What is Digg?47 Comments
- NzeeSheikh, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Use SpinRite from GRC
- iWorks, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I bet Ellen Feiss could have used this a few years ago...
- tazamore, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Tip: Don't pay for a file recovery app when TestDisk and PhotoRec will do it better for free.
- cpher, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2SpinRite from grc.com saved my butt last spring. My hard drive had serious hard errors and wouldn't boot at all. SpinRite fixed it. Best $89 I've spent in a long time. I seriously doubt any freeware is as robust as that software, but for some tasks it's probably fine.
- wtfunkymonkey, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"dd, the UNIX app, makes a bit for bit copy. Regardless of damage to drive. It just plows over the bad bits and inserts a zero. With each being a zero or one anyway, it's likely to be right 50% of the time."
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but wouldn’t that 50/50 be if there were only 1 bad bit?
Think about it XXX can be 000, 111, 100, 010, 001, 011, 101, or 110.
Since this app would only pick 000 then that means at best it has a one in eight chance of being correct. Seems to me it would have better luck if it arbitrarily chose either a zero or a one. - tazamore, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1timewarrior: If your system BIOS doesn't see the drive then you could try buying the same model drive on ebay then swap out the platters from the dead drive.
- AxsDeny, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1dd, the UNIX app, makes a bit for bit copy. Regardless of damage to drive. It just plows over the bad bits and inserts a zero. With each being a zero or one anyway, it's likely to be right 50% of the time.
- wtfunkymonkey, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Recovering data from a disk that will power up is child's play, but what if that thing simply won't do anything?
Yea, that's what I thought. - ahhell, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1These apps wouldn't be needed if people did f'ing backups.
- algorythm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I would recommend downloading Hiren's Boot CD. It contains many applications to recover data. I am not sure of the legality of the utility but it is readily available on torrent sites.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/hiren.thanki/bootcd.html - bignate, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I trust my life with GetDataBack. Every single time we've had a hard drive failure, as long as we could get the machine to recognize the drive, GDB was able to recover anything that was recoverable. I think it's only like $40, a total steal for the value.
- timewarrior, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Data recovery
========
Type of disasters.................solutions
1.OS failure........................System Restore,Roll back recent hardware,software from safe mode.
2.Accidental Delete...............Recovery software eg.pcincpectorFR
3.Partition Deletion...............Acronis Disk Director,partition magic recover options
4.MBR corrupt.....................Recovery console>>fixmbr
5.Corrupt Partition Table........Disk Patch etc
6.Sector error.....................HDD regenerator,chkdsk - Live4Soccer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1SpinRite is the best and worth every penny...
- Caladan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0@timewarrior - Sorry the apps couldn't help you out - and sorry for the asinine tone in my last post.
-Caladan - Tsuroerusu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0SpinRite forever!
- KMitchell, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0dd (at least when I had a corrupted disk) stops on errors. I'd used dd_rhelp/dd_rescue which skips over the bad blocks and tries to save what it can (usually most of the disk)
- Caladan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0@timewarrior: Partition Table corrupt, maybe if you read the article and clicked on the links the guy gives for more detailed instructions you'd find this and the accompanying 2-3 pages:
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=1139&page=5
Good stuff. - firestorm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0bignate said "GDB was able to recover anything that was recoverable."
You mean it wasn't able to recover the things that were unrecoverable? Well that's no good.
wtfunkymonkey said "Correct me if I'm wrong here, but wouldn’t that 50/50 be if there were only 1 bad bit?"
Each bit replaced has a 50% chance of being right. The chance that the whole drive is correct is:
1 / (2 ^ #_of_bad_bits) - einsteindesign, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0macheads...
Highly recommend Drive Genius for OS X. It repaired the damage caused by another defrag utility, succesfully defragged the drive, AND allowed me to create new partitions and shift them around.
Tech Tool (Micromat) is also great, as is DiskWarrior.
And before you spout ignorant comments about OS X automatically defragging files, stop. The occasional defrag helps tremendously. Individual mileage may vary. - timewarrior, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Theoretically it sound easy.But I have had my partition table corrupted after an attempt to install an unknown UNIX OS.Not one app was able to recover my partition table,nor were they able to recover the data as files from the raw drive.I know their limitations.
- Cheeze_Head, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Any Diggers out there have any data recovery company's they trust/like have used before?
I have data on a hard drive that I need back but due to a power fluctuation the damn thing will not even spinup. So an industrial data recovery solution is necessary, trust me I've tried little tricks like spinning the drive to "kick start" it but is sounds like a needle carving out an old '45, no spin. So how about it? Trusted/preferred data recovery companies? - timewarrior, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Wish this could help me, but my poor drive isn't even seen by BIOS, so my only choice is an expensive data recovery service. :(
I guess the 450 people who dugg this story has never had a real data loss.Sometimes even expensive stuff don't do the job. - stokestack, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0^^ Now that is an interesting suggestion.
- timewarrior, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"Any Diggers out there have any data recovery company's they trust/like have used before?" -Cheeze_Head
Software won't help you with a hardware problem.But there may be some forensic labs that may do the job for you. - Questarian, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Ok, so call me a hopeless paranoid… but I’m always a bit leery of “free” software from a commercial site… What are the chances I’ll be pulling spyware off machine sometime in the near future with these guys?
- timewarrior, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0@Caladan - I used to experiment a lot with partition and Operating Systems.That may be why I got into such a mess.Now I try not to make unnecessary changes or tweaks to the software.Just regular backups.
- tazamore, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0timewarrior: TestDisk recovers lost and foobared partition tables
wtfunkymonkey: If the disk won't power up you buy the same model disk on ebay and swap the the platters. A delicate operation but it works most of the time. - HiddenForce, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Wish this could help me, but my poor drive isn't even seen by BIOS, so my only choice is an expensive data recovery service. :(
- shakefu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Hey, I don't see any mention here to all the bootable "live CD" linux distros that will read just about every file format known! Knoppix is the first that comes to mind...
- timewarrior, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0@tazamore -I will keep your suggestions in mind.
- timewarrior, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0http://www.cgsecurity.org/testdisk.html
Thanks.Looks good. - cclarke, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0After all else failed, I have successfully recovered *some* data by freezing the HDD. Before freezing, the system would not even recognize the device (not from the OS, not from the BIOS) After freezing, I was able to read data for about 20 minutes, then had to freeze it again (72 hours+).
- tazamore, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Here's a drive platter swapping How-To:
http://www.hackaday.com/entry/1234000840067578/ - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Ditto for GetDataBack. It has worked, it's very very fast, (I can mount the other drive to a live windows system, scan, and recovery most files within 20 minutes) and it's usually the first step I take. I even paid for it! :)
- maloney_633, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"SpinRite forever!"
Amen - Mordanthanus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0If anyone has any experience with modding HDDs (you know... putting a window in there) then you shouldn't have any problem recovering data from a drive that won't spin up at all.
I had a drive completely die on me with a project I really needed. After some practice with unneeded drives, you could swap the platters in the drive to a known working drive (same model and size) and get data off that way. You have to be really careful not to get dust in there (the ol' shower trick) and not get ANY fingerprints on the platters.
I was able to recover ALL of the data from my drive. I ghosted the data to a new drive and even though I don't trust the old drive to keep sensitive data on, it has been working fine as a scratch drive for about 6 months now. - mikesum32, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I used testdisk to undelete a partition. I was going to write an article about it. I'm going to have a different spin though.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Knoppix is mentionned in there, read the article.
- kerrysamuels, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I suggest one robust data recovery software Nucleus Kernel, the priceless software
http://www.nucleustechnologies.com - JoshM, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I'm very suprised Steve Gibson's Spinrite isn't on the list. Its the best out there in my opinion
- 777twist, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I agree with GETBACK.
First I deleted a bunch of directories at work (graphic files) and it wasn't for a few weeks that I noticed it, so I was writing, deleting and rewriting during that time. GetbackNTFS got 98% of what I lost back...and that's just a guess, it may have retrieved it all.
Then I bought a Maxtor One Touch II drive (stay away, horrible support) and the drive wouldn't mount one day... Then I got it to mount and it showed as empty... Well, this was after I moved everything from my computer to the FWdrive and then reformatted my computer figuring I'm safe with that backup.
Well, when the drive failed, I figured I was dead...all data would be lost. So I tried a few programs and none of them seemed to work. But then I remembered my experience with GetBack and tried that. And I think it recovered 96% or more...and pretty much everything I hope for was back. - diehard2k5, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0This was on digg weeks ago.
no digg - Pictographer, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0The author runs his own data recovery company, so you can guess what his recommendations will be. He debunks some really crazy hard disk recovery ideas, but doesn't say anything practical other than, leave it to the professionals. No digg.
- timewarrior, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0Lame.
What will you do if your partition table is corupted?
No answer given.
No digg.
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