Need computer help - data recovery

felix a

Simon, RW, Jan, Norm, AF, Farkel & anyone else this is a cry for help...

I really need help recovering data were the directory is lost.

I have a hard drive that I pulled off of a machine that crashed. I have slaved it to a machine running XP in order to recover data files. When looking at the HD properties for this drive it shows that 9 gigs out of 20 are used yet will not show a directory of files on the drive. This of course means that I have no files abvailable to pull off. Is there anyway to recover these missing files or to rebuild the directory?

I have partition magic 7 and the drive is an NTFS though originally it was FAT32.

Thanks Gang...

Dave

"Vision is the art of seeing things invisible"
Swift

chezza

Have you tried the file transfer wizard in xp?

felix a

Cheeza,

I have attempted to use the file transfer prog in XP... since there seems to be no file names to be found in the form of a directory it is not working...

Thanks

Dave

"Vision is the art of seeing things invisible"
Swift

Simon

I have had that happen - it was to do with the drive settings (heads, blocks, LBA etc...) in the BIOS but I seem to remember playing about with a program that let me edit the drives partition table which had gone wrong (this was a freebie program that ran off a DOS floppy but I can't remember the name ... sorry).

However ... if the data is *really* important then it may be worth getting in touch with an expert at data recovery. If you have a go yourself you do run the risk of overwritting stuff and making things worse ... so don't rush!

Good luck !

ofcmad

Will Norton Ghost work? You might want to try using that software first.. unless like already mentioned, it's too important ..you'll need to get with a pro.

2SYN

Oh boy, you're going to have to see a data-recovery dude about this, because NTFS is HAIRY. There is a good chance that your data is lost at the logical filesystem level, but there's an excellent chance that it still exists at the electromagnetic level. Believe me, I've seen some of these data-recovery tools read info from low-level formatted hard drives that people thought were clean.

Exactly how mission-critical is this stuff? Secret nuclear weapons plans perhaps?

BTW these recover guys are not cheap, esp. not if the filesystem itself has removed your data. Luckily NTFS doesn't immediately knock out unused clusters that used to be occupied by files, it leaves them until it runs out of space, thank God, so most recovery guys should be able to trawl the files off your drive within a few minutes or so. Like I said earlier, it all depends on what you did with those files...

The earlier in the forenoon you take the sun bath, the greater will be the beneficial effect, because you get more of the ultra-violet rays, which are healing. - The Golden Age

felix a

Thanks all...

I was still hoping to have a work around the data recovery dudes...

It looks like I will need to have a long hard think on the value of the data.

Happy to say nothing nuclear involved 2SYN...

Dave

"Vision is the art of seeing things invisible"
Swift

Kent

NTFS is real tough, and the data recovery people will be the ones that can get the datas out. As Simon said, there is a good risc you may ruin data by attempting to recover them.

Norton Utilities has a prog to recover such files - and you can save the recovered files to another drive.

If you try something that do over-write the data - you can possibly STILL get them out - but we're talking serious cash for the job!

In Norway we do have a company that actually recovered 80% of the data deleted by Military Strength Deletion from one of their US rivals (!!!!) - so much is possible. It's just a question of money....

Yachyd Da

Kent

I need the new KM's as they come! Please send me scans!

Daily News On The Watchtower and the Jehovah's Witnesses:
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rhett

Check your email felix. If this isn't your normal or even a real email box then email me your address. I think you might be happy.

I don't need to fight
To prove I'm right
I don't need to be forgiven.

gravedancer

Was the drive previously being used under Windows XP professional or Windows 2000 Profssional?

Need computer help - data recovery

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