Need Data Recovery software for failing HDD

I have an old computer with two 120gb IDE HDDs. The first drive has 4
partitions C: thru F:. The second HDD has 3 partitions G: thru I:.
The computer is running Windows 98 SE. (Yea, I know this is a Windows 7
newsgroup, but the Win98 group is dead).

Anyhow, my G: partition has gone insane. This started when I was backing
it up, and it refused to copy some files. I ran scandisk and told me
there were 2 bad clusters, but could not fix them. Rather than just
marking them as BAD, it made the whole HDD go insane.
First it created several folders called DIR0000 DIR0001 etc.
Then I found several folders missing, but the contents of some of them
were in these DIR000X folders.

It told me to run the complete (long) version of Scandisk. I did it, and
after taking hours, it told me there were 2 bad clusters in UNUSED
spaces, and said they could not be fixed.

Rather than just mark them clusters bad, I Then found over half of my
folders missing. However, in DOS, I can see them, but found I can only
copy small files, large ones cause ABORT RETRY FAIL.

This partition is about 50gb, with 23gb used. It's formatted FAT32.
The entire drive is not bad. H: and I: work fine. Just G: is screwed up.

I have not run further tests, which might write to the drive. My goal is
to retrieve the very important data to another drive. (I only have about
half of that partition backed up). Once I can save the data, I plan to
also save the data on the other partitions, and will replace the drive
with a new one.

What can I use to retrieve the data?

Google told me to download PC Inspector. I tried it, it ran in Win98,
but everytime I go to G: it errors out.

What else is there? I'd prefer free, but will pay a reasonable fee for
something guaranteed to work.The lost data is around 12gb, but it's
extremely important. If I must, I will probably have to pay a pro for
data recovery.

Because this is a slave drive, I can plug it into a XP computer if need
be, but will need some special card or something, because that computer
has a SATA drive. I dont know if I am better trying to retrieve the data
using Win98 or XP????

I dont have any newer OSs, than XP.
Win98 is what I use the most, and this W98 computer has all my most
important data. I only use XP to play videos.

wrote:
I have an old computer with two 120gb IDE HDDs. The first drive has 4
partitions C: thru F:. The second HDD has 3 partitions G: thru I:.
The computer is running Windows 98 SE. (Yea, I know this is a Windows 7
newsgroup, but the Win98 group is dead).

Anyhow, my G: partition has gone insane. This started when I was backing
it up, and it refused to copy some files. I ran scandisk and told me
there were 2 bad clusters, but could not fix them. Rather than just
marking them as BAD, it made the whole HDD go insane.
First it created several folders called DIR0000 DIR0001 etc.
Then I found several folders missing, but the contents of some of them
were in these DIR000X folders.

It told me to run the complete (long) version of Scandisk. I did it, and
after taking hours, it told me there were 2 bad clusters in UNUSED
spaces, and said they could not be fixed.

Rather than just mark them clusters bad, I Then found over half of my
folders missing. However, in DOS, I can see them, but found I can only
copy small files, large ones cause ABORT RETRY FAIL.

This partition is about 50gb, with 23gb used. It's formatted FAT32.
The entire drive is not bad. H: and I: work fine. Just G: is screwed up.

I have not run further tests, which might write to the drive. My goal is
to retrieve the very important data to another drive. (I only have about
half of that partition backed up). Once I can save the data, I plan to
also save the data on the other partitions, and will replace the drive
with a new one.

What can I use to retrieve the data?

Google told me to download PC Inspector. I tried it, it ran in Win98,
but everytime I go to G: it errors out.

What else is there? I'd prefer free, but will pay a reasonable fee for
something guaranteed to work.The lost data is around 12gb, but it's
extremely important. If I must, I will probably have to pay a pro for
data recovery.

Because this is a slave drive, I can plug it into a XP computer if need
be, but will need some special card or something, because that computer
has a SATA drive. I dont know if I am better trying to retrieve the data
using Win98 or XP????

I dont have any newer OSs, than XP.
Win98 is what I use the most, and this W98 computer has all my most
important data. I only use XP to play videos.

ddrescue (Linux package "gddrescue") can clone a failing
drive to a new drive.

Then switching back to Windows, either Photorec or Recuva
can be used for file recovery. Copying the recovered files
to a separate drive.

That takes a total of two hard drives. One for the clone copy.
One for the recovered files. You do *not ever* try writing
to G: , the instant it shows trouble. And repair-in-place
utilities, can do more damage than they fix on a sick
drive.

And PC Inspector is the same as the free version of driverescue.
So there's no point trying that one.

I like to clone, as the first step, just in case the drive
is about to fail. I've had two Maxtor drives, that augered
into the ground in only 24 hours. They gave symptoms, then
within the next 24 hours, the drive would no longer ID. And
the neat thing was, one drive "lost" its ID in mid-flight.
It went from a 40GB drive to a 10GB drive, while I was
watching it.

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/Damaged_Hard_Disk

# From a Linux LiveCD, use the package manager to install gddrescue

sudo ddrescue -n /dev/old_disk /dev/new_disk rescued.log

What happens on the first pass, is the program tries to copy
as many sectors as it can. The "rescued.log" file keeps
track of which sectors it got. Then, when you run a
command like this...

sudo ddrescue -r 1 /dev/old_disk /dev/new_disk rescued.log

it does one retry per failed sector (potentially a 15 second
delay comes from the disk when it tries to read a bad sector).
The rescued.log file tells the program which sectors are still
needed. So it's a gradual copy process, and the rescued.log
contains the status of the operation.

When you're sick of running the second command, then you
stop and do data recovery using /dev/new_disk. That's
when you run Photorec or Recuva, and transfer the
files to a second known-good disk drive.

A data recovery firm could have better luck, than an
attempted home recovery. And you have to weigh the
price of that, versus the value of the data. Professional
data recovery, you only pay if data is recovered. For
example, if I'd send my 2GB Barracuda drive, the one with
the big scratch in the platter, I wouldn't have had
to pay a dime :-( If a head falls off the head stack,
sometimes they can install a new head stack, and get
some data off. Yours doesn't have that problem, and
your problem is likely surface damage.

Note - the syntax of the above commands is for illustration
of the concept. Use

man ddrescue

to double check the syntax and then craft your command.

I don't know if anyone has ported ddrescue to Windows.
Environments like Cygwin, sometimes the people doing the
ports, have a lot of trouble doing low-level access to the
drives. And so expecting a port of a program like that. The
closest thing to drive cloning we have on Windows, is
this one. But this one is for cloning *healthy* disks.
The beauty of ddrescue, is getting a CRC error doesn't
stop it. It keeps trying. Many other utilities, will
exit on the first failure. Again, this is to illustrate
we do have utilities. But, we don't have everything
on Windows, and when you're desperate, you'll be
"shopping around" for stuff to do the work.

http://www.chrysocome.net/dd

I can count the number of times people have successfully
recovered data off a hard drive, on one hand. If you can
afford the data recovery company, and the data is important,
that's a better option. And a data recovery company cannot
perform miracles. For my 2GB Barracuda drive, with the
scratched platter, they can't "buff out the scratch".
It doesn't work that way. The gouge would ruin a new
head stack if one was installed, so even if they were
dumb enough to try, it would just fail to work. The
heads would be destroyed in about 10 revolutions of
the platter (heads load and "crunch" noise less
than a second later).

Paul

On Fri, 29 Sep 2017 04:31:26 -0400, Paul wrote:

wrote:
I have an old computer with two 120gb IDE HDDs. The first drive has 4
partitions C: thru F:. The second HDD has 3 partitions G: thru I:.
The computer is running Windows 98 SE. (Yea, I know this is a Windows 7
newsgroup, but the Win98 group is dead).

Anyhow, my G: partition has gone insane. This started when I was backing
it up, and it refused to copy some files. I ran scandisk and told me
there were 2 bad clusters, but could not fix them. Rather than just
marking them as BAD, it made the whole HDD go insane.
First it created several folders called DIR0000 DIR0001 etc.
Then I found several folders missing, but the contents of some of them
were in these DIR000X folders.

It told me to run the complete (long) version of Scandisk. I did it, and
after taking hours, it told me there were 2 bad clusters in UNUSED
spaces, and said they could not be fixed.

Rather than just mark them clusters bad, I Then found over half of my
folders missing. However, in DOS, I can see them, but found I can only
copy small files, large ones cause ABORT RETRY FAIL.

This partition is about 50gb, with 23gb used. It's formatted FAT32.
The entire drive is not bad. H: and I: work fine. Just G: is screwed up.

I have not run further tests, which might write to the drive. My goal is
to retrieve the very important data to another drive. (I only have about
half of that partition backed up). Once I can save the data, I plan to
also save the data on the other partitions, and will replace the drive
with a new one.

What can I use to retrieve the data?

Google told me to download PC Inspector. I tried it, it ran in Win98,
but everytime I go to G: it errors out.

What else is there? I'd prefer free, but will pay a reasonable fee for
something guaranteed to work.The lost data is around 12gb, but it's
extremely important. If I must, I will probably have to pay a pro for
data recovery.

Because this is a slave drive, I can plug it into a XP computer if need
be, but will need some special card or something, because that computer
has a SATA drive. I dont know if I am better trying to retrieve the data
using Win98 or XP????

I dont have any newer OSs, than XP.
Win98 is what I use the most, and this W98 computer has all my most
important data. I only use XP to play videos.

ddrescue (Linux package "gddrescue") can clone a failing
drive to a new drive.

Then switching back to Windows, either Photorec or Recuva
can be used for file recovery. Copying the recovered files
to a separate drive.

That takes a total of two hard drives. One for the clone copy.
One for the recovered files. You do *not ever* try writing
to G: , the instant it shows trouble. And repair-in-place
utilities, can do more damage than they fix on a sick
drive.

And PC Inspector is the same as the free version of driverescue.
So there's no point trying that one.

I like to clone, as the first step, just in case the drive
is about to fail. I've had two Maxtor drives, that augered
into the ground in only 24 hours. They gave symptoms, then
within the next 24 hours, the drive would no longer ID. And
the neat thing was, one drive "lost" its ID in mid-flight.
It went from a 40GB drive to a 10GB drive, while I was
watching it.

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/Damaged_Hard_Disk

# From a Linux LiveCD, use the package manager to install gddrescue

sudo ddrescue -n /dev/old_disk /dev/new_disk rescued.log

What happens on the first pass, is the program tries to copy
as many sectors as it can. The "rescued.log" file keeps
track of which sectors it got. Then, when you run a
command like this...

sudo ddrescue -r 1 /dev/old_disk /dev/new_disk rescued.log

it does one retry per failed sector (potentially a 15 second
delay comes from the disk when it tries to read a bad sector).
The rescued.log file tells the program which sectors are still
needed. So it's a gradual copy process, and the rescued.log
contains the status of the operation.

When you're sick of running the second command, then you
stop and do data recovery using /dev/new_disk. That's
when you run Photorec or Recuva, and transfer the
files to a second known-good disk drive.

A data recovery firm could have better luck, than an
attempted home recovery. And you have to weigh the
price of that, versus the value of the data. Professional
data recovery, you only pay if data is recovered. For
example, if I'd send my 2GB Barracuda drive, the one with
the big scratch in the platter, I wouldn't have had
to pay a dime :-( If a head falls off the head stack,
sometimes they can install a new head stack, and get
some data off. Yours doesn't have that problem, and
your problem is likely surface damage.

Note - the syntax of the above commands is for illustration
of the concept. Use

man ddrescue

to double check the syntax and then craft your command.

I don't know if anyone has ported ddrescue to Windows.
Environments like Cygwin, sometimes the people doing the
ports, have a lot of trouble doing low-level access to the
drives. And so expecting a port of a program like that. The
closest thing to drive cloning we have on Windows, is
this one. But this one is for cloning *healthy* disks.
The beauty of ddrescue, is getting a CRC error doesn't
stop it. It keeps trying. Many other utilities, will
exit on the first failure. Again, this is to illustrate
we do have utilities. But, we don't have everything
on Windows, and when you're desperate, you'll be
"shopping around" for stuff to do the work.

http://www.chrysocome.net/dd

I can count the number of times people have successfully
recovered data off a hard drive, on one hand. If you can
afford the data recovery company, and the data is important,
that's a better option. And a data recovery company cannot
perform miracles. For my 2GB Barracuda drive, with the
scratched platter, they can't "buff out the scratch".
It doesn't work that way. The gouge would ruin a new
head stack if one was installed, so even if they were
dumb enough to try, it would just fail to work. The
heads would be destroyed in about 10 revolutions of
the platter (heads load and "crunch" noise less
than a second later).

Paul

I can understand the reason to copy the partition. I am not sure of
using the linux stuff. My experience with linux is 99% failure. Meaning
I have used a simple bootable linux such as Puppy or the older versions
of PcLinux to boot from a USB thumb drive and retrieve the files from a
drive which XP refused to bootup. (usually when the motherboard died and
I had to plug the HDD into another computer). 100% of all newer versions
of linux will not bootup, even on a much newer computer.

And when it comes to using the linux command line, I may as well attempt
to do brain surgery on myself.

On top of that, I am working with a computer from 2000. I have upgraded
it to the max allowed RAM, and done other upgrades, but it still lacks
much as far as USB support.

Of course, since this is a slave drive, I can connect it to another
computer (If I had one that supports IDE drives). My newer XP machine
has SATA drives.

But I do have a few unused older computers that may be a little more
robust.

Now, I do have Partition Magic (PM) installed. I opened it and ran it on
that partition, to check for errors. It says Error 50, can not read.
PM does have an option to Copy a Partition. I would have already tried
that, except I dont have another partition on the first (good drive) to
copy to. However, I do have another drive that I could install Win98 to,
and install PM on it, and copy to that drive.

I should note that my G: partition is around 50gb, and has 23gb of data
on it. Yet, PM shows it as FULL.

Then too, is it possible to install a 3rd HDD? There is the CDrom cable,
and that CD drive has not worked in years (I dont need it). Can I
connect a 3rd drive to that cable?

One other thing. While looking thru all the software I have installed, I
noticed that I have Norton Utilities. That was made for Windows 9.x.
It's been installed for years, and I have never used it much. But I ran
it, and ran "Norton Disk Doctor". I got the following results. Each of
these steps gave me the option to fix the partition, but I did NOT let
it do the fixes. (Dont want to write to the disk). But I did write down
the error results. Here they a

--
Invalid Disk table in boot record

Error reading a sector in the FAT

The FAT has a bad sector

Error building the directory structure (error reading the FAT unable to
analyze the directory structure)
--

What's odd, is that this ENTIRE drive dont seem to be failing, just that
G: partition. Partitions H: and I: work fine on that same drive. But I
do want to back them up quickly too.

Lastly, here is the entire Scandisk.log for that partition:

--
*******************

Microsoft ScanDisk for Windows

NOTE: If you use an MS-DOS program to view this file, some of the
characters
may appear incorrectly. Use a Windows program such as Notepad instead.

Log file generated at 03:08 on 9/27/2017.

ScanDisk used the following options:
Standard test
Automatically fix errors

Drive G_120 (G contained the following errors:

Error reading a system area sector on this drive.
The disk is seriously damaged.
Resolution: Retry the read

Error reading a system area sector on this drive.
The disk is seriously damaged.
Resolution: Cancel ScanDisk

ScanDisk restarted so it could perform a thorough test.

-------------------

Drive G_120 (G contained the following errors:

Error reading your drive.
ScanDisk may have corrected this error when it performed a surface scan.
However, other errors may remain on your drive.
Resolution: Retry the read

Error reading your drive.
ScanDisk may have corrected this error when it performed a surface scan.
However, other errors may remain on your drive.
Resolution: Ignore this error and continue
Results: Error was not corrected.

ScanDisk could not properly read from or write to cluster 57856.
This cluster is currently unused.
Resolution: Repair the error
Results: Error was corrected as specified above.

ScanDisk could not properly read from or write to cluster 135122.
This cluster is currently unused.
Resolution: Repair the error
Results: Error was not corrected.
Results: Correction failed

ScanDisk found errors on this drive but did not fix all of them.

-------------------

One last question. How does a person find a "data recovery firm". Unless
the cost is super expensive, I'd consider doing that. If they could just
recover two folders (with lots of sub folders), I'd be happy. Almost
everything else on that partition I have on my last backup. I probably
have 8 to 10gb that needs to be recovered.

Comment:
From now on, I will be backing up more often!!!!

wrote:
On Fri, 29 Sep 2017 04:31:26 -0400, Paul wrote:

wrote:
I have an old computer with two 120gb IDE HDDs. The first drive has 4
partitions C: thru F:. The second HDD has 3 partitions G: thru I:.
The computer is running Windows 98 SE. (Yea, I know this is a Windows 7
newsgroup, but the Win98 group is dead).

Anyhow, my G: partition has gone insane. This started when I was backing
it up, and it refused to copy some files. I ran scandisk and told me
there were 2 bad clusters, but could not fix them. Rather than just
marking them as BAD, it made the whole HDD go insane.
First it created several folders called DIR0000 DIR0001 etc.
Then I found several folders missing, but the contents of some of them
were in these DIR000X folders.

It told me to run the complete (long) version of Scandisk. I did it, and
after taking hours, it told me there were 2 bad clusters in UNUSED
spaces, and said they could not be fixed.

Rather than just mark them clusters bad, I Then found over half of my
folders missing. However, in DOS, I can see them, but found I can only
copy small files, large ones cause ABORT RETRY FAIL.

This partition is about 50gb, with 23gb used. It's formatted FAT32.
The entire drive is not bad. H: and I: work fine. Just G: is screwed up.

I have not run further tests, which might write to the drive. My goal is
to retrieve the very important data to another drive. (I only have about
half of that partition backed up). Once I can save the data, I plan to
also save the data on the other partitions, and will replace the drive
with a new one.

What can I use to retrieve the data?

Google told me to download PC Inspector. I tried it, it ran in Win98,
but everytime I go to G: it errors out.

What else is there? I'd prefer free, but will pay a reasonable fee for
something guaranteed to work.The lost data is around 12gb, but it's
extremely important. If I must, I will probably have to pay a pro for
data recovery.

Because this is a slave drive, I can plug it into a XP computer if need
be, but will need some special card or something, because that computer
has a SATA drive. I dont know if I am better trying to retrieve the data
using Win98 or XP????

I dont have any newer OSs, than XP.
Win98 is what I use the most, and this W98 computer has all my most
important data. I only use XP to play videos.
ddrescue (Linux package "gddrescue") can clone a failing
drive to a new drive.

Then switching back to Windows, either Photorec or Recuva
can be used for file recovery. Copying the recovered files
to a separate drive.

That takes a total of two hard drives. One for the clone copy.
One for the recovered files. You do *not ever* try writing
to G: , the instant it shows trouble. And repair-in-place
utilities, can do more damage than they fix on a sick
drive.

And PC Inspector is the same as the free version of driverescue.
So there's no point trying that one.

I like to clone, as the first step, just in case the drive
is about to fail. I've had two Maxtor drives, that augered
into the ground in only 24 hours. They gave symptoms, then
within the next 24 hours, the drive would no longer ID. And
the neat thing was, one drive "lost" its ID in mid-flight.
It went from a 40GB drive to a 10GB drive, while I was
watching it.

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/Damaged_Hard_Disk

# From a Linux LiveCD, use the package manager to install gddrescue

sudo ddrescue -n /dev/old_disk /dev/new_disk rescued.log

What happens on the first pass, is the program tries to copy
as many sectors as it can. The "rescued.log" file keeps
track of which sectors it got. Then, when you run a
command like this...

sudo ddrescue -r 1 /dev/old_disk /dev/new_disk rescued.log

it does one retry per failed sector (potentially a 15 second
delay comes from the disk when it tries to read a bad sector).
The rescued.log file tells the program which sectors are still
needed. So it's a gradual copy process, and the rescued.log
contains the status of the operation.

When you're sick of running the second command, then you
stop and do data recovery using /dev/new_disk. That's
when you run Photorec or Recuva, and transfer the
files to a second known-good disk drive.

A data recovery firm could have better luck, than an
attempted home recovery. And you have to weigh the
price of that, versus the value of the data. Professional
data recovery, you only pay if data is recovered. For
example, if I'd send my 2GB Barracuda drive, the one with
the big scratch in the platter, I wouldn't have had
to pay a dime :-( If a head falls off the head stack,
sometimes they can install a new head stack, and get
some data off. Yours doesn't have that problem, and
your problem is likely surface damage.

Note - the syntax of the above commands is for illustration
of the concept. Use

man ddrescue

to double check the syntax and then craft your command.

I don't know if anyone has ported ddrescue to Windows.
Environments like Cygwin, sometimes the people doing the
ports, have a lot of trouble doing low-level access to the
drives. And so expecting a port of a program like that. The
closest thing to drive cloning we have on Windows, is
this one. But this one is for cloning *healthy* disks.
The beauty of ddrescue, is getting a CRC error doesn't
stop it. It keeps trying. Many other utilities, will
exit on the first failure. Again, this is to illustrate
we do have utilities. But, we don't have everything
on Windows, and when you're desperate, you'll be
"shopping around" for stuff to do the work.

http://www.chrysocome.net/dd

I can count the number of times people have successfully
recovered data off a hard drive, on one hand. If you can
afford the data recovery company, and the data is important,
that's a better option. And a data recovery company cannot
perform miracles. For my 2GB Barracuda drive, with the
scratched platter, they can't "buff out the scratch".
It doesn't work that way. The gouge would ruin a new
head stack if one was installed, so even if they were
dumb enough to try, it would just fail to work. The
heads would be destroyed in about 10 revolutions of
the platter (heads load and "crunch" noise less
than a second later).

Paul

I can understand the reason to copy the partition. I am not sure of
using the linux stuff. My experience with linux is 99% failure. Meaning
I have used a simple bootable linux such as Puppy or the older versions
of PcLinux to boot from a USB thumb drive and retrieve the files from a
drive which XP refused to bootup. (usually when the motherboard died and
I had to plug the HDD into another computer). 100% of all newer versions
of linux will not bootup, even on a much newer computer.

And when it comes to using the linux command line, I may as well attempt
to do brain surgery on myself.

On top of that, I am working with a computer from 2000. I have upgraded
it to the max allowed RAM, and done other upgrades, but it still lacks
much as far as USB support.

Of course, since this is a slave drive, I can connect it to another
computer (If I had one that supports IDE drives). My newer XP machine
has SATA drives.

But I do have a few unused older computers that may be a little more
robust.

Now, I do have Partition Magic (PM) installed. I opened it and ran it on
that partition, to check for errors. It says Error 50, can not read.
PM does have an option to Copy a Partition. I would have already tried
that, except I dont have another partition on the first (good drive) to
copy to. However, I do have another drive that I could install Win98 to,
and install PM on it, and copy to that drive.

I should note that my G: partition is around 50gb, and has 23gb of data
on it. Yet, PM shows it as FULL.

Then too, is it possible to install a 3rd HDD? There is the CDrom cable,
and that CD drive has not worked in years (I dont need it). Can I
connect a 3rd drive to that cable?

One other thing. While looking thru all the software I have installed, I
noticed that I have Norton Utilities. That was made for Windows 9.x.
It's been installed for years, and I have never used it much. But I ran
it, and ran "Norton Disk Doctor". I got the following results. Each of
these steps gave me the option to fix the partition, but I did NOT let
it do the fixes. (Dont want to write to the disk). But I did write down
the error results. Here they a

--
Invalid Disk table in boot record

Error reading a sector in the FAT

The FAT has a bad sector

Error building the directory structure (error reading the FAT unable to
analyze the directory structure)
--

What's odd, is that this ENTIRE drive dont seem to be failing, just that
G: partition. Partitions H: and I: work fine on that same drive. But I
do want to back them up quickly too.

Lastly, here is the entire Scandisk.log for that partition:

--
*******************

Microsoft ScanDisk for Windows

NOTE: If you use an MS-DOS program to view this file, some of the
characters
may appear incorrectly. Use a Windows program such as Notepad instead.

Log file generated at 03:08 on 9/27/2017.

ScanDisk used the following options:
Standard test
Automatically fix errors

Drive G_120 (G contained the following errors:

Error reading a system area sector on this drive.
The disk is seriously damaged.
Resolution: Retry the read

Error reading a system area sector on this drive.
The disk is seriously damaged.
Resolution: Cancel ScanDisk

ScanDisk restarted so it could perform a thorough test.

-------------------

Drive G_120 (G contained the following errors:

Error reading your drive.
ScanDisk may have corrected this error when it performed a surface scan.
However, other errors may remain on your drive.
Resolution: Retry the read

Error reading your drive.
ScanDisk may have corrected this error when it performed a surface scan.
However, other errors may remain on your drive.
Resolution: Ignore this error and continue
Results: Error was not corrected.

ScanDisk could not properly read from or write to cluster 57856.
This cluster is currently unused.
Resolution: Repair the error
Results: Error was corrected as specified above.

ScanDisk could not properly read from or write to cluster 135122.
This cluster is currently unused.
Resolution: Repair the error
Results: Error was not corrected.
Results: Correction failed

ScanDisk found errors on this drive but did not fix all of them.

-------------------

One last question. How does a person find a "data recovery firm". Unless
the cost is super expensive, I'd consider doing that. If they could just
recover two folders (with lots of sub folders), I'd be happy. Almost
everything else on that partition I have on my last backup. I probably
have 8 to 10gb that needs to be recovered.

Comment:
From now on, I will be backing up more often!!!!

If your motherboard has the two IDE connectors, you can
connect four IDE hard drives maximum.

Ribbon cables come in two types. 40 wire and 80 wire.
The 80 wire ones, every second wire is a ground wire,
and that enhances electrical transmission. The 80 wire
cable supports UDMA modes. The CDROM drive could be using
a 40 wire cable (as the data transfer rate doesn't have
to go very high on a CD). If I was fitting hard drives
on my second IDE connector, I would use the 80 wire cable.
The wires on the 80 wire cable are "thinner", and that's
a quick visual check of the cable type. When you look
at the CDROM cable, you'll probably notice the difference.

Drives have Master/Slave/Cable_Select for jumpering.

If you're moving your Slave drive to the second cable,
put the first drive installed, on the end connector of
the cable. It's natural in that case, to switch the
drive to Master in that situation. If you install two
drives on the new cable, it doesn't matter then whether
Master is the middle one or the end one. But in natural
fill order, you put your first drive as Master on the
end, and if you add a second drive, it becomes Slave
in the middle.

As long as you use 80 wire cables, the wiring within the
cable is set up for Cable_Select. In which case, you still
fill the end connector first (when putting just one
drive on the cable), but you no longer care about
fiddling with the jumpers. So you can use CS/CS for
two drives installed on the new cable.

*******

I have no idea how good these people a

http://www.seagate.com/ca/en/services-software/recover/

The thing is, Seagate doesn't have to do the work itself.
It could "sell" the service to a third-party, and take
a cut for promotion of the service.

But, when I need an example of "how do I find a data
recovery company", that's an "example".

There are likely to be "tiers" of companies. For example,
some directory I was looking at, claimed I had "two
data recovery companies" in my city. Now, obviously,
these are just a hole in the wall, and the dude there
just mails your drive to another company, and
takes his cut...

A real data recovery company has a clean room. If
I was starting my own operation, I would buy a
glove box with a hepafilter and positive air
pressure. But I might be hard-pressed to do a
head stack in a contraption like that. Seagate
might use an "air curtain", which is a means
of segregating a non Class 10 part of a room,
from the "clean part". When someone claims to
have a Class 10 facility, it could be little
better than a "plastic outhouse" :-)

If you search in the right place, you're going
to find that directory that I found, and there
are way too many entries in it, to vet them.

That's just to give you some idea, how they'll
be tripping all over themselves to get your money.

In my case, I would not likely select my "local"
entries for the job, as I can mail a drive somewhere
just as easily as anyone else. In many cases, data
recovery can be done without opening the HDA
(i.e. simple undelete run, for people who
deleted everything in their trash bin). But if
you want an assurance of "full service", then
the operator has to have a clean room or glove
box, to have half a chance of doing a head
stack or whatever.

There was a company in India, that sold all sorts
of "toys" for working on drives. It probably wouldn't
cost much to get into the business, which is why
there are so many entries in the directory for them.

There is even a web site where these people converse
with one another, and exchange "tips". And they
wouldn't give you the time of day, if you tried
to get free advice :-) And that site is global,
and many of the people are ESL - you're dealing
with a wide cross section, if viewing the posts
there.

It's about as reputable as "roof repair" in your
phone book :-)

Paul

In message ,
writes:
I have an old computer with two 120gb IDE HDDs. The first drive has 4
partitions C: thru F:. The second HDD has 3 partitions G: thru I:.
The computer is running Windows 98 SE. (Yea, I know this is a Windows 7
newsgroup, but the Win98 group is dead).

Quiet, but not dead, assuming you mean the one I've included.

Anyhow, my G: partition has gone insane. This started when I was backing
it up, and it refused to copy some files. I ran scandisk and told me

What are you using to backup - just copy, or some utility? Does it stop
when it encounters a problem, or carry on with the remaining files it
_can_ copy? (I use SyncToy, but [a] I don't know if that runs on '98 [b]
I don't know if it carries on after a failure-to-read, though I think it
does.)

there were 2 bad clusters, but could not fix them. Rather than just
marking them as BAD, it made the whole HDD go insane.

It may or may not be scandisk that made that happen.

First it created several folders called DIR0000 DIR0001 etc.
Then I found several folders missing, but the contents of some of them
were in these DIR000X folders.

Yes, that's what it does: if it can't read the name of a folder, it
makes one called DIRxxxx, and puts the contents of the unreadable folder
into the new one.

It told me to run the complete (long) version of Scandisk. I did it, and
after taking hours, it told me there were 2 bad clusters in UNUSED

I'm guessing that the first pass did its moving into rescue folders, so
the bad ones were indeed now in unused space. However, that's just a
guess.

spaces, and said they could not be fixed.

Well, if they were unfixable the first time, they'd be unfixable the
second. IIRR, the default pass just looks at used space and file
structures, so it's pot luck that the dud sectors were in a part of the
disk where you did have data, and it thus found them. The long version
checks the whole disk, including the parts currently not holding any
data: basically I think for each sector, it copies the data, then does
write and read tests, then puts back the original data. (Moving it to
somewhere else if it detects a problem.)

Rather than just mark them clusters bad, I Then found over half of my
folders missing. However, in DOS, I can see them, but found I can only
copy small files, large ones cause ABORT RETRY FAIL.

Does sound as if the drive is decidedly unwell. The symptoms - can see
in DOS but not Windows - sound remarkably like another thread I've read
in the last day or two; I think it was/is in the '98 'group.

This partition is about 50gb, with 23gb used. It's formatted FAT32.
The entire drive is not bad. H: and I: work fine. Just G: is screwed up.

I wouldn't (as you've said you aren't going to, which is good policy)
rely on the rest of it remaining good, though.

I have not run further tests, which might write to the drive. My goal is
to retrieve the very important data to another drive. (I only have about
half of that partition backed up). Once I can save the data, I plan to
also save the data on the other partitions, and will replace the drive
with a new one.

(Good.)

What can I use to retrieve the data?

Google told me to download PC Inspector. I tried it, it ran in Win98,
but everytime I go to G: it errors out.

Does it work on H: and I:, i. e. the other parts of the same drive?

What else is there? I'd prefer free, but will pay a reasonable fee for
something guaranteed to work.The lost data is around 12gb, but it's
extremely important. If I must, I will probably have to pay a pro for
data recovery.
You were backing up - how often do you? [Not that I'm one to talk (-:!]
Also, what is it that is making such important data, that is running
under '98? (Not that '98 is in itself unreliable: it's so simple that
it's probably _more_ reliable. It's just that kit made for it is
probably getting a bit worn by now ...)

Because this is a slave drive, I can plug it into a XP computer if need
be, but will need some special card or something, because that computer

The motherboard may still have an IDE connector, though. (Are you sure
you're not the same person as the other thread?) SATA-_only_
motherboards, I would say, didn't become _common_ until after the XP era
(I'm not sure they're _that_ common even yet).

has a SATA drive. I dont know if I am better trying to retrieve the data
using Win98 or XP????

For a secondary (i. e. not system) drive, I think '98 is less likely to
try to write anything _to_ the drive; conversely, XP might do better,
and there are probably more tools.

I dont have any newer OSs, than XP.
Win98 is what I use the most, and this W98 computer has all my most
important data. I only use XP to play videos.

On reading that, I've added the XP 'group, as those there might
recommend assorted utilities. This probably shouldn't be on the '7
'group (-:.

--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Speed has never killed anyone. Suddenly becoming stationary, that's what gets
you. - Jeremy Clarkson, Top Gear

On Fri, 29 Sep 2017 04:31:26 -0400, Paul wrote:

wrote:

What can I use to retrieve the data?

Google told me to download PC Inspector. I tried it, it ran in Win98,
but everytime I go to G: it errors out.

What else is there? I'd prefer free, but will pay a reasonable fee for
something guaranteed to work.

ddrescue (Linux package "gddrescue") can clone a failing
drive to a new drive.

+1

ddrescue did a great job for me awhile back when I had a couple of
crashed drives.


--

Char Jackson

On Fri, 29 Sep 2017 06:54:20 -0400, Paul wrote:

If your motherboard has the two IDE connectors, you can
connect four IDE hard drives maximum.

Ribbon cables come in two types. 40 wire and 80 wire.
The 80 wire ones, every second wire is a ground wire,
and that enhances electrical transmission. The 80 wire
cable supports UDMA modes. The CDROM drive could be using
a 40 wire cable (as the data transfer rate doesn't have
to go very high on a CD). If I was fitting hard drives
on my second IDE connector, I would use the 80 wire cable.
The wires on the 80 wire cable are "thinner", and that's
a quick visual check of the cable type. When you look
at the CDROM cable, you'll probably notice the difference.

My HDDs and the cable that used to go to the CD drive are both 40 wire
ones. That is how the computer was made. I dont recall seeing the 80
wire ones back in the early days. This computer was made with Win 2000
installed. As soon as I got itm I installed Win98se, on C:. THen
installed Win2000 as secondary boot on D:. I never boot to W2000, except
to do backups, because W98 wont read my large external USB drives.(500gb
and 1tb portable drives).

Just for the record, my problem partition G: is not seen at all under
Win2000. It just says "this partition needs to be formatted".

My backups have always been just plain copies. I copy the entire
partition to my portable drives. That has always worked fine, unless
something errors out and causes the copy process to stop. That normally
dont happen, except to try to copy the WINDOWS folder. I can copy my
Win98 folders though, when I am booted to W2000. I do however delete the
Swap file before copying.

I have done this for decades and it always worked fine. The important
data I am missing is mostly electronic schematics and manuals. Some are
near impossible to replace. I dont need a newer OS to use that stuff,
and I have always felt safer having data on a Win98 machine, and using
FAT. I've had XP fail numerous times, and the HDDs cant just be plugged
into another computer, and expect XP to run. Win98 can be transferred to
another computer quite easily, with only a few drivers added. I've also
felt safer using FAT, versus NTFS, because FAT can always be accessed
from DOS. However, in this case, that is not helping.

Either way, I plan to install a 3rd HDD, now that I know I can. I may
first have to go on ebay and order a few drives, although I think I may
have a working 80gb drive in my spare parts. I know I have a few 40gb or
smaller, but to copy that entire partition, I need no smaller than 50gb.
I just ordered a brand new 120gb to replace this failing one. It was not
expensive, so I may just order another one, or an 80 or something like
that.

Thanks for the help from all who have helped.

In message ,
writes:
[]
Just for the record, my problem partition G: is not seen at all under
Win2000. It just says "this partition needs to be formatted".

(Did it see it before it went wrong?)

My backups have always been just plain copies. I copy the entire
partition to my portable drives. That has always worked fine, unless

It will, for 98 and earlier; it won't for XP (well, it will for other
than the system disc).

something errors out and causes the copy process to stop. That normally

That's always been my bugbear with the copy process. I use SyncToy,
which I _think_ will carry on after a hiccup, though I'm not sure.
(Don't know if it works on '98 though.) [It also - as it's name hints -
only copies changed files, so is a lot quicker.]

dont happen, except to try to copy the WINDOWS folder. I can copy my
Win98 folders though, when I am booted to W2000. I do however delete the
Swap file before copying.

I have done this for decades and it always worked fine. The important
data I am missing is mostly electronic schematics and manuals. Some are
near impossible to replace. I dont need a newer OS to use that stuff,

(All that you've acquired since the last backup?)

and I have always felt safer having data on a Win98 machine, and using
FAT. I've had XP fail numerous times, and the HDDs cant just be plugged
into another computer, and expect XP to run. Win98 can be transferred to

That's why I image it (my main system is XP). I use Macrium 5, which I
boot from a mini-CD. (It has drivers for external [USB - well, it can do
network too, though I've not tried that] drives, and works fine with my
1 TB one.) The process, as you'd expect, takes no longer than a copy
would.

another computer quite easily, with only a few drivers added. I've also
felt safer using FAT, versus NTFS, because FAT can always be accessed
from DOS. However, in this case, that is not helping.
I too feel that way about FAT versus NTFS. (However, apart from a disc
dying, I've not had XP crash for years, and that may have _something_ to
do with it being on NTFS.)

Either way, I plan to install a 3rd HDD, now that I know I can. I may

(You could even add it without removing the CD, by making one master and
one slave, though if as I think you've said the CD is faulty, you might
as well remove it at the same time.)

first have to go on ebay and order a few drives, although I think I may
have a working 80gb drive in my spare parts. I know I have a few 40gb or
smaller, but to copy that entire partition, I need no smaller than 50gb.
I just ordered a brand new 120gb to replace this failing one. It was not

I didn't know you could still get new EIDE drives! Are you sure it's
new? Either way, might still be worth checking its SMART readout (using
a USB-EIDE cable-and-power-supply from your XP computer) before
committing to it.

expensive, so I may just order another one, or an 80 or something like
that.

Thanks for the help from all who have helped.



Do tell us how you get on!
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

You can be tough without being rude - Nick Clegg, 2014 July

On 09/29/2017 03:31 AM, Paul wrote:
wrote:
I have an old computer with two 120gb IDE HDDs. The first drive has 4
partitions C: thru F:. The second HDD has 3 partitions G: thru I:.
The computer is running Windows 98 SE. (Yea, I know this is a Windows 7
newsgroup, but the Win98 group is dead).

Anyhow, my G: partition has gone insane. This started when I was backing
it up, and it refused to copy some files. I ran scandisk and told me
there were 2 bad clusters, but could not fix them. Rather than just
marking them as BAD, it made the whole HDD go insane.
First it created several folders called DIR0000 DIR0001 etc.
Then I found several folders missing, but the contents of some of them
were in these DIR000X folders.
It told me to run the complete (long) version of Scandisk. I did it, and
after taking hours, it told me there were 2 bad clusters in UNUSED
spaces, and said they could not be fixed.

Rather than just mark them clusters bad, I Then found over half of my
folders missing. However, in DOS, I can see them, but found I can only
copy small files, large ones cause ABORT RETRY FAIL.
This partition is about 50gb, with 23gb used. It's formatted FAT32.
The entire drive is not bad. H: and I: work fine. Just G: is screwed up.

I have not run further tests, which might write to the drive. My goal is
to retrieve the very important data to another drive. (I only have about
half of that partition backed up). Once I can save the data, I plan to
also save the data on the other partitions, and will replace the drive
with a new one.
What can I use to retrieve the data?
Google told me to download PC Inspector. I tried it, it ran in Win98,
but everytime I go to G: it errors out.
What else is there? I'd prefer free, but will pay a reasonable fee for
something guaranteed to work.The lost data is around 12gb, but it's
extremely important. If I must, I will probably have to pay a pro for
data recovery.

Because this is a slave drive, I can plug it into a XP computer if need
be, but will need some special card or something, because that computer
has a SATA drive. I dont know if I am better trying to retrieve the data
using Win98 or XP????

I dont have any newer OSs, than XP.
Win98 is what I use the most, and this W98 computer has all my most
important data. I only use XP to play videos.

ddrescue (Linux package "gddrescue") can clone a failing
drive to a new drive.

Then switching back to Windows, either Photorec or Recuva
can be used for file recovery. Copying the recovered files
to a separate drive.

That takes a total of two hard drives. One for the clone copy.
One for the recovered files. You do *not ever* try writing
to G: , the instant it shows trouble. And repair-in-place
utilities, can do more damage than they fix on a sick
drive.

And PC Inspector is the same as the free version of driverescue.
So there's no point trying that one.

I like to clone, as the first step, just in case the drive
is about to fail. I've had two Maxtor drives, that augered
into the ground in only 24 hours. They gave symptoms, then
within the next 24 hours, the drive would no longer ID. And
the neat thing was, one drive "lost" its ID in mid-flight.
It went from a 40GB drive to a 10GB drive, while I was
watching it.

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/Damaged_Hard_Disk

Â*Â* # From a Linux LiveCD, use the package manager to install gddrescue

Â*Â* sudo ddrescue -n /dev/old_disk /dev/new_disk rescued.log

What happens on the first pass, is the program tries to copy
as many sectors as it can. The "rescued.log" file keeps
track of which sectors it got. Then, when you run a
command like this...

Â*Â* sudo ddrescue -r 1 /dev/old_disk /dev/new_disk rescued.log

it does one retry per failed sector (potentially a 15 second
delay comes from the disk when it tries to read a bad sector).
The rescued.log file tells the program which sectors are still
needed. So it's a gradual copy process, and the rescued.log
contains the status of the operation.

When you're sick of running the second command, then you
stop and do data recovery using /dev/new_disk. That's
when you run Photorec or Recuva, and transfer the
files to a second known-good disk drive.

A data recovery firm could have better luck, than an
attempted home recovery. And you have to weigh the
price of that, versus the value of the data. Professional
data recovery, you only pay if data is recovered. For
example, if I'd send my 2GB Barracuda drive, the one with
the big scratch in the platter, I wouldn't have had
to pay a dime :-( If a head falls off the head stack,
sometimes they can install a new head stack, and get
some data off. Yours doesn't have that problem, and
your problem is likely surface damage.

Note - the syntax of the above commands is for illustration
of the concept. Use

Â*Â* man ddrescue

to double check the syntax and then craft your command.

I don't know if anyone has ported ddrescue to Windows.
Environments like Cygwin, sometimes the people doing the
ports, have a lot of trouble doing low-level access to the
drives. And so expecting a port of a program like that. The
closest thing to drive cloning we have on Windows, is
this one. But this one is for cloning *healthy* disks.
The beauty of ddrescue, is getting a CRC error doesn't
stop it. It keeps trying. Many other utilities, will
exit on the first failure. Again, this is to illustrate
we do have utilities. But, we don't have everything
on Windows, and when you're desperate, you'll be
"shopping around" for stuff to do the work.

http://www.chrysocome.net/dd

I can count the number of times people have successfully
recovered data off a hard drive, on one hand. If you can
afford the data recovery company, and the data is important,
that's a better option. And a data recovery company cannot
perform miracles. For my 2GB Barracuda drive, with the
scratched platter, they can't "buff out the scratch".
It doesn't work that way. The gouge would ruin a new
head stack if one was installed, so even if they were
dumb enough to try, it would just fail to work. The
heads would be destroyed in about 10 revolutions of
the platter (heads load and "crunch" noise less
than a second later).

Â*Â* Paul




This is good advice but I figure the longer one uses a failing drive the
worse it gets...so I do nothing with it other than run data recovery
software.

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message ,

My backups have always been just plain copies. I copy the entire
partition to my portable drives. That has always worked fine, unless

It will, for 98 and earlier; it won't for XP (well, it will for other
than the system disc).

It will for WinXP too.

Caveats:

1) WinXP installed on FAT32.
2) FAT32 prepared with Ridgecrop formatter, so you can
have any sized partition you want up to 2TB.
3) After you copy the files back, you must boot the
WinXP installer CD and do "fixboot". Since formatting
the partition wipes the boot block, and any time
you copy the files off your FAT32 WinXP, you would
normally be formatting "for best results".

So it's

a) Boot your maintenance OS
b) Format the former C: partition to FAT32 again (Ridgecrop)
c) Copy the files back (I use Robocopy and a single command
does the whole partition).
d) Shut down. Boot the WinXP installer CD. Do "fixboot".
3) Shut down the CD. Boot from the nice fresh FAT32 C: WinXP on HDD

And that is the OS I'm typing this on.

FAT32 has a 4GB max file size, so working your WinXP
is "not for the squeamish". Don't start a download
in Firefox, and then act surprised when it errors out
at 4GB+1byte :-) I've actually done that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%27oh!

HTH,
Paul

philo wrote:

This is good advice but I figure the longer one uses a failing drive the
worse it gets...so I do nothing with it other than run data recovery
software.

Well, I clone first, and try to use "linear" processes that
don't shake the heads around. "dd" is linear.

Not that it makes a difference. The drive will drop dead,
any time it feels like. Thus, me losing a Maxtor in mid-session
(it can no longer find the service area). It doesn't even know
it's Maxtor and calls itself Falcon. After the power is
removed, it does no more cameo appearances.

Paul

On 09/29/2017 02:29 PM, Paul wrote:
philo wrote:

This is good advice but I figure the longer one uses a failing drive
the worse it gets...so I do nothing with it other than run data
recovery software.

Well, I clone first, and try to use "linear" processes that
don't shake the heads around. "dd" is linear.

Not that it makes a difference. The drive will drop dead,
any time it feels like. Thus, me losing a Maxtor in mid-session
(it can no longer find the service area). It doesn't even know
it's Maxtor and calls itself Falcon. After the power is
removed, it does no more cameo appearances.

Â*Â* Paul



All I know is for Fat32 not to even try scandisk...It can write the
whole drive to useless chk files.

CHKDSK /F on an NTFS drive has done wonders though

On Fri, 29 Sep 2017 15:26:23 -0400, Paul wrote:

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message ,

My backups have always been just plain copies. I copy the entire
partition to my portable drives. That has always worked fine, unless

It will, for 98 and earlier; it won't for XP (well, it will for other
than the system disc).

It will for WinXP too.

Caveats:

1) WinXP installed on FAT32.
2) FAT32 prepared with Ridgecrop formatter, so you can
have any sized partition you want up to 2TB.
3) After you copy the files back, you must boot the
WinXP installer CD and do "fixboot". Since formatting
the partition wipes the boot block, and any time
you copy the files off your FAT32 WinXP, you would
normally be formatting "for best results".

So it's

a) Boot your maintenance OS
b) Format the former C: partition to FAT32 again (Ridgecrop)
c) Copy the files back (I use Robocopy and a single command
does the whole partition).
d) Shut down. Boot the WinXP installer CD. Do "fixboot".
3) Shut down the CD. Boot from the nice fresh FAT32 C: WinXP on HDD

And that is the OS I'm typing this on.

FAT32 has a 4GB max file size, so working your WinXP
is "not for the squeamish". Don't start a download
in Firefox, and then act surprised when it errors out
at 4GB+1byte :-) I've actually done that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%27oh!

I assume you meant to write "4GB-1byte" ;-)
4GB is one byte too big for FAT32, so 4GB+1 is too big by two bytes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_Allocation_Table

Max. file size 4,294,967,295 bytes (4 GiB – 1) with FAT16B and FAT32[1]


--

Char Jackson

philo wrote:
On 09/29/2017 02:29 PM, Paul wrote:
philo wrote:

This is good advice but I figure the longer one uses a failing drive
the worse it gets...so I do nothing with it other than run data
recovery software.

Well, I clone first, and try to use "linear" processes that
don't shake the heads around. "dd" is linear.

Not that it makes a difference. The drive will drop dead,
any time it feels like. Thus, me losing a Maxtor in mid-session
(it can no longer find the service area). It doesn't even know
it's Maxtor and calls itself Falcon. After the power is
removed, it does no more cameo appearances.

Paul



All I know is for Fat32 not to even try scandisk...It can write the
whole drive to useless chk files.

CHKDSK /F on an NTFS drive has done wonders though

CHKDSK and Scandisk are "write in place" utilities.
Great if they do something positive. Not so great
if they crap all over the partition.

There have been cases, where the real cause of a disk
problem was that the IDE cable was loose and not
seated. A user runs CHKDSK in such a situation, and
*every* write done, is corrupting things. After the
run is complete, there's nothing left to recover.

That's why you have to be real careful with those utilities,
in terms of hardware health. They're only reasonable things
to do if the storage is 100% and there are no signs of
trouble.

If you have questions about a partition, like say you've
seen some real strange things happening, and want to reach
for the CHKDSK, your first step should be a backup.

If a volume needs CHKDSK right now, then conventional backup
software won't work. It'll attempt its own consistency check
and fail the disk, and refuse to backup.

That's when you use "dd" and do a sector by sector backup.
It's best to do that from Linux, because no Windows C: system files
will be "busy" if you dd from Linux.

And if that doesn't work, you use ddrescue (gddrescue package)
in Linux, and do it from a Linux LiveCD. That can work, even
if a couple sectors throw CRC errors.

Running CHKDSK/Scandisk is not recommended in all situations.
If you think your IDE cable is loose, definitely don't run it.

I'm surprised more people don't back up, given the
dangerous times we live in (WannaCrypt or equiv).

Paul

On 09/29/2017 05:40 PM, Paul wrote:
philo wrote:
On 09/29/2017 02:29 PM, Paul wrote:
philo wrote:

This is good advice but I figure the longer one uses a failing drive
the worse it gets...so I do nothing with it other than run data
recovery software.

Well, I clone first, and try to use "linear" processes that
don't shake the heads around. "dd" is linear.

Not that it makes a difference. The drive will drop dead,
any time it feels like. Thus, me losing a Maxtor in mid-session
(it can no longer find the service area). It doesn't even know
it's Maxtor and calls itself Falcon. After the power is
removed, it does no more cameo appearances.

Â*Â*Â* Paul



All I know is for Fat32 not to even try scandisk...It can write the
whole drive to useless chk files.

CHKDSK /F on an NTFS drive has done wonders though

CHKDSK and Scandisk are "write in place" utilities.
Great if they do something positive. Not so great
if they crap all over the partition.

There have been cases, where the real cause of a disk
problem was that the IDE cable was loose and not
seated. A user runs CHKDSK in such a situation, and
*every* write done, is corrupting things. After the
run is complete, there's nothing left to recover.

That's why you have to be real careful with those utilities,
in terms of hardware health. They're only reasonable things
to do if the storage is 100% and there are no signs of
trouble.

If you have questions about a partition, like say you've
seen some real strange things happening, and want to reach
for the CHKDSK, your first step should be a backup.

If a volume needs CHKDSK right now, then conventional backup
software won't work. It'll attempt its own consistency check
and fail the disk, and refuse to backup.

That's when you use "dd" and do a sector by sector backup.
It's best to do that from Linux, because no Windows C: system files
will be "busy" if you dd from Linux.

And if that doesn't work, you use ddrescue (gddrescue package)
in Linux, and do it from a Linux LiveCD. That can work, even
if a couple sectors throw CRC errors.

Running CHKDSK/Scandisk is not recommended in all situations.
If you think your IDE cable is loose, definitely don't run it.

I'm surprised more people don't back up, given the
dangerous times we live in (WannaCrypt or equiv).

Â*Â* Paul



Yep, you are absolutely right.


At at rate I have my stuff backed up numerous times