Please advice: Hitachi travelstar partition corrupted =(

Hi,
I own a W3v which i've been using for more than a year already which came stock with Hitachi Travelstar partitioned into C: & D: drives. About weeks back my C: had symptoms of slow write speed, real slow (I always hibernate, and when it prepares to hibernate in takes very long to complete). So i started i decided to defrag it, i analysed my C: and it was real heavily fragmented, but anyway it did't help with the symptom. But it was still usuable..

Last night i turn on the computer and it could't load windows. once it read windows logo loading screen, the blue screen of death came on for about 0.5 seconds and it restarted... i tried safe mode, no help.

I took out my harddisk load it into a USB 2.5 HDD case and onto another computer.. my C: wasn't readerable at all.. =( i used "chkdsk in cmd" to fix errors, theres a junk of errors, it keep doing chkdsk to no avail..

There are very important datas, a folder of folder of folder of datas that i really need to extract out before i recover windows... i'm using "recover my files" software and it is not helping me to extract my work out...

What should i do? is there any software i can download and extract my folder of folders out..? Does Asus global warrenty help me do that?

Please please help advicing me..

 

Sent you a PM......

 

If you need to recover your data, you will need to either use specific software designed to recover data from a corrupted hard drive, or you will need to send it to a company who specializes in data recovery. In my opinion, the much better value is to use the software route and recover it yourself. When this happened to me, I sent my HD off to 3 different data recovery companies here in the US, and they all charged me an "examination fee", (around 100USD each time), after which I found out they couldn't recover any more than the software tool I had purchased.

In my opinion the best software for this job is Steve Gibson's Spinrite. I've had several colleagues swear by the software. No other tool, or for that matter data recovery company, offers better results, again, in my opinion. You can read more about the tool at;
http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm
You should know that there is no "demo" version of the software, so in order to use it, you need to buy it for 89.00USD. They do offer a money back guarantee if you are not satisfied with it.

No. Not only will Asus not help you recover your data, if you send in your laptop to Asus for repair, they specifically mention they are not liable if they lose your data. If you look at the following Asus URL, you will see that under, A. Exclusions from this Limited Warranty Service, is the following paragraph;

Do not return your laptop/hard drive to Asus, before you have recovered your data.

Good Luck..

 

Oh man, that sucks. The additional strain of running all those tests and tasks probably killed it faster too. I will take a wild guess and say that the arm in the hard drive was scratching the disks because, well, it got old or the disks got misaligned. Hard drives tend to last for three to five years reliably without too much physical abuse, and after that you are on your own---although in your case you seem to have gotten a lemon.

My advice, since you've already tried software on your own, is to send it to a reputable data recovery company. Keep in mind this will cost hundreds, if not thousands of dollars, but they will do it right---it's their livelihood. If it is really important data, I see no other option.

EDIT: Try out Mystic Image's software first, I just looked at it and if there's any hope of you getting the data off that drive yourself, this may be it.

 

Before you run off and send your hard drive to a recovery service or spend money to buy a program, I have two suggestions.

First, if Windows can't read your hard drive well but at least the icon shows up and your system doesn't choke when you connect it via USB, I would try downloading Western Digital's Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for Windows tool first. It will still run on hard drives other than WD. Run an extended test once you get into the program, and it should try to scan your hard drive and map out the bad sectors. If it works out, the drive should become readable again, and possibly bootable.

If that fails, and by the sounds of it that might be the case, my second suggestion is to get a gparted LiveCD. Download the image and use Nero or something similar to burn it to a CD or DVD, and then boot the computer with it. Gparted was meant to deal with partitioning and resizing hard drives, but it also contains a number of recovery tools.

It's a linux program. Luckily for linux, when it goes off to read your (NTFS or DOS) partition it often can skip out on reading the parts of your partition that cause Windows XP to choke. It works fine on the W3V as I have used it before. There's a learning curve if you haven't used Linux before but it does have a graphical interface that's useable; it's more efficient to use the command line interface if you are willing to put the effort in. It will recognize hard drives (or any other mass storage device) that are plugged into USB ports automatically, so you can copy from your hard drive to another hard drive or a USB key.

 

Okay i tried serveral of the software you guys recommended:
- spinrite (jas)
- active file recover (From calcu)
- gparted livecd (From mystic)
- WDs data life lifeguard (From mystic)

It seems that active file recover, gparted livecd, WDs data lifeguard all halted after scanning awhile, meaning it halts at that x%. As of now i tried spinrite, its preety interesting software, it seems as if its still doing its job, but its still at 8% with level 4 scanning.

I was before i use spinrite, i was fedup and tried using Asus recovery CD and just recover windows, but when it finishes reading the 2nd disc of Asus recovery CD, it says theres an CRC error, tried serveral times and same error appears. As of now still waiting for spinrite to leap over 8% (about 6 hours already) seems dow.

Please give me some more ideas before i resort to Asus tech center which most likely cost me to buy a new HDD as my 1 year global warrenty is over already.. =(

P.S Apparently my D: partition drive was readable!!

 

Wait for Spinrite to finish. It shouldn't be stuck, if that's what you mean. The screen saver window should update with time scanned and time left. You can check what it's doing by hitting the space bar at the screen saver screen, and then hitting number 1. Then you can hit the Esc key to get rid of the screen menu. You should see Spinrite scanning each sector of your HD, and the progress of it. You can also see on that screen whether or not it's discovered and recovered any sectors. If it's really stuck, you can always hit Esc to terminate the process, and try re-running it.

You can have run it at level 2 for recovering data, which is faster than the deeper level 4, although level 4 will do the same job as level 2, with the addition of performing it's deep surface analysis on the entire drive, not just the bad parts it detects on a level 2. For comparison purposes, it took me 14 hours to completely scan a 120gb HD at level 4, which regular users of Spinrite do for preventative maintenance purposes. If you let it run its course, you will see that it's the best solution for recovering your HD. If you want to read about other users' experience with it, go over to;

http://www.grc.com/sr/testimonials.htm

 

spinrite still seem to be running, but still at 8% for the past hours (since about 2hours ago after i reached home). The time remaining is 2hrs 57mins, the time remaining has been of the same value all awhile not moving for the past 2 hours ago.. but still it seems to be working, will let it run for the next 12 hours or so and see how is its progress.

I've selected my C: bootable partition which is only 32GB, its small compared to your 120GB. You too about 14 hours on 120GB, my elapsed time is about 6 hours + on 32GB. Seems like my fear of HDD defect is closer to reality.

 

My run was done as preventative maintenance on a good HD. My Spinrite run detected no bad sectors, and had to do no data recovery, and that level 4 run took 14 hours on a 120gb drive (7 different partitions).

If you want, you can terminate your run now, and then restart it, but this time select run level 2. If that doesn't successfully recover all of your data, then you can do a level 4 run. If you don't want to stop it now, and you're sure it's still running, then you can let it go and see what happens in a few more hours.

Good Luck..

 

Hey,

Ok, as for gparted, don't bother doing the scan or anything as clearly you're not getting anywhere with that. As for Spinrite, I don't know. All you want to do is take the files off of the disk... so you should be able to use the file explorer or command prompt built in to get to your folders and copy them off to something else. If it doesn't let you, well, you've probably had a fairly large portion of your hard drive physically damaged.

One other weird thing you can try is to lean the hard drive on its side to 45 or 90 degree angles and seeing if you can hear the read pattern change to something normal. It's possible that there's some mechanical damage/defect that prevents proper read of the hard drive, and by leaning it over it can sometimes be 'put back into place' if only temporarily. This has worked for me recently with some success... if your drive is at this point though, you're definitely going to need a replacement.

 

This is it ... its been more than 24 hours. still stuck at 8%, it only completed 3064MB 8.79%, remaning 31,786MB 91.21% of scan. Theres 1 red unrecovered dot out of 1 and 1/4 bar in graphic status display. There seems to be massive sector defective region located as stated in dynastat data recovery screen. Real sad and demoralising.

I'll be bring my laptop down to asus center in Singapore when i find the time. Most likely they'll charge me for a new HDD.

Question: Since my XP PRO is in my hidden partition drive in the defective HDD, when they replace a new HDD, will they include XP PRO in hidden partition for me? If not that will be a big problem... real big problem... Out of curiousity, how much do you think asus will charge for replacement of HDD?

 

Sorry to hear that it didn't work for you. I wouldn't give up on recovering data from your HD just yet, (although it depends on how much time you have to try, etc.) At the minimum you should try and run a level 2 Spinrite recover on the HD before you do anything with it. You can also give the engineers at Spinrite a try by emailing them the problem you are having. They may have some additional help they can provide you with The support URL is;

http://www.grc.com/support.htm

It's probably not worth taking it to the Asus service center, if it's out of warranty. They will probably just charge you to buy another HD and install it, which you can do on your own anyway. However, if the drive is still under warranty and Asus will do the warranty trade for you, then you could have them do it, or Hitachi can usually do the warranty trade for you as well.

If I were you I would keep the drive, because there's alway a chance that data can be recovered from it. You could either try to repair it again, or ask locally about data recovery companies, who may be able to recover data from the HD for you. Finally in terms of the XP OS License. It's licensed to your machine. If you were to get another HD, you can restore from the Asus recovery CDs, and the license key that comes with your computer is valid. If you had an Asus service center do all of this for you, they will likely, put in a new HD, format and install the Asus factory image on it for your laptop, and then charge you for the new HD and any labor charge. What you would get would be your laptop back like the day you first bought it, nothing but the OS and Asus software on it..

 

Hey good news, seems like spinrite hit the 10% mark from 8% mark!!! maybe it will take about afew days to complete recovery... i hope my laptop doesn't go overheated by going on continous run for the next few days. I have a few unrecoverable sectors, but i hope my my documents and other important datas are still intact..

 

I'm glad to hear it's still progressing. Make sure you let us know the outcome of the recovery process, and if you're able to recover your data.

 

I decided to call it quits (stuck at 10%) as i have to resume work on my w3v asap. Thus i'm getting a new harddrive for my w3v.

But i have a few questions:

- I read through the Asus recovery CD 1 and 2, it does not contain a orginal copy of XP Pro, i guess its only hidden in my defective HDD which can't be accessed. Where can i get my original XP Pro from ? From Asus center?

- Does IDE & SATA make a diff? i know w3v can be fitted with SATA HDD as long as i change the stock cable. Both have 8MB Cache and SATA is more expensive, can use thoes money to buy 7200rpm IDE HDD...

- Which HDD manufacturer and model is recommended?


Most importantly i'm most worried is about getting XP Pro on the upcoming new notebook HDD... please advise again. Thanks.

P.S Spinrite was the most impressive software but it doesn't fix physcial damage which i assume happen in my case.

 

Sorry to hear that. You should consider keeping the hard drive in the external enclosure you have, and later connect it to a computer that you can leave alone for a while, run Spinrite on it but at level 2, and see if it can recover your data. (Or you can contact Spinrite tech support for their help)

I also wouldn't assume that your drive platters have physical errors, if that's what you meant. I again would defer to the experts, like the Spinrite engineers, and see what their assessment is. Anyway good luck for the future with your drive. I hope you are able to get data from it eventually. I know what's it like to lose data for good. Not fun..

You do not need any software from your dead HD. Your recovery CDs will install the OS that came with your computer when you bought it. This is the only thing that the Asus service center will do. (You can ask them, just to confirm)

I wouldn't bother with a SATA drive for this computer. Your tech specs from Asus at this URL state that your laptop supports the older standard laptop IDE drives. I would think it's better for you to purchase the same kind. Plus you give some good reasons why you should get the IDE one, (cost savings, etc..)

As to what kind, I've always preferred Seagate drives, but everyone likes Seagate, Hitachi or other brands for different reasons. You can probably read lots of opinions on all of them on these message boards..

 

You can always run Spinrite in mode 1, it will be fast, but it won't try to recover data, only mark that bad sectors (it depends whether you had your data recovered or marked as unrecoverable), also like someone said run it on level 2 for recovery. If there is a lot of damage it will take long to recover.

In either case after that you should be able to recover most of a data from HDD. Also for example very bad sectors you can run level 1, after it quit (writing percentage for example 9.67) and starting level 2 from 9.66.
If it is physical damage there are probably groups of highly damaged areas and areas with no damage or recoverable.

 

I've been browsing for a proper new IDE HDD for my w3v, i got the price list down but not too sure which to get:

http://sg.hardwarezone.com/priceguide/priceguide.php?id=85&filter=&sortby=price&pg=0

Was thinking of getting this which was cheapest at SGD$169, is it too good to be true as other shops are selling at SGD$250 average:
http://sg.hardwarezone.com/priceguide/info.php?cid=85&id=17110

Seems like 7200rpm isn't listed, but they do carry them. This again can't make my decision to get 5400 or 7200rpm. I do from intensive rendering, and sometimes gaming.. but i've been preety cool with 5400rpm.. hmm.. any takes?

 

Summery:

- Bought 120GB Seagate 5400rpm IDE at S$120 = about USD$70.
- Used recovery to install xp pro, took a long while.
- 1 to 1 replace faulty Hitachi Travelstar with Asus center.

Hardest thing: Losing hours of work, and losing my music play list.
Bright side: heh.

Is there softwares to recommend in defragmenting and maintaining my new HDD?