I've tried recently to format my hard disk drive whose partition turned out to be corrupted. Unfortunately, the formatting is not succesful and it's temporarily rendered useless. is there any program that would help recover my HDD or does it really mean i'll have to let it retire?
Hard Disk Rescue
That depends on how much money and time you want to spend.
OnTrack (www.ontrack.com) has several recovery tools. EasyRecovery™ DataRecovery 6.1 - Standard Edition may help but it lists for $199.
OnTrack (www.ontrack.com) has several recovery tools. EasyRecovery™ DataRecovery 6.1 - Standard Edition may help but it lists for $199.
What vendor is your HDD? First of all you should try to install some tools of your vendor to diagnose your disk.They can be downloaded from the hdd vendor site. You can also download Hien Boot CD or Ultra Boot Cd it has most of those tools on live CD.It will also help you to clone your hdd for further recovery and recover files you need.
There are a lot of things you can try. I guess you don't need the data again, because you already tried to format it.
First thing you can try is deleting the partitions (for example with your windows-installcd or with a linuxinstall cd) and create one or more new ones. After that you can try to format those. If this doesn't work because of hardware problems (bad sectors etc.) your harddisk is damaged and you can save yourself the time and buy another one, because even if you manage to fix it this time you can't trust the drive anymore.
JohanFH
First thing you can try is deleting the partitions (for example with your windows-installcd or with a linuxinstall cd) and create one or more new ones. After that you can try to format those. If this doesn't work because of hardware problems (bad sectors etc.) your harddisk is damaged and you can save yourself the time and buy another one, because even if you manage to fix it this time you can't trust the drive anymore.
JohanFH
There are a million and one sulutions for getting ur data back off the drive. Just take ur choice of the programs out there. A google search should give you plenty of options.
As for formatting the drive. I would go back to the manufacturer and get thier software. All drive makers have software avail on thier website (you can make a floppy or CD from iso images). Using the software you can reformat the drive and create partitions according to the manufacturer's specs. Whenever I had a prob with formatting a drive this always works like a charm.
You can then istall windows like normal.
Hope this helps
As for formatting the drive. I would go back to the manufacturer and get thier software. All drive makers have software avail on thier website (you can make a floppy or CD from iso images). Using the software you can reformat the drive and create partitions according to the manufacturer's specs. Whenever I had a prob with formatting a drive this always works like a charm.
You can then istall windows like normal.
Hope this helps
Try Symantec Partition Magic, if it doesn't work, e-mail me, I have a document with tons of tips, and if you don't get a solutions after all that, quit the cheap life, and buy a hard drive.
Its probably too little, too late. But a program that I wish I had known about back when Partition Magic corrupted my Windows partition is TestDisk. It can find corrupt or deleted partitions often the result of a partition manager gone wrong. Its available on the GParted Live CD here. Burn the ISO to a CD as Disk Image. When it boots (you will have to select boot options as they pertain to your machine and then right-click the desktop and select TestDisk. =) detailed instructions
You also might want to try a low level format (your HDD manufacturer should have a utility for this) then after that is complete, try a normal format again.
Most likely the drive is dead and needs to be replaced. Hard drive diagnostic utilities from the drive manufacturer will tell you for sure though.
Most likely the drive is dead and needs to be replaced. Hard drive diagnostic utilities from the drive manufacturer will tell you for sure though.
I Tend to use paragon partition manager:-
http://www.partition-manager.com/
It has never messed up anything since i have been using it, it's also pretty straight forward yet powerful. However it does cost money.
Im not 100% this will do what you want but you could download and try one of the live FREE Linux cd's such as Ubuntu which will allow you to boot directly from the CD and also has disk partition tools built in.
There are also a couple of freeware partitioning tools available niehter of which i have tried but may be worth a look:-
Cute Partition Manager:-
http://www.cutepm.com/screens.htm
Ranish Partition Manager:-
http://www.ranish.com/part/
You can also boot from a windows 2000 / XP CD which has a partition manager built in although very basic.
You may find if the partition itself is corrupted that you will have to delete the partition(s) and then low level format the drive.
http://www.partition-manager.com/
It has never messed up anything since i have been using it, it's also pretty straight forward yet powerful. However it does cost money.
Im not 100% this will do what you want but you could download and try one of the live FREE Linux cd's such as Ubuntu which will allow you to boot directly from the CD and also has disk partition tools built in.
There are also a couple of freeware partitioning tools available niehter of which i have tried but may be worth a look:-
Cute Partition Manager:-
http://www.cutepm.com/screens.htm
Ranish Partition Manager:-
http://www.ranish.com/part/
You can also boot from a windows 2000 / XP CD which has a partition manager built in although very basic.
You may find if the partition itself is corrupted that you will have to delete the partition(s) and then low level format the drive.
 |