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HDD Recovery

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by nvl 1 view

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My HDD (Maxtor 91020D6) had its FAT or boot sector overwritten (FAT32 format), making it inaccessable as a boot disk.

I've swapped it out with another drive with a clean format so I can boot W2K, but I'd like to recover the data on the original drive. When scanned with recover software (demo version, so I can't make modifications), the files on the first partition show up, but the FAT doesn't see them.

I ran FIXBOOT from the W2K Recovery Console, which allowed me to run a chkdsk /f on the drive. Chkdsk reported that it found and corrected errors with the FAT, and saved ~750 .CHK files. However, now chkdsk reports the disk as being FAT16 format, and the recovery software doesn't see any of the files...

Is there hope, or am I hosed?

5 replies

by caper

Re-install the older drive as a master...then use the MBR command line tool to fix the master boot record...then make the maxtor a slave again against the new drive. It may work...

by vh_s

No hope to recover it ...

If you think your data is so important, I would make a copy of your disk using disk replication software like Norton Ghost, before applying any modification.

These are the facts that I could make up from your story:
. your partition info is erased
. your FAT is still retained (partially)
. your directory entry is still retained
. chkdsk run a test on your directory entry, and on your directory entry it could found the size of your file size. Your file size must be cross-checked to the FAT (which contain the information where it could find the file / location info). It doesn't find a complete picture on FAT, so it reports files which is reported as lost cluster. This cluster is grouped according to information on FAT.

So the FILE0001.CHK etc. are parts of your (old) files which could be recovered by CHKDSK. Your task is now to see whether you could use files recovered, and to rename files accordingly.

The partition info contain the info whetherthe harddisk use FAT16 or FAT32 or NTFS. Since it is erased, your recovery software have just assumed that it is a FAT16 disk.

If you are more cautious, I think you could recover your harddisk completely...

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