kmillerusaf Posted April 20, 2009 Share Posted April 20, 2009 I doubt I'll get a quick enough answer that I need, but I am getting a "unable to read boot sector" error when trying to search a thumb drive with Recuva. When I try to access the drive in Windows, it basically keeps asking me to format the drive because it isn't formatted. I have 2 questions: Is the drive unrecoverable (eg. dead)? Do I need to format the drive first in order for it to have a boot sector? Thanks in advance, Keith There's always an exception to the rule. I'm that exception. Desktop ----- AMD Athlon 3700+ (2.64Ghz), 2GB DDR 400, ASUS A8N-SLI Premium, 500GB HD, Windows XP Pro SP3, Avira Antivir Personal At work ----- Intel C2D T1700 (1.6Ghz), 2GB DDR2 667, Dell OUY141, 80GB HD, Windows XP Pro SP2, Symantec 10 Laptop ----- Intel C2D P8400 (2.4 Ghz), 4GB DDR3 1066, Mainboard, 160GB HD, Dualboot: Windows 7/openSUSE 11.1, Avira Antivir Personal Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kmillerusaf Posted April 20, 2009 Author Share Posted April 20, 2009 Answered my own question. I formatted the drive and Recuva was able to find the files. HOWEVER, the files were not readable :x There's always an exception to the rule. I'm that exception. Desktop ----- AMD Athlon 3700+ (2.64Ghz), 2GB DDR 400, ASUS A8N-SLI Premium, 500GB HD, Windows XP Pro SP3, Avira Antivir Personal At work ----- Intel C2D T1700 (1.6Ghz), 2GB DDR2 667, Dell OUY141, 80GB HD, Windows XP Pro SP2, Symantec 10 Laptop ----- Intel C2D P8400 (2.4 Ghz), 4GB DDR3 1066, Mainboard, 160GB HD, Dualboot: Windows 7/openSUSE 11.1, Avira Antivir Personal Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mr don Posted May 3, 2009 Share Posted May 3, 2009 Answered my own question. I formatted the drive and Recuva was able to find the files. HOWEVER, the files were not readable :x Bad mistake http://www.handyrecovery.com/handyrecovery-fw.exe using a professional data recovery tool like the link I provided, can recover files even from "raw" disk that windows prompts you to format. This happens because of corrupted partition or MFT errors. The version 4 of their software is very very good. If you cannot get it back with that, you may as well hang it up. You had a good chance of recovering it, but when you formatted it, you made it so much harder on yourself. No, no, never format until you do a handy recovery on it first. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Andavari Posted May 3, 2009 Moderators Share Posted May 3, 2009 That program is also $49 USD. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hewson Posted May 29, 2009 Share Posted May 29, 2009 Im having the same issue, Already formatted it and was doing fine with the old version of the software. Need some help please, have tried everything. Duane Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
burton Posted May 31, 2009 Share Posted May 31, 2009 Bad mistake http://www.handyrecovery.com/handyrecovery-fw.exe using a professional data recovery tool like the link I provided, can recover files even from "raw" disk that windows prompts you to format. This happens because of corrupted partition or MFT errors. The version 4 of their software is very very good. If you cannot get it back with that, you may as well hang it up. You had a good chance of recovering it, but when you formatted it, you made it so much harder on yourself. No, no, never format until you do a handy recovery on it first. Bad solution. I downloaded Handy Recovery because I also got the "unable to read boot sector" error message. But after installing and accessing the partition, it says "No valid supported file system present on the volume". So back to square 1... I'm going to try out UndeletePlus next, though I think there is no other solution than to format. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
burton Posted June 1, 2009 Share Posted June 1, 2009 Can somebody confirm this? Is there no way to recover the files other than to format first they retry? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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