WD 200GB HD partition vanished

Cuchulainn · 11-15-2005, 09:29 PM

Hi everybody,

thanks for reading, could realy use some help here.

I have a WD 200GB ATA HD. Running as a slave on the primary IDE channel of A Gigabyte GA7DXR with the bios updated to support over the 137GB barier. Has been runnng nicely for months. Under Win2k Pro SP4

I was defragging the disk with the version of Diskeeper that comes bundled in Win2k and the defragger failed with an error message suggetsting I run checkdisk. I scheculed checkdisk to run at startup and rebooted. I started scrolling
deleting orphaned file...
deleting orphaned file...
deleting orphaned file...

Having seen this before and lost over 100Gb worth of data I killed power and restarted and skipped checkdisk. once inside windows it recongnised the partition but not the file system on it. I've read before that this happens when windows loses entries in it's MFT, it then helpfuly deletes files off your hardrive untill it matches the MFT.

Having stopped it from deleting the files this time I was hoping it would be easier to recover. I've tried using a coupls of tools to scan the partition talble and they say it's fine. But I don't have a clue how to fix a hashed MFT. NTFS drives have a backup of the MFT in the logical center of the HD but how can I make windows use it.

I've also tried a couple of data recover tools on the hardrive (EasyData Recovery 6, ActiveUndelete) they find about 2/3 of the directories and almost no files.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

piper50 · 08-21-2006, 02:59 AM

Hi ... I am certainly not wishing you ill, but can commiserate. I lost a large amount of data (about 100 gig), did recover some of it, tried the renaming thing, and it dropped it's bundle again. I had to re-install Windows to get my system running again.

I understand what you are saying about the scrolling! It was like watching the last 3 years of my life flash before my eyes!

I formatted the offending drive (a WD 250 gig) and thought I would start again. Had the drive tested and it's fine. It seems 30,000 files is the magic number, as when I got to there, restoring files from DVDs, it happened again! I am now also getting a message saying my virtual memory is low and I need to increase my virtual memory paging file. I am not very technical, so am not sure where to go from here. Win XP?

Good luck with yours. I will watch the posts and see if you get an answer.

Drakin316 · 08-24-2006, 07:22 AM

Well there are are couple of data recovery tools out there. One of which is "get data back - ntfs and fat" you can try one of those and see if it will do you any better. I have had a lot of luck with that one. Also there is a program called ncase I am not sure how it is spelled it's been a long time since I have used that one.

I borrowed it from a friend that had it when I had to recover my stuff. Ncase is not cheap by any means I think he told me he spent 3k on it. If you are lucky enough to know where you can get your hands on a copy it recovered about 90% of my files.

I hope that helps if nothing else gives you a direction.

**NUTNDUN** · 08-24-2006, 06:41 PM

With hard drives of that size I would recommend using multiple partitions. As for the recovery of the lost files I have heard alot of good things with the get data back like drakin mentioned.

To increase the size of the paging file I think we have a how-to written on the subject and I will see if I can't find it.

**NUTNDUN** · 08-24-2006, 06:45 PM

Here is the link for the tip for changing the paging file settings:

http://www.pctechtalk.com/?m=show&id=263

11-15-2005, 09:29 PM	#1 (permalink)
Cuchulainn Registered User Join Date: Nov 2005 Posts: 2	WD 200GB HD partition vanished Hi everybody, thanks for reading, could realy use some help here. I have a WD 200GB ATA HD. Running as a slave on the primary IDE channel of A Gigabyte GA7DXR with the bios updated to support over the 137GB barier. Has been runnng nicely for months. Under Win2k Pro SP4 I was defragging the disk with the version of Diskeeper that comes bundled in Win2k and the defragger failed with an error message suggetsting I run checkdisk. I scheculed checkdisk to run at startup and rebooted. I started scrolling deleting orphaned file... deleting orphaned file... deleting orphaned file... Having seen this before and lost over 100Gb worth of data I killed power and restarted and skipped checkdisk. once inside windows it recongnised the partition but not the file system on it. I've read before that this happens when windows loses entries in it's MFT, it then helpfuly deletes files off your hardrive untill it matches the MFT. Having stopped it from deleting the files this time I was hoping it would be easier to recover. I've tried using a coupls of tools to scan the partition talble and they say it's fine. But I don't have a clue how to fix a hashed MFT. NTFS drives have a backup of the MFT in the logical center of the HD but how can I make windows use it. I've also tried a couple of data recover tools on the hardrive (EasyData Recovery 6, ActiveUndelete) they find about 2/3 of the directories and almost no files. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

08-21-2006, 02:59 AM	#2 (permalink)
piper50 Registered User Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: East Coast of Aus Posts: 1	Data loss with Win2K Pro Hi ... I am certainly not wishing you ill, but can commiserate. I lost a large amount of data (about 100 gig), did recover some of it, tried the renaming thing, and it dropped it's bundle again. I had to re-install Windows to get my system running again. I understand what you are saying about the scrolling! It was like watching the last 3 years of my life flash before my eyes! I formatted the offending drive (a WD 250 gig) and thought I would start again. Had the drive tested and it's fine. It seems 30,000 files is the magic number, as when I got to there, restoring files from DVDs, it happened again! I am now also getting a message saying my virtual memory is low and I need to increase my virtual memory paging file. I am not very technical, so am not sure where to go from here. Win XP? Good luck with yours. I will watch the posts and see if you get an answer.

08-24-2006, 06:41 PM	#4 (permalink)
NUTNDUN Registered Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: PA Posts: 1,465	With hard drives of that size I would recommend using multiple partitions. As for the recovery of the lost files I have heard alot of good things with the get data back like drakin mentioned. To increase the size of the paging file I think we have a how-to written on the subject and I will see if I can't find it. __________________

08-24-2006, 06:45 PM	#5 (permalink)
NUTNDUN Registered Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: PA Posts: 1,465	Here is the link for the tip for changing the paging file settings: http://www.pctechtalk.com/?m=show&id=263 __________________

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08-24-2006, 07:22 AM	#3 (permalink)
Drakin316 Registered User Join Date: May 2003 Location: louisiana Posts: 185	Well there are are couple of data recovery tools out there. One of which is "get data back - ntfs and fat" you can try one of those and see if it will do you any better. I have had a lot of luck with that one. Also there is a program called ncase I am not sure how it is spelled it's been a long time since I have used that one. I borrowed it from a friend that had it when I had to recover my stuff. Ncase is not cheap by any means I think he told me he spent 3k on it. If you are lucky enough to know where you can get your hands on a copy it recovered about 90% of my files. I hope that helps if nothing else gives you a direction.