Hard disk Error - The disk structure is corrupted and unreadable.

[r4hara]

I have IOmega 1 TB hard drive. 2 days ago, my comp restarted suddenly after which my external drive is corrupted.

I get the error 'H: is not accessble' The disk structure is corrupted and unreadable.
It shows up in the disk management as RAW file system,

I have almost 700 GB of important documents, pictures & files that I don't want to lose.
Does anybody know of any good recovery software that can help.

 

[jumanji]

Hi r4hara,

Welcome to SevenForums.

You seem to have lost the partition somehow and that seems to be the reason why it had turned RAW.

IMO, the best free software to do the recovery from a RAW disk is Test Disk. TestDisk - CGSecurity

It can be a little daunting for the first time user, and so take your time to read through all the documentation.

First use PhotoRec in it - which does not write anything to the drive in question - and try to recover the files.

Then you can use TestDisk and try to rewrite the partition. Some people have reported that even after restoring the partition with TestDisk, the drive remained RAW but they were able to recover most files using the option to copy.

Whether PhotoRec or TestDisk, it is going to take a lot of time to recover the files. Copy them to another external drive with adequate capacity.

You may find some help here to understand the usage.

http://www.sevenforums.com/software/193467-guide-using-photorec-recovery-software.html

http://www.sevenforums.com/software/190430-regain-lost-drive-using-test-disk-illustrated-guide.html

Good luck.

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Thanks mate, if you don't mind I'm going to save this post as a link to offer to others in future.

Hi r4hara,

Welcome to SevenForums.

You seem to have lost the partition somehow and that seems to be the reason why it had turned RAW.

IMO, the best free software to do the recovery from a RAW disk is Test Disk. TestDisk - CGSecurity

It can be a little daunting for the first time user, and so take your time to read through all the documentation.

First use PhotoRec in it - which does not write anything to the drive in question - and try to recover the files.

Then you can use TestDisk and try to rewrite the partition. Some people have reported that even after restoring the partition with TestDisk, the drive remained RAW but they were able to recover most files using the option to copy.

Whether PhotoRec or TestDisk, it is going to take a lot of time to recover the files. Copy them to another external drive with adequate capacity.

You may find some help here to understand the usage.

http://www.sevenforums.com/software/193467-guide-using-photorec-recovery-software.html

http://www.sevenforums.com/software/190430-regain-lost-drive-using-test-disk-illustrated-guide.html

Good luck.

 

[jumanji]

You are welcome to, BFK, by all means. It will be my pleasure. Thanks for your interest.

 

[r4hara]

@jumanji - Thankss a lot. I had used 'Recuva' even b4 I saw this post and managed to retrieve about 400+ GB of data, though some of the .jpg files were corrupted.

I am soaking up the info on PhotoRec.
My Q is can I now try my luck & use Test Disk again on the HDD to see if I can recover the complete data?

Hi r4hara,

Welcome to SevenForums.

You seem to have lost the partition somehow and that seems to be the reason why it had turned RAW.

IMO, the best free software to do the recovery from a RAW disk is Test Disk. TestDisk - CGSecurity

It can be a little daunting for the first time user, and so take your time to read through all the documentation.

First use PhotoRec in it - which does not write anything to the drive in question - and try to recover the files.

Then you can use TestDisk and try to rewrite the partition. Some people have reported that even after restoring the partition with TestDisk, the drive remained RAW but they were able to recover most files using the option to copy.

Whether PhotoRec or TestDisk, it is going to take a lot of time to recover the files. Copy them to another external drive with adequate capacity.

You may find some help here to understand the usage.

http://www.sevenforums.com/software/193467-guide-using-photorec-recovery-software.html

http://www.sevenforums.com/software/190430-regain-lost-drive-using-test-disk-illustrated-guide.html

Good luck.

 

[jumanji]

From your statement, you still have some 300 GB of data unrecovered. First try PhotoRec, rather than Test Disk. As per the author, PhotoRec ignores the file system and goes after the underlying data, so it will still work even if your media's file system has been severely damaged or reformatted.

PhotoRec also seems to be more thorough with its scans than other apps like Recuva or even some commercial paid apps. Here is a golden chance for you try and check whether it does a better job than Recuva ( vis-a-vis the corrupted files recovered by Recuva). Pull out as much as the other 300 GB of data possible.

As a last resort try TestDisk. Even here try to recover using the copy option. Finally try to rewrite the partition table with TestDisk.