Work: Hard Drive Recovery

Today I have been working on recovering some data from this failed hard drive. I took the usual steps before ruling out basic software corruption, CHKDSK (within RC), attempted enumeration of DIR etc. The results continued to point to a hardware failure. In most cases that I have personally seen, if the OS or some driver is not allowing you to boot, Windows will still let you go into Safe Mode. In this case it wasn't. Another thing, if it's mere OS corruption, you can "see" the directories and files via RC. In this instance, I was not able to do either, and CHKDSK continued to report errors, in fact it was not even able to complete the diagnostic, it failed around 38%.

Fortunately (mostly for convenience) I purchased the VANTEC CB-ISATAU2 SATA/IDE to USB 2.0 Adapter. This useful adapter of course allowed you to connect SATA/IDE drives via USB. This usefulness of this inexpensive product is transparent to any admin that has had to diagnose, troubleshoot, format, recover data etc. from a "bad" hard drive. Hard drives that go bad isn't an uncommon thing, and it especially isn't an uncommon thing when you have more than a few computers in your network. You're bound to see one, the question is just when.

So I removed the HDD and hooked it up to the adapter and heard XP's dong-ding! Now this drive had two partitions, it was the first one that was inaccessible--the partition that had the data that was needed--of course.

Now since the past several failed drives I've had to recover data from, I've tried a few tools. I've tried "Recover My Files" which had a very nice interface and many options and configuration settings to play with. It also has a feature that will attempt to give you a preview of the file it has found (useful for those times when files lose their names!

However, even though I have used it, I have a fondness at the moment for D.A.R.T. XP by DTI Data. I've used it a few times now and have been successful and not only recovering the data (from bad HDDs) but also doing it in a quick manner. Now I have not tried many other programs you may use, but I have tried DART XP, and so far I like it.

One of the reasons I prefer it to Recover My Files, is it is a small, low-overhead semi-self contained program. Unlike RMF, it doesn't need to be installed. You simply run it. Also unlike RMF, there is no need to screw around with a ton of configuration settings (which at times can be cumbersome.) You simply tell it which Logical or Physical drive you wish to scan and hit NEXT. Once it is done (relatively short while, depends on size, speed etc.,) you choose which files you wish to recover. Now of course it has its cons. It doesn't have most of the nice features programs like Recover My Files have, such as previewing the file you wish to recover and the filter isn't as strong either if you wish to scan for more specific files. Another thing which I actually find annoying is there doesn't seem to be no apparent way to move the program window around! It pops up in the middle of your screen (not "always on top" mode though) and cannot be minimized or expanded. If you found out how let me know, this is freaking annoying, then again, it's not that big of a deal.


Once you have selected the directories or files you wish to recover you select Next and it will allow you to choose a directory to place the recovered files. After that it will keep you posted on its progress in MB, time, folders and files. Ultimately I find this program to be a nice little tool in my "Admin Tools" arsenal, on my USB drive. The program is also not very expensive in my opinion, especially now, $49.00 at the moment, it is on sale, normally goes for $99. http://www.dtidata.com/file-recovery-programs.html

 Anyway, I am still working on this machine's recovery, and DART XP has done its job, again. (As I look through this post, it totally seems like a marketing post, I swear it's not, >_<.