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re: Restore Corrupted partition Wednesday, September 9, 2009 at 6:00 pm Posted by triplate (20834 messages posted) FDISK..... On Wednesday, September 9, 2009 at 5:38 pm, Constantin wrote: >Hello! I would be happy if somebody could help me to restore my partition. This is >what happened: I wanted to increase the size of my C system partition because i have >another partition D wich has some free space. I wanted to do this by shrinking the >size of the D partition for creating unallocated space. It did shrink it but after >i restarted the PC the D partition is not accesible anymore. It sais its structure >its corrupted. I can see it in My computer but i cannot access it. Is there a way >to restore the D partition? Not just to recover the files on it but to make it available >again? Thank you ! [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Restore Corrupted partition Wednesday, September 9, 2009 at 6:01 pm Posted by Steve (23810 messages posted) You could try to delete the D partition in Disk Management, and recreate it. The Data will be gone though. The only way to save any data on it would be try some Data Recovery software. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Restore Corrupted partition Wednesday, September 9, 2009 at 6:15 pm Posted by Constantin (12 messages posted) Yes, i tried Power Data Recovery and after it scanned the partition it did found all the data and i could restore them if i had another free disk. There are 287 GB of data. I think it is only a logical error. The data is not damaged. Is there a way to restore/repair and make the partition accesible again? [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Restore Corrupted partition Wednesday, September 9, 2009 at 6:38 pm Posted by Ricer46 (23825 messages posted) If the data is important, consider yourself very lucky and go buy another HD. On Wednesday, September 9, 2009 at 6:15 pm, Constantin wrote: >Yes, i tried Power Data Recovery and after it scanned the partition it did found >all the data and i could restore them if i had another free disk. There are 287 GB >of data. I think it is only a logical error. The data is not damaged. Is there a >way to restore/repair and make the partition accesible again? [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Restore Corrupted partition Wednesday, September 9, 2009 at 6:40 pm Posted by Steve (23810 messages posted) I have never heard of a way to restore a Damaged Partition, and leave the Data intact at the same time. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Restore Corrupted partition Wednesday, September 9, 2009 at 6:58 pm Posted by Constantin (12 messages posted) Yes...the data is very important. Its all my projects, my pictures, music, movie collection, everything i have collected in many years. I dont know why i did this foolish mistake. I used Acronis Partition Expert. Could it be a MBR error of the partition? [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Restore Corrupted partition Wednesday, September 9, 2009 at 7:23 pm Posted by Adam Bradley (8786 messages posted) The answer is simple, buy or borrow a hard drive that is big enough and copy the data then format it and be glad you still have the data. It could have been much worse. On Wednesday, September 9, 2009 at 6:58 pm, Constantin wrote: >Yes...the data is very important. Its all my projects, my pictures, music, movie >collection, everything i have collected in many years. I dont know why i did this >foolish mistake. I used Acronis Partition Expert. Could it be a MBR error of the >partition? [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Restore Corrupted partition Wednesday, September 9, 2009 at 7:37 pm Posted by bob wells (1636 messages posted) Straight answer; You CAN save the data or you CAN restore the Partition. You CANNOT Restore the partition and Save the Data UNLESS you save the Data to some place OTHER than the Partition you wish to restore. That's why Acronis ADVISES you to BackUp your Data before you resize the Partitions. Guess you didn't read that part. Did you buy a Lotto ticket today? BW On Wednesday, September 9, 2009 at 6:15 pm, Constantin wrote: >Yes, i tried Power Data Recovery and after it scanned the partition it did found >all the data and i could restore them if i had another free disk. There are 287 GB >of data. I think it is only a logical error. The data is not damaged. Is there a >way to restore/repair and make the partition accesible again? [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Restore Corrupted partition Wednesday, September 9, 2009 at 7:51 pm Posted by Constantin (12 messages posted) Ok it seems i cannot restore the partition and data in the same time. Actually yes, i read about the advice to backup the partition first but i thought these errors happend very rare. And i dont know what exactly means to backup? If it means to copy all those 270 Gb somewhere else then i wouldnt have a space for them. Could the error be related to the MBR or the MFT ? [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Restore Corrupted partition Wednesday, September 9, 2009 at 8:09 pm Posted by bob wells (1636 messages posted) All I can say is, you can try anything you wish, however you must do so, knowing that you put your valuable DATA at risk of total loss. "It sais its structure its corrupted" Proceed at your own peril. You got to this point by ignoring advice, do you need to loose all your Data to be convinced? On Wednesday, September 9, 2009 at 7:51 pm, Constantin wrote: >Ok it seems i cannot restore the partition and data in the same time. Actually yes, >i read about the advice to backup the partition first but i thought these errors >happend very rare. And i dont know what exactly means to backup? If it means to copy >all those 270 Gb somewhere else then i wouldnt have a space for them. Could the >error be related to the MBR or the MFT ? [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Restore Corrupted partition Wednesday, September 9, 2009 at 8:13 pm Posted by Steve (23810 messages posted) You need another Drive anyway. You have to have that much Data Stored on to two different Drives to be safe from Data Loss. Partition Software fails regularly when the Partitions have a lot of Data on them to move around. Contact the Maker of the Partition Software if you need info on any error messages. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Restore Corrupted partition Wednesday, September 9, 2009 at 8:19 pm Posted by Constantin (12 messages posted) Well i dont think i will try any more things except copying the files to another HDD. I do care about them. And i am also angry about how vulnerable are our digital/virtual things today. You would never lose printed photos, papers, evern CD`s as fast and easy as you can lose some files on a HDD. Thank you for your promptly advices ! [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Restore Corrupted partition Wednesday, September 9, 2009 at 10:06 pm Posted by bob wells (1636 messages posted) I agree, that's why I keep nothing of value stored on my Computer or external HDD's. Burn what's important and irreplaceable to CD/DVD then make a duplicate copy that's kept somewhere other than with your computer. Better yet somewhere besides home. One small fire could destroy it all. These humongeous HDDs are just an invitation for disaster. On Wednesday, September 9, 2009 at 8:19 pm, Constantin wrote: >Well i dont think i will try any more things except copying the files to another >HDD. I do care about them. And i am also angry about how vulnerable are our digital/virtual >things today. You would never lose printed photos, papers, evern CD`s as fast and >easy as you can lose some files on a HDD. Thank you for your promptly advices ! [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Restore Corrupted partition Thursday, September 10, 2009 at 6:46 am Posted by Ricer46 (23825 messages posted) rare does not mean never. To not backup important files is dumb To not backup files before resizing your partition is just flat stupid. YES, you were suppose to copy those 270 GB of files somewhere else, that's what the rest of us do. That's why I have 3 hard drives totaling 640GB. Stop worrying about why or what happened, because you will probably never know, just accept that "S**t Happens." Then go buy another drive, and cross your fingers that the data really is salvageable. On Wednesday, September 9, 2009 at 7:51 pm, Constantin wrote: >Ok it seems i cannot restore the partition and data in the same time. Actually yes, >i read about the advice to backup the partition first but i thought these errors >happend very rare. And i dont know what exactly means to backup? If it means to copy >all those 270 Gb somewhere else then i wouldnt have a space for them. Could the >error be related to the MBR or the MFT ? [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Restore Corrupted partition Thursday, September 10, 2009 at 8:52 am Posted by C K (6910 messages posted) Actually, even a well burned CD has an expected "real" life safely estimated at 3-5 years if stored properly. Past that, even if it "lives" another 20-90 years, you have no idea when it will fail. Some fail after a week of being burned in my experience, and the CD/DVD needs to be recorded to archival specs which, no typical user knows about or does. Even then, you have no way of anticipating that any disc has a bad spot, especially in the TOC (Table Of Contents) that can also lose your data, requiring still another recovery program. It can verify OK and in some situations, it could fail a short time later. Lesson that we old timers have learned (since I also work with large digital media files) is that I back up to two or more external drives and two sets of DVDR's. As for trying to fix your HDD.. The structure has been corrupted. That means that the FAT, (yes, NTFS has one basically, as does every file system) was being changed, the slack removed or added to match the cluster/sector length etc etc data being moved where needed. There is a lot that goes on, not just changing the boot sectors/record or the partition table. You would need to have a hard copy of the address of every bit of data, then totally verify and rearrange them back into the structure and addressing they were before. (rebuild the FAT AND the partition table, and the boot sectors etc) Needless to say, since humans work at a snails pace compared to a computer moving at a seemingly speed of light, your decsendents would still be working on it probably, after you trained them in how a drive works, and programming, and that's after the learning curve that you yourself would have to go through. By that time, we (humans) either won't be around anymore or the technology will have changed so much that HDD's will be in a museum (if any of them are still around)... NTFS is well known to have these issues, and is why the makers of Partition Magic (before snortin' Norton purchased them and ruined a fairly decent utility) recommended that NTFS be converted to FAT32 before resizing. Any compression and security had to be removed as that most likely would cause a failure in the resizing process. Possible then with 200-300 gig drives but with todays drives, the bigger they are, the higher the chances that they will corrupt no matter how good or bullet proof the vendor says it is. Now you know why it is easier for the recovery program to off load the files it finds, with still no guarantee that any of them will be "whole" files depending on the level of corruption. It also had no "reference" of where all those bytes were before the operation started, so no way to put them back where they were and rewrite the tables or the FAT. There is no way to verify a file is complete. They only give you a statistical chance. Even the professional software programs can't totally restore a drive once this has happened. Sometimes if the backup tables are good and match the structure, then a program can fix it and you are on your way, but they still recommend that you move your files to another drive, repartition and format the drive before you use it or trust it. Now you know! LOL Good Luck! [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Restore Corrupted partition Thursday, September 10, 2009 at 10:44 am Posted by Dan Sarandrea, MCSE (7132 messages posted) Did you use the Recovery Expert part of the Acronis Disk Director Suite to try to recover the lost D: partition? [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Restore Corrupted partition Thursday, September 10, 2009 at 1:24 pm Posted by Constantin (12 messages posted) Thanks for this reply it made me smile after i`v been quite depressed today. I actually did recovered my lost files on a new HDD wich i just brought today (or at least they seem recovered. I didnt checked everyone of them) Then i formated the D: partition and now its available again. This partition was also the place where i installed all my programs excepting Windows. I will try to copy them back on the new restored partition maybe they will work as installed?. They are still in the Windows registries I used to have 20 gb on the system partition but i guess it wasn`t enough with al the temporary files, updates and other Microsoft tools wich get installed through time. I will make it 40 Gb or so, I hope it willl be enough. I dont trust the Partition managers anymore from now on..Maybe converting to FAT before shrinking a partition could increase the chances of success but anyway... [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Restore Corrupted partition Thursday, September 10, 2009 at 1:49 pm Posted by C K (6910 messages posted) I used to install my programs to a different drive, but it became pointless after time went on, because even though the reg entries will still be there, you have no way of knowing that your program files are fully intact or if all of the associated files will be there, where the registry says they will be. Generally they will have to be reinstalled anyway. Was a good idea, but in the long run, really not practical. No partition manager is 100% reliable. Now on the other hand, imaging software is in my opinion, indispensible for backing up a full image of your physical drive. That would include your Windows install as well as your data when needed, or just individual partitions/logical drives like data only. That is my, as well as others favorite backup schemes here on this forum. In this way, you don't need to have your apps on a seperate drive/partition/logical drive.. You can image your Windows install and apps together in one shot. Restoring it when (not if) a disaster occurs, is a simple matter after a hardware meltdown, or data corruption/damage.. Good Luck! [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Restore Corrupted partition Thursday, September 10, 2009 at 1:52 pm Posted by Constantin (12 messages posted) I have some good news. Not only that i recovered my files but i`v also copied back some installed programs. I put them on the same folder as they were before and they seem to work as installed.. Their windows registries must still be available [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Restore Corrupted partition Saturday, September 19, 2009 at 5:42 am Posted by MartinM (7550 messages posted) Glad its all sorted. You were very lucky ! Since you have Acronis and now have a large external HDD, you simply must make a full image backup of your entire internal HDD. Then - whatever you, viruses, corrupt systems, partition managers, defragmenters, malicious users or anything else screws up - you can always go back to a known satisfactory state at the click of a few buttons (and a wait of some hours if its a big drive). Update the image regularly, verify the copy, and you are on your way to complete peace of mind :-) [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Restore Corrupted partition Saturday, September 19, 2009 at 10:34 am Posted by Constantin (12 messages posted) Thanks for the advice! Actually is not an external drive. And its 500 GB so its larger than my old 320 GB. Thats why i`v reinstalled Windows and programs on the new hard. Now i got 800 Gb available on 2 HDDs. I am using 2 partitions again. One with 50 gb for Win and the second with all programs and files. Should I make an image of the system partition and then backup or make a second image of the programs partition? A 320 Gb disk wont take 500 Gb for sure. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Restore Corrupted partition Saturday, September 19, 2009 at 2:10 pm Posted by MartinM (7550 messages posted) Of course it depends how full the 500Gb drive is ! If it has less than 320Gb in total you're OK for now. If you've used more than 320Gb in total you'll have to prioritise, or something. HDDs are so cheap that it might be worth getting something small to backup your OS partition which is, after all, not going to grow. If you cannot squeeze the rest on the 320Gb drive I'd stick to backing up your data - programs can be reinstalled so they're less critical. Hope this makes sense ? 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