HardDrive Data Recovery

[Jorge]

Hey all
I need a good freeware program to recover my data from my archos av320. Its a 20GB disk, which has become unformatted for some reason, probably due to my recent OS upgrade. So I need to recover all my data, about 5GB's of data was used, so its not a whole lot.

So which freeware program could I use to scan the disk and recover all the unreadable data.

Thanks in advance, your help is highly appreciated.

[TimBooth4Eva]

Have you tried a Google search Jorge?

[TimBooth4Eva]

I just did and found quite a few

[lordsmurf]

Nothing can compete with this: http://www.ontrack.com
Forget about anything "free".

[Squid_uk]

i've been trying to find out about this on a different site and have been told to try EasyRecovery Pro, also been told that there are two ways you can go about recovering your files:

1. remove your HD and place it in another computer as a secondary drive. Install EasyRecoveryPro and recover the data to the primary drive.

2. create and emergency disk from another computer that has EasyRecoveryPro installed on it. Hook up your computer to a network that has another computer on it with shared drive. Boot off floppy and recover data to network drive.

[Denvers Dawgs]

Zero Assumption Recovery has a free trial version (only allows you to 4 folders per scan. So you may need to do several scans) but the trial is free. I read about it in Maximum PC Magazine.

Or you could buy the full version for $100

[ROF]

Nothing can compete with this: http://www.ontrack.com
Forget about anything "free".

I'll second this software and recovery data house. Their tools are excellent. I own both EZRecovery Pro 6 and DataEraser Personal. I bought EZ Recovery as an investment and because I needed to recover data from two damaged drives. After it's first 6 uses(besides my initial 2) I made my money back from the purchase. A wise investment especially when you know you can "sell" your recovery services to others in need.

[ipdave]

Acronis also makes good recovery tools ...

[Bjs]

http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/uk/welcome.htm

The tool that dose a good job for free , saved me twice ... and other's many more time's .

Also do a search for "insert" , it is a rescue min cd iso designed to do almost anything for the pc , built around linux ... test memmory , drive's , and more .

Another search for "puppy" , another linux mini iso .

Extract iso , burn with nero to a standard cdr , do not close the cd .
( for those only interested in rescuing email info and fav's , and junking the rest for a clean reinstall , when puppy spits cd out , just reinsert it ) .

You now have a windows xp resue cd .

Provided all hardware is working , but you are unable to enter the xp os in either normal or safe mode .

Set bios to boot from cdrom first .
Insert puppy cd .
Wait till it is up and running .

You can setup internet account .

Setup 1 folder on hard drive .

Download file's to fix pc , such as update's , ect .. place in this folder .
Generic print info from website's that may be of assistance .

Now create another folder in this folder called "my files" .

Search hard drive for file's you wish to backup and place into "my files" .

Remember you can only deal with no more than 700mb's at a time .

When ready , go to puppy's cd burning tool , and burn that folder to cd .

Puppy will spit cd out ... you give it a blank , and go .

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

You should also backup :

C:\Documents and Settings\###\Application Data\Microsoft\Address Book
... and that wab file .

C:\Documents and Settings\###\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities\{xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx}\Microsoft\Outlook Express ... just backup all you find in this folder .

This will rescue all your email's and address book .

After system restored , simply setup internet account , and then copy the file's back to where they came from and you will have all you thought you had lost , now back in outlook express again .

Remember to put your internet fav's back as well .

Note : internet fav's in puppy

Use file roller to packup these fav's before burning in puppy .

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

With these 2 iso's and file recovery , you should beable to diagnose and recover file's from any pc ... barring a complete hardware failure .

[tarzan1990]

getdataback

http://www.runtime.org/

[diven]

I've had very good luck with Active Undelete. It isn't free, but it is reasonably priced. From what I've heard Ontrack has excellent software, but a bit out of most people's price range. A lot of the free programs only recover files if they were deleted, not if the drive was reformated. The others that I tried were able to retrieve some files, but not all of them. Active Undelete can recover files even if the partition table was destroyed. It also will recover files from hard drives attached via USB, which may be useful in your case. There is a demo available so you can determine if it will be helpful in your situation.

Good luck!

[RacerXRed]

getdataback

http://www.runtime.org/

I second this program. I have an Archos Gmini 120 and I used this program to recover corrupted files.

[ZAPPER]

Acronis also makes good recovery tools ...

I had a big time crash last year. Photos from memory sticks were the only thing that I was worried about (the only copies existed on my drives, yes, stupid move) I turned the whole PC over to a geek for a week. Acronis saved my day. It is still kind of a pain to dig around for some of the old stuff, but it is all there.

The lesson? Back up!

Do I now? Well...

[Jorge]

I got Easy Recovery Pro v6.00

Now I went to advance recovery, and it gave me this. What do I do, because its taking really long to recover, REAL LONG. What options do I choose. Its my first time using this program.




untitled.jpg

[krg765]

I've had good luck using knoppix. Just boot up, mount the hard drive, and save whatever you want to an external device.

[krg765]

I forgot to mention...Knoppix is free. (If you didn't already know)

[RDS1955]

I got Easy Recovery Pro v6.00

Now I went to advance recovery, and it gave me this. What do I do, because its taking really long to recover, REAL LONG. What options do I choose. Its my first time using this program.

untitled.jpg

OK, I did this last nite on an external HDD, but I give you no guarantees., I've had mixed results with this program..I used it to recover about 90GB off a HDD, but it could only recover it in a raw format, (no saved file names, only things like fil001.jpg, fil002.jpg, fil003.jpg, and so forth..)and then it only rescued about 80-85% of what I wanted to get... Last nite, I used it to recover a 120 GB HDD, and I recovered everything with the proper file names, but almost 70% was corrupt..However this is the best program out there for the personal owner IMHO.. Anything else, you should seek professional recovery services if it's worth that much to you..

Accordingto the graphic you posted your Unidentified part is the full size of the 20 GB HDD, the second FAT part is only about 2.5GB.. You say you need to recover about 5 GB...go with the top one 1st, if it'll do it..You may need to build a partition on it 1st, and Easy recovery Pro should be able to let you do that without losing any data..Just go with the default setting as they are setup if you haven't used the program before, that should be fine... Or you could try the 2.5 GB sized section 1st to see if it'll recover everything you want to get..Just read the basic operations of the program in the help file, everything is in there toget you started and hopefully get what you want recovered properly..

And about it taking so long...Let it do it overnight..It may read 600 hours at 1st but that will decrease as it actually go through the process...Mine said 1037 hrs last nite when I started.. Got up in the morning and it was done..

[thevoelk]

I've had to let Easy Recovery Pro run for over a week before. Sometimes it gets stucl at a spot. Just be patient.

[Jorge]

Ok it recovered everything. But theirs a bit of a problem. My videos dont seem to be playing for some strange reason, it gives me the message that "cannot play back the file, format not supported". Im lost, what do I do????

Here is a pic of what I mean.



picture.bmp

[Jorge]

Its an avi by the way, its what easy recovery pro 6.00 recovered, which is what I really needed the most. Has this every happened? How do I fix it?

[TaoTeWingChun]

Jorge,

My sincerest suggestion to you is this:

If Easy Recovery Pro 6.00 recovered a file that is unplayable, do yourself a big service and try another data recovery software to see if you have better luck in your recovery efforts.

I've used them all, and while no single software can do it all I've found that using a combination of data recovery utilities is the best way to go.

FYI, to date I've recovered some 3 TB (thats terabytes!) of data from my own and family members PC's using this methodoogy.

Best wishes and post back with your results so we can witness your success!

Cheers!

TTWC

[Jorge]

The thing is that, I have already formated the hard drive, so Im stuck. The file seems to be readable through virtual dub, but theirs no audio. What can be done to fix it.

[TaoTeWingChun]

You can use another software to recover from an accidental formatting, no problem. There are plenty of tools available that will do that as well.

Try it.

Cheers!

TTWC

PS - The number one rule of data recovery - NEVER write/re-format a drive that you need data recovered from until AFTER you've verified you've recovered everything that you wanted off that drive. Never assume any single tool has gotten your data, and ALWAYS verify each and every single file you've recovered to ensure the data is intact. Then, and only then, should you reformat the drive in question.

Best Wishes!

TTWC

[redwudz]

First thing to do is to drop it into Gspot and see what it says, especially about the audio. And you could try playing it with VLC Media Player as it uses it's own codecs. Windows Media Player is not a good indicator whether the file is unreadable.

[Jorge]

i dropped it into gspot and it gave me all the usual info. I played it with VLC and nothing seemed to happen. Maybe some data got corrupted durring the process. What can I do?

[Jorge]

I tried using tmpgenc to encode the video into the same format, which it did, but into a very slow fps. Plus it had no AUDIO!!. Oh boy easy recovery pro 6.00.

[redwudz]

Depends on what format it is. You could drop it into VirtualDub Mod and see if it will load. Then do a error check and try to resave a copy of it. I assume Gspot says you have the needed codecs.

[Nelson37]

Since what you have was not created by any normal process, it is a complete crapshoot. Try various progs for demux, remux, re-encode, write to avi, strip wav, etc. Your type of corruption is totally unique and therefore there is no standard answer.

Formatting the drive before verifying data was a bad idea.

I'm a fan of GetDataBack, myself. One key to recovery is NEVER write to the suspect drive, until you are all done, data verified, and ready to format.

[Jorge]

Yes, I know, it was a very dumb idea. What can I do then. What program can I use to strip the audio and video, so I can get it to work again. Everything seems to be ok, even the file size is the same as it was on my HD. This is one strange dilma.

[Jorge]

How do I do the error check in virtual dub mod