Windows 10 - The disk structure is corrupted and unreadable

EdTittel said:

I bought and used the MiniTool Power Data Recovery for $89 one time when I "accidentally" (unwittingly, actually) reformatted a hard disk with valuable data on it. It worked like a charm,

To be honest though you could have just recreated the partition table. All the data was still there - formatting a drive doesn't delete it. If it was GPT you could even just copy the backup partition table from the end to the start of the disk.

The OP has a problem with a failing disk. The only sensible thing to do is copy it all (or all that is left) to a new one. dd would be the obvious choice - failing that Macrium will do a sector copy to a new disk (including unreadable or corrupted blocks).

Running recovery apps (even if they work) is a bad idea if the disk is failing. Better to copy it then run some free thing like 18 Free Data Recovery Software Tools (January 2018) on the new copy.

Porthos said:

IF the files are important to you STOP and send it to a data recover company. The more you mess with it the worse it gets and reduces the chance of a sucessful data recovery. You will never "fix" that drive. The tools you mention are mostly snake oil. I would make a sector by sector clone with a program called ddrescue and work only from that clone to recover your files.

I don't have a lot money for data recovery company to recover my data. But, I do have money for buy a new hard drive.
I don't mean to fix the hard drive but, what I mean is to fix the data that is still not recovered by data recovery software.
I will take your advice to use ddrescue and recover my data form my broken hard drive to new hard drive.

lx07 said:

No. Not worth a try. It will make it worse.

What would you say if I suggested you send me the old disk, a new disk and $500 to copy one to the other? You can pay postage obviously and I'll keep the $500 anyway.

If you had any sense you would say "no thank you, I will copy it myself (and ask how if I don't know)".

That is what these forums are for - to help you not waste money or get scammed.

The data is important. But, I will not cost my wallet for $500 just for this. I just need try to "I can live with that".

jumanji said:

If you consider that the data is not worth paying for Professional Recovery , then Porthos above suggestion is the next best thing you can try.

https://www.sevenforums.com/general-...-recovery.html

You may have to do some more research on it since that thread is dated and was only a starter to begin with.

Yes, I will take his advice. I will do that once I get my freetime. I will post the result later.

EdTittel said:

I bought and used the MiniTool Power Data Recovery for $89 one time when I "accidentally" (unwittingly, actually) reformatted a hard disk with valuable data on it. It worked like a charm, but that was on a working drive that I had messed with, not on a failing drive with hardware problems. All things considered, if you really, really need that data, you should follow the advice from @Porthos and send it to a data recovery company for professional recovery. Otherwise, walk away and spend your money on a new drive, and resolve to learn from experience.
HTH,
--Ed--

Reformatted, Unallocated, Deleted. I already know how to deal with them. But, this one is a whole new problem to me.

"The data is important. But, I will not cost my wallet for $500 just for this. I just need try to "I can live with that"."

OK, decks cleared.

Now listen. Professional data Recovery agents are not going to rip it open to do a Data recovery since your HDD does not have a mechanical fault. It is just a corruption of file system due to bad sectors. HardDisk Sentinel says that there are some bad sectors and shows 96% health. (I have a mini PC that is still running with 94% health. Obviously there are some bad sectors but fortunately not in a critical area and that hasn't grown for years. The PC is still working fine and I have a paid version of HardDisk Sentinel continuosly monitoring it whenever I run the PC. . Just a month or two ago I ran it to update.) Professional Data recovery is just going to run some software to retrieve the data in the first instance and only if a catastrophic failure occurs during that process will resort to more elaborate procedures to retrieve the data.

Now do this. Download the trial version of active @ file recovery http://www.file-recovery.com/download.htm , run the HDD scan. If it finds all your files, you can even open and preview the files to check their integrity. Can you see everything and satisfied? Buy a licence (USD 29) and copy all files to another HDD. (If successful send me a cheque for USD 371 (USD 400 minus USD 29 you paid for the software) )

( I can go through an elaborate investigation to find out where exactly the bad sector is and check for any possibility of restoring the drive but I do not want to take the risk of losing the HDD in the process. Most of the times that process finally lead to the necessity of purchasing a commercial software like the active at file recovery or getdataback simple - except in one case, where it was not a bad sector -- https://www.sevenforums.com/hardware...-explorer.html )

Porthos said:

I would make a sector by sector clone with a program called ddrescue and work only from that clone to recover your files.

jumanji said:

If you consider that the data is not worth paying for Professional Recovery , then Porthos above suggestion is the next best thing you can try.

https://www.sevenforums.com/general-...-recovery.html

You may have to do some more research on it since that thread is dated and was only a starter to begin with.

Hey guys! I just brought a new 2TB disk drive and I take your suggestion to use ddrescue. I just starting now:


I will post the result later again. Is the any other suggestion you guys want to share? meanwhile the disk is in cloning process, thank you!

dalchina said:

Disk imaging.

Had you been using disk imaging routinely as we repeatedly recommend, you would have had a compressed image of the used part of your disk you could have restored to a new disk.

Same for Windows- where such programs select and image all the partitions Windows uses.

Many advantages- saves time, no need for technical assistance, reduces stress and increases your life span (!), can be used if your PC is unbootable or infected with ransomware, acts as a full backup from which you can recover files. E.g. Macrium Reflect (free) + external storage.

For an SSD over USB3 maybe 9-12 mins to update an image of Windows. (Differential imaging).

Thanks, will do!

Hi guys, I just finished clone the bad drive into the new one. The result is exactly same with the bad one, I can't access the drive. What should I do next to fix the recovered bad disk (red mark) in the new disk or recover the data?


Anyway, here's the result from ddrescue:


And here's the log:


Many thanks!