got a drive which was RAW then completely messed up by ChkDsk.

Recuva
1

as the title states, the most ChkDsk did was restore the structure...

every file is in it's proper directory as it was when it went RAW.

the problem...

first off, before ChkDsk forced itself on me, recuva wasn't able to properly recover the drive,

and basically give me about half the files in one unknown directory.

now after ChkDsk, Recuva at least gets some of the directories right...

but what happened after ChkDsk?

basically, while it restored the structure for nearly 350GB of files (which took nearly 4 days),

pretty much every file is 0KB. (my drive only has 1.5GB used)

I've hated ChkDsk before for corrupting my files, but now you can guess how much I really hate it now... heh

(especially after the fact I couldn't cancel it)

so now the MFT is completely messed up, however, I did a 35-pass full-fledged deep scan with recuva, and it reported every file was still in good condition (as in the actual data, since I checked the sizes of about 60 files)

however, recuva still recovers only about 140GB...

got any ideas that might be able to help to recover the full amount??

(most of the files are still in an unknown directory)

btw, might I mention the drive is compressed.

I usually have a small drive for the OS, while every other large drive is for my data and is compressed to get the most out of it.

what caused the HDD to go RAW?

basically, I was trying to image another 80GB RAW HDD to set up my secondary compy's OS on.

I plugged the 500GB into my brother's compy (power was off) after hibernating my compy.

as soon as his compy boots up, the HDD reports being RAW.

reconnected to my compy and booted up (for validation), and still RAW

so I used my OS HDD, which my brother's compy was stupid and booted it,

destroying my hibernation session in the process, even though his OS HDD was SATA priority 0, 9_9

and was able to image my 80GB onto that.

funny thing is this 500GB was given to me NEW (about a year of usage)

one last thing... I'm the master of RAW HDDs...

I have about 15 IDE HDDs that are all RAW.

I hate my freakin luck... heh (I do everything properly, and they still corrupt)

2

Welcome to the forum.

What is your operating system ?

Does this HDD have a small O.S. partition, and are you trying to Recuva all files that are in a large compressed partition ?

Are you now accessing this HDD as an external drive or as an internal secondary or internal Primary drive ?

Please post a screen shot of Windows Disk Management showing all details of this drive.

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I have had multiple instances of drives going RAW. The drives are Western Digital drives, My Passport, My Element and My Book. My operating systems are Windows Vista Home Premium SP2, Windows 7 and Windows 8.1. One problem is that I mistakenly set up a My Element drive with four partitions instead of one as suggested in the initial directions (which I overlooked). Three of the partitions on that drive are data, and the fourth is merely a small extra partition designed give versatility (details long forgotten). Of the three data partitions, on the second partition, I have not been able to recover the data despite hundreds of hours spent trying every method I could find, including Recuva Pro, DiskPart, mountvol, and others. So far, I don't believe that I have overwritten anything in that partition which might cause loss of the original data, but I can't say definitively. What files I supposedly recovered tended to be un-named, and without proper directory assignments. Most of the recovered files seemed to be trivial copies of program software files, things like software "buttons" and the like. I don't know if I missed something in the method by which I used Recuva Pro. As far as the other partitions and other drives, I have attempted various changes to the permissions with unclear results. Mainly, I have been able to intermittently regain access to these other partitions and drives by either unplugging through Safely Eject, or re-booting with the drives already plugged in, or re-booting and then plugging in the drives. But I have not been able to maintain consistency of availability, especially when I transfer the drives to different machines with different OS. I have tried using the program XVI32 to read the data (especially the drive formatting structural parameters), but the process is very time-consuming, and it requires a substantially larger drive to transfer the data to so as not to overwrite. One main original source of my problems was that my Acer Aspire 5050 laptop had a poorly performing cooling fan which caused overheating and occasional crashed shutdowns before the process of writing data to the drives could be finished. Plus, at times, I had an incorrect choice of settings for the drives wherein I used the option to enhance drive write performance without having an emergency backup power supply. While I have made several attempts to backup the partition with the missing data (to other drives), the supposedly literal backups do not seem to be correct despite using Acronis True Image, various partition recovery and data recovery programs, and also Windows Explorer to copy. While I seem to understand that there are some subtle complexities as to how drives and partitions are structured and formatted, it baffles me that I have not been able to resolve this situation via the many programs and on-line references that are available. For now, my first objective is to transfer the good data and directories to another drive, then set up that WD drive with one partition. But since I am uncertain as to the details, and since it is a time-consuming procedure for these large drives (500 GB, 2+ TB and 4 TB), plus the larger drives are GPT instead of NTFS (did I say that correctly?) which presents additional issues, I have been procrastinating the attempt until I am more confident that I have sufficient understanding. The bottom line, I may not live long enough. But if anyone has the time and knowledge to suggest a clear procedural pathway to accomplish any or all these aspirations for data recovery, I would be most grateful. If nothing else, I wish that I could get some clear instructions for setting up the proper security access permissions for Drives, Partitions, folders and files under my different OS scenarios in order to give me the best setup for privacy and security. Thanks for your patience in reading this lengthy account, and for any helpful suggestions anyone can offer. (If it helps elucidate my situation, Windows 7 is on an older HP Pavillion laptop, purchased used with improper software that I have not been able to rectify to allow internet access; Windows Vista Home Premium is on the Acer Aspire 5050 laptop; and Windows 8 or 8.1 (who knows, depends on which error message I believe) is on an HP Envy 700 desktop. I tend to have persistent recurrent problems on each of these machines, probably attributable mainly to my fouled up security permissions. Or could it be any updates which are being offered for the hidden purpose of nudging me to upgrade my software? Obviously, my trust is real thin these days.) I now am reminded that Recuva may be limited to 140 GB. Thanks for that reminder.

4

Just managed to get a screenshot with some of the problemmatic drives and partitions opening correctly (it seems). (But haven't figured out why I can't attach it.)