Is it possible to "re-initialize" a failing hard disk?

wallywalters

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I have a hard drive I believe to be going bad in that it's reported as having bad sectors, Disk Manager wants me to initialize it and neither partition is recognized by the system (Windows 7).

I've already successfully retrieved my important files, so that isn't the issue. But both Ontrack Easy Recovery and GetDataBack are able to successfully see the partitions AND report the correct folder structure and file names, where Windows doesn't.

My question is, since the partition boundaries and file and folder names aren't totally lost, is there any software that will let me simply re-mount (if that's the correct term) those partitions intact into Windows one last time for double-checking before I wipe it? Thanks.
 

wallywalters

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Oh, this drive is being put out to pasture, not to worry. I've already replaced it, and recovered all the important files that were added since my Oct. 15 backup.

I just want to look through all the folders one more time to make sure I didn't miss anything... and it's MUCH faster going through Windows than a data recovery app, especially when it comes to searching by file creation date.
 

wallywalters

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Yes, I know, thanks. But because of the bad sectors, imaging will take a looong time, and I'd really rather just fire up the drive one last time in Windows.

Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful for your reply, but the question remains: since recovery programs can find the partitions and folder structures (and without having to "reconstruct" them), is there any software that will let me restore Windows' ability to see them too?
 
Ubuntu will sometimes mount a damaged NTFS file system when Windows cannot. You can boot from a Ubuntu Live CD.

That said, the fact that Windows is asking you to initialise the drive means that it cannot read sector 0. If that is the only problem, then this is easily fixed.

Could you show us the existing partition structure using DMDE (freeware disc editor)?