All Drive Info Missing!! Help!!!

[den240nis]

My hardrive is split into 3 drives:

1. Windows/Program files
2. Video/Music/Business files storage
3. Other files storage (old documents)

I installed a program (Metacafe Pro) that downloads videos from a website (Metacafe.com). In the options menu of this program, when I changed the destination folder(for the downloaded videos) from the #1 drive (Program files) to the #2 drive (Video, Business, etc), the hardrive made a sound , and the settings were changed. However, when I went to access my folders for drive #2, apparently ALL THE INFO WAS GONE! FOLDERS and FILES! I tried system restore, but it just restored the empty folders that used to be there!

SOMEBODY plz help ASAP! I have a lot of important files on the drive!

IS there any way of getting the files back???

Thanks in advance!!!

[saphalline]

Woah! :eek:

Well first of all, shut down that program until further notice. And then, don't touch the drive any more. The more you do to it, the less likely you can retrieve data.

The storage guru's will be around soon to advise you. In the mean time, give more info about the system. Which version of Windows? How big is the hard drive and the partitions? What file system(s) is/are used? Do you have any RAID volumes? Are you dual-booting with another OS? Etc.

[den240nis]

K, the program was shut down since the incident 2 hours ago.

I'm using windows XP

It's an 80G Hardrive

This is how the Hard drive was parted

1. 15G (Windows/ programs) Most installed programs
2. 40G (Business/music, etc) music, video files/ microsoft office files / some pictures
3. 20G (Old Docs) pics, video, microsoft office - word, publisher, etc

I believe the answers to both your questions are no.
I'm not very computer savvy, my friend put the custom comp together ~2 years ago. Unfortunately, he is not available any time soon.
I use the comp primarily for my 2 companies which is why it is so crucial to get that info.

Please let me know what other info you need!

[Whyzman]

Here's some reading until one of the guru's familiar with data recovery show up: http://www.runtime.org/

This particular program has proved very effective and I suspect that the more familiar you are with how it works the faster your efforts to retrieve the data will be... However, I'd suggest waiting for further assistance before launching out on your own...

I would also suggest that you get access to another computer and/or go shopping for a new harddrive.

[Whyzman]

A quick follow-up...

As Saph mentioned above, don't access the drive, pull the plug on it for the time being. It sounds as though it might be a hardware problem and could belly-up any moment.

I'd not read through the Get Data Back troubleshooting before, but does suggest getting a new harddrive. This was of interest, if the sound you heard was that of looming disk failure:

1. Your drive has a physical problem. If the drive has a lot of bad sectors (damaged areas on the drive's
platters that cannot be read anymore) or is otherwise damaged, the scan can take really long if it's ever
going to finish.
If you get only an occasional bad sector message, but the scan is otherwise progressing, choose "Ignore"
in the warning windows and let the scan finish.
But if you receive a lot of read error messages, or the scan seems to stall or is taking forever, your best
bet is to stop what you are doing and to make an Image of your damaged drive first. By making an Image
you will reduce the stress on the drive (which if physically damaged can fail at any moment). Once you
have created the Image you can perform the data recovery for the Image instead of the drive - just select
the Image you made in Step 1 of GetDataBack (Image Files). You can use GetDataBack to make an
Image, the only other thing you'll need is enough space on another drive to store the Image to.
Instructions on how to create an Image are on our website at http://www.runtime.org/gdbimage.htm.

[Fruss Tray Ted]

You will need space enough to hold the recovered files. On the 20gig partition maybe? If you have a burner, you could get by with less space and do it in stages, or get another drive, maybe and external one. Even flash drives to transfer to another pc, depending on how many gigs you want recovered.

Just in case your drive is beginning to fail, you had better do a backup of anything and everything important. When you begin, do not plan on shutting down until it is done in it's entirety. Failing drives have a bad habit of "Here today, gone tomorrow (or next boot)". If it was just the software you used causing the problems, maybe it's not as bad, but better safe than sorry. Your music and video files is one thing, but your business is another.

GDB in the link above is good. Get prepped and post back

[den240nis]

Thanks for the info. I'll let you know how it turns out.

[Paul Komski]

As already mentioned GDB could be the way to recover the files from the faulty partition but with data that is obviously so precious do first make a backup of the whole hard drive maybe but certainly of that faulty partition. And yes you can backup faulty partitions.

Suggest you get yourself a decent external USB hard drive of big enough capacity and then use BiNG (in my sig) or its sister application ImageForDOS (http://www.bootitng.com/image.html) to copy and/or image that partition to the external drive. There is also another sister program with a copy option called CopyWipe (http://www.bootitng.com/copywipe.php) that should be able to copy across all of one hard drive to the other. The first two apps should also be able to burn an image to CDs or a DVD if you have a burner (internal or external). This is not as good as copying to another hard drive but a good first step none-the-less.

Once the partition or drive has been successfully cloned (and verified) onto another medium one can experiment to one's hearts content on recovering the data using GDB or other software.

One big advantage of using these terabyteunlimited utilities from boot floppies or CDs is that the hard drive is only read and not written to. To ensure this make sure the BIOS is set to boot to the correct device before beginning.

PS And, just in case you might, DO NOT run chkdsk or even consider defragging until after you have a copy of the partition.