two other HD's and it seems them fine.

Does anyone have any suggestions to try and recover.

Depends on the answers to the questions above.

 

[Arno Wagner]

I have had a External USB hard drive for several years now, that has
been working flawlessly. I had power problems that wiped out my System
disk on my PC. I replaced the whole PC, and reattached the USB drive to
a new system (refurbished XP box) and it worked fine. Several days
later, I could not see the drive mapping. I unplgged the USB cable, and
switched USB ports. The pop up screen went crazy a few times, and then
stopped. After that, when I attach the drive, it maps, but I have
massive file corruption. I ran a SCANDISK (WinXP-PRO) and it has errors.
I tried a copy of "SPINRITE" that my company had, but the XP box does
not boot to the USB, and therefore does not see it, since SPINRITE boots
from the CD directly. I have two other HD's and it seems them fine.
Does anyone have any suggestions to try and recover. This was supposed
to be my "BACKUP" DISK. I felt because it was USB, it would be more
resilient than a direct attached drive. (WRONG!!!!)
I have tried to switch the USB disk to another computer, but witout results.
Thanks in adavance.
Eric H.

Ok, first, don't panic. Second, this may be the disk or it may be
the USB bridge in the enclosure. Since you say you had power
problems, I assume you sufferd actual hardware damage. My guess would
be that the USB bridge has also been damaged. The HDD in the external
enclosure may still be fine. What you need to do to check is to
open the external disk case and remoce the disk. Be careful, HDDs
are sensiticve to mechanical shock and static electicity, so do
not wear silk, wool or synthetics. Cotton is fine. You can then
either mount the disk in a different USB enclosure or you can attach
it directly.

If that does not bring back your files, then the HDD itself
may also have been damaged. This typically requires professiona
data recovery and is expensive.

As to backups: Any experienced system administrator knows that
you need at least two backup copies to be safe. Most use three
or more, of different age. Implied is that you need to ues at least
two (better three) independend backup media. In addition, an USB
disk is not more reliable than a "raw" hdd. It is, after all, more
complex. It can more easily be dropped. It might not be cooled well.
True, the USB may provide some protection against overvoltage in
the PC PSU. But a good PSU comes with overvoltage protection,
better incest there.

Arno

 

[mscotgrove]

What part of

"but I have massive file corruption"
"I ran a SCANDISK and it has errors"

did you miss?

No, it does depend on the errors, but file receovery can be possible

There several modes in which a disk can be examined, and sometime
these will work even after a 'massive file corruption'. However,
recovery from NTFS is often more successful than FAT32

And what good will that do him?

The Raw Image mode will extract files based on signature. Thus JPEGs,
DOCs will be found, though often filenames will be lost. JPEGs though
will have data and time as a file name. This is a mode that is often
better than no data at all

 

[Andreas M.]

Search for "Recuva" on Google. Maybe that helps ?!