Running chkdsk Results in a 220GB Loss Of Data? Why? How? Help!!!

[lungnut2002]

I have a WinXP machine. I had a failing hard drive that explorer was
having problems with reading. The hard drive (along with another) was
connected to the motherboard via a Ultra100 TX2 IDE Controller. I
uninstalled/reinstalled the controller initially thinking that the read
problems were due to a bad driver.

However, I resigned myself to the fact that the hard drive was failing
and I sent it out for data recovery.

Upon rebooting, chkdsk made a fuss over the other hard drive (the good
one). I let it. Big mistake.

The 250GB hard drive had over 220GB worth of data (it was a data-only
drive, no operating system installed on it).

Running chkdsk resulted in only 2GB being left.

I've lost nearly 218GB worth of data. What the hell happened? Why did
chkdsk do this? How can I get back the data?

Thanks.

 

[Richard Urban [MVP]]

It is highly unlikely, though not impossible, that 2 drives will fail in
such a short time frame. I am inclined to think that you have problems with
your Ultra ATA card causing data corruption. This data corruption is what
chkdsk found, in the form of unreadable/unusable data. Chkdsk therefore
"fixed" the problem by removing the data entries from the MFT on the drive.

Don't use this drive, even for a moment. There is a good chance that even
the act of booting the computer will cause the freed up space to be over
written by other files. Download one of the free data recovery software
programs from the internet. I use EasyRecovery Professional (expensive) from
www.ontrack.com and they have, I believe, a free download that will allow
you to see what can be recovered - but will NOT allow the actual recovery.
You have to buy the program to do the actual recovery. The program goes for
about $1500.00

--
Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User

Quote from: George Ankner
"If you knew as much as you thought you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!"

 

[Mistoffolees]

It is highly unlikely, though not impossible, that 2 drives will fail in
such a short time frame. I am inclined to think that you have problems with
your Ultra ATA card causing data corruption. This data corruption is what
chkdsk found, in the form of unreadable/unusable data. Chkdsk therefore
"fixed" the problem by removing the data entries from the MFT on the drive.

Don't use this drive, even for a moment. There is a good chance that even
the act of booting the computer will cause the freed up space to be over
written by other files. Download one of the free data recovery software
programs from the internet. I use EasyRecovery Professional (expensive) from
www.ontrack.com and they have, I believe, a free download that will allow
you to see what can be recovered - but will NOT allow the actual recovery.
You have to buy the program to do the actual recovery. The program goes for
about $1500.00

Of course, the standard advice is to always backup and for
a paltry 20% of the $1,500 for the recovery program, it is
possible to purchase a 300 GB or larger external hard drive,
perhaps even 2, to protect important data.

 

[lungnut2002]

I've had success (still ongoing) with a $40 program called Active
Undelete. It's slow-going (about 3GB/hour), but it seems to be managing
to retrieve all my files. I am so happy.

While I don't fully understand the role chkdsk played in this, I'm
planning on scrapping the Ultra ATA controller card. Better safe than
sorry.

And speaking of safe vs. sorry--never again will I have a hard drive
that doesn't have a duplicate, ever.

 

[Guest]

I recommend that you use DataRecoveryWizard to recover your data.
The software provides very useful functions for data recovery:
DeleteRecovery, FormatRecovery, AdvancedRecovery, RawRecovery.

This program is an efficient disk recovery software providing
you a complete answer to data loss.

First thing I recommend you download the demo version of
DataRecoveryWizard. (http://www.easeus.com/download.htm)

Run the program and select the recovery mode "DeletedRecovery",
or "FormatRecovery", or "AdvancedRecovery".

See more:
http://www.easeus.com
http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizard/recover-deleted-files.htm
http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizard/recover-lost-partition.htm
http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizard/recover-formatted-partition.htm
http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizard/recover-fdisked-drives.htm
http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizard/recover-lost-files.htm
http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizard/recover-repartitioned-drives.htm
http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizard/recover-scandisk-chkdsk-disk.htm
http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizard/recover-ghosted-image-data.htm
http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizard/recover-encrypted-data.htm

 

[chad]

Most of the data recovery trials will not actually recover your data.
Here's a collection of free data recovery tools that actually recover
your data.

http://free-backup.info/data-recovery-software.htm