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Thread: Recover data from corrupted NTFS boot drive marked as RAW

  1. #1

    Thread Starter
    VB Addict Pradeep1210's Avatar
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    Recover data from corrupted NTFS boot drive marked as RAW

    Due to a recent power failure, my system became unbootable. Fortunately my OS (windows 7) was installed on a different drive than my boot drive & I also had some unformatted space on my harddisk. So after trying a few things to boot it all of which failed, I installed a fresh instance of windows 7 in the unformatted partition, and made it the bootable drive. Then I added my old working OS to the Boot Menu and my old OS is accessible again. I was desperately needing this because I didn't wanted to install everything afresh.

    My drive letters have changed in the new installed OS. The old bootable drive which was C: is now D: and is showing the filesystem as RAW. The drive contents are inaccessible. When I try to open that drive, I get either of these two messages:
    "D: is not accessible. The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable."
    or,
    "The parameter is incorrect."

    Running CHKDSK from command prompt still detects it correctly as NTFS file system, though it can't finish checking the whole drive.
    Name:  chkdsk-result-on-corrupted-drive.png
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Size:  73.9 KB

    This is an overview of how my system looks at present:
    Name:  file-system-after-OS-reinstall.png
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Size:  123.6 KB

    So now I have two problems left:
    1. Recovering the C: drive (now D: drive). I know that the drive contents are intact and safe; only my MBR is corrupted.
    So it would be good if I can find any free tool that can fix the MBR if possible, or recover the entire drive contents otherwise.
    I have tried quite a few tools, but they don't list the D: drive in the list of drives they find. A few of them that show the corrupted drive in their list are not able to work in it, one error or the other and they give up.

    2. The file access to all drives has become utterly slow. To backup a mere 3.5 GB of data from E: drive, took more than 24 hours and still didn't complete. So I gave up. Though I can see the files in the drive and use them properly. But I can't backup the files to any external drive.
    Pradeep, Microsoft MVP (Visual Basic)
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  2. #2
    Addicted Member pcuser's Avatar
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    Re: Recover data from corrupted NTFS boot drive marked as RAW

    TestDisk is an excellent freeware (OpenSource) utility that I would personally use before any commercial product for a situation such as yours.

  3. #3
    Frenzied Member TheBigB's Avatar
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    Re: Recover data from corrupted NTFS boot drive marked as RAW

    Chkdsk might be able to fix it, but might also be able to corrupt some files.
    Using parameters '/f/r/x' it should run till the end.
    But note this is something you might want to keep as last resort.
    Delete it. They just clutter threads anyway.

  4. #4

    Thread Starter
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    Re: Recover data from corrupted NTFS boot drive marked as RAW

    Quote Originally Posted by pcuser View Post
    TestDisk is an excellent freeware (OpenSource) utility that I would personally use before any commercial product for a situation such as yours.
    Already tried TestDisk. It didn't work.

    Quote Originally Posted by TheBigB View Post
    Chkdsk might be able to fix it, but might also be able to corrupt some files.
    Using parameters '/f/r/x' it should run till the end.
    But note this is something you might want to keep as last resort.
    CHKDSK runs at every system startup but in the end it ends with a message saying there is not enough disk space to write changes to the MFT. So after letting it run for the first few startups, I now cancel it because it does no good; it might instead be corrupting more files.
    Pradeep, Microsoft MVP (Visual Basic)
    Please appreciate posts that have helped you by clicking icon on the left of the post.
    "A problem well stated is a problem half solved." — Charles F. Kettering

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    (2010-2013)
    NB: I do not answer coding questions via PM. If you want my help, then make a post and PM me it's link. If I can help, trust me I will...

  5. #5

    Thread Starter
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    Re: Recover data from corrupted NTFS boot drive marked as RAW

    Ok I ran CHKDSK C: /F/R/X/B and this is what comes up.
    The exact error message is:
    Correcting errors in the Master File Table (MFT) mirror.
    Insufficient disk space to repair master file table (MFT) mirror.
    CHKDSK aborted.
    Name:  chkdsk-error.png
Views: 3642
Size:  78.8 KB
    Pradeep, Microsoft MVP (Visual Basic)
    Please appreciate posts that have helped you by clicking icon on the left of the post.
    "A problem well stated is a problem half solved." — Charles F. Kettering

    Read articles on My Blog101 LINQ SamplesJSON ValidatorXML Schema Validator"How Do I" videos on MSDNVB.NET and C# ComparisonGood Coding PracticesVBForums Reputation SaverString EnumSuper Simple Tetris Game


    (2010-2013)
    NB: I do not answer coding questions via PM. If you want my help, then make a post and PM me it's link. If I can help, trust me I will...

  6. #6

    Re: Recover data from corrupted NTFS boot drive marked as RAW

    Hello, from my experiences, without any write protection, it is always easy to convert drive RAW file system back to NTFS. But, before you start to format this drive from RAW to NTFS, I also want to ask whether there are still very, very important data stored on this drive.
    If you do left something useful there, do not format this drive before you extract your drive data out from this drive with RAW file system drive recovery software. But, if you do leave nothing valuable there, merely format it to restore its common use carefully.
    Hope these words can help you out.

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