Cyclic redundancy check

[thedemonsloth]

I have been trying to recover a few files from my formatted 6-year old HD. I tried Recuva, using deep-scan and searching for undeleted files. It fails claiming a data error(cyclic redundancy check). I figured I might as well give a couple programs, and found a pay supported program that would find and claimed to be able to do the trick unfortunately it costs more than my files are worth. So is this error fixable, any suggestions?

[smstroble]

I have been trying to recover a few files from my formatted 6-year old HD. I tried Recuva, using deep-scan and searching for undeleted files. It fails claiming a data error(cyclic redundancy check). I figured I might as well give a couple programs, and found a pay supported program that would find and claimed to be able to do the trick unfortunately it costs more than my files are worth. So is this error fixable, any suggestions?

 

CRC error indicates a bad sector in the file you are trying to copy (for more information or CRC's use in data storage see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclic_redundancy_check ) What I would do if I were you is run "chkdsk /R" without the quotes in the cmd prompt. That said it may not fix it becuase it is a deleted file and not of its concern, however it should still mark the offending sector as bad which will allow recuva to continue is search for deleted files if it is failing during the scan. Also note that the file with the bad sector would be lost. A better solution would be Spinrite but that cost $90 which sounds like it is not an option for you.

[Tom AZ]

A better solution would be Spinrite but that cost $90 which sounds like it is not an option for you.

"SpinRite" . . . a program I remember (and used) years and years ago -- probably the mid to late 1980s. I didn't even know it was still around. At that time, it was an excellent and highly respected utility. What's the scoop on it now?

[Geewhipped]

"SpinRite" . . . a program I remember (and used) years and years ago -- probably the mid to late 1980s. I didn't even know it was still around. At that time, it was an excellent and highly respected utility. What's the scoop on it now?

 

 

SpinRite is still very much alive and kicking, and if it hadn't already been suggested, I was about to suggest it.

http://www.grc.com/

Good 'ol Steve Gibson still writes and maintains it, along with lots of other goodies on that site. He also does a weekly podcast called "Security Now" which is highly recommended. He really pimps SpinRite in the podcast, but whatcha gonna do... it's free (the podcast, not SpinRite).

You can very conveniently install spinrite on that old little usb key you have laying around (have a 64meg or smaller one? will work just fine. what else are you going to use that turd for?) instead of running it from a boot CD.

I hope this doesn't sound like a commercial for spinrite... I certainly don't work for them or anything... I just think it is good stuff and worth the $$.

 

That being said, spinrite didn't do jack squat for me when my 500gb USB drive magically formatted itself. After running trial versions of 2 expensive pieces of software (and having them fail or crap out in some way), I found recuva and it is kicking that drive's butt as we speak. It would appear that I'll lose very little data off of what was a very full drive. Excellent stuff.

[Danno]

I also am having a problem with running into CRC errors and Recuva aborting because of it.

 

I thought the errors were spawned because I had a failing RAM module (since replaced), so I ran chkdsk d: /r /x

 

Part of the resulting output is:

 

Free space verification is complete.

Adding 160 bad clusters to the Bad Clusters File.

Correcting errors in the Volume Bitmap.

Windows has made corrections to the file system.

 

976759528 KB total disk space.

0 KB in 1 files.

4 KB in 9 indexes.

640 KB in bad sectors.

95796 KB in use by the system.

65536 KB occupied by the log file.

976663088 KB available on disk.

 

Since I'd assumed that the CRC errors were actually introduced as a soft failure caused by the failing RAM module, I figured this would resolve my problem.

 

Since then, I've run Recuva on the drive again, and it again failed with a CRC error (though, far later).

 

Since I don't want to get stuck in a loop of running chkdsk to rewrite/mark bad sectors and then have more appear as I run Recuva across the drive, would it be possible to have an option in the Options settings such that you could have Recuva continue after ALL errors, but log them and let you know what files were affected?

 

Oh, I should mention that this process takes many hours for just chkdsk (and even longer for Recuva)... This is a 1TB drive!

 

Thank you for your help!

 

---- Edited ----

 

Additional information. I ran chkdsk again, and found no problems, but Recuva is still reporting a CRC error and aborting.

 

The debug log file is extensive, 4.4GB uncompressed, 3MB compressed... Where can I send it? (or do you want t clipping of just the start and end pieces of it?)

[Guest MrRon]

Hi Danno, I'll PM you with details of where to send the log.

MrRon

[Danno]

Hi Danno, I'll PM you with details of where to send the log.

MrRon

 

I got the PM, and sent the email. I got the email back with a 550 error, user unknown.

 

Do you have another suggestion for me?