HELP!!.. How can I access my corrupted harddrive?

[mart442]

Hi all

I'm really hoping someone can help. I formatted my computer a few weeks ago and reinstalled Windows 7 Ultimate and since then one of my IDE harddrives has been really difficult to access. This drive contains photos and other files I really need and cannot be replaced!.. I stupidly haven't backed up much of the stuff on this drive so I desperately need to know if I can salvage it.

I have ran the checkdisk that Win 7 prompts me to do, it has given me unpredictable results, sometimes allowing me to access a folder and other times I receive the following message:

'Folder if not accessible. The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable.'

Even when I can access a folder many of the files appear to be there but actually do not properly open, they are just blank even if they are under the correct name and are JPG's and are 3 or so meg in size. The same goes for music files I have, they do not play.

Also, when I try to open a main folder on the drive I am told I do not have permission and would I like to continue, then I click continue and am given the main folder has a lock symbol next to it, I don't know what that is for but it's not normal.

What can I do?.. is there some software that can help?... any suggestions would be really appreciated!

Hope you can help!

Martin

 

[John_VanKirk]

Hi there,

Please be much more specific as to exactly what happened, and in what order to cause this problem. Having everyone think about it the same way and with more detailed information will get you the best solutution to the problem.

You mentioned you reformatted your system disc and reinstalled (cleanly?) Windows 7. Did you have just the system disk attached, or other HDD's on the computer when you reformatated the system disk? I don't see the connection at present between reinstalling Win-7 on one disk, and having a separate PATA HDD be involved or go bad. Could you have possibly had a virus on your system disk (reason for reinstallation) that might have infected other HDD attached to your MB? Needs clarification.

If your Win-7 is functioning and is free of any malware, run your antivirus program against the PATA containing your photos and music, to make sure it is free of critters also.

Then with it connected to your system, go to Disk Management, and in the lower graphical section, report the Disk and Volume status: The Disk status should say something like Disk 1 or Disk 2, Basic, Online, and the Volume Status should say something llike "My Photo Drive", (E), NTFS, 100 GB, Healthy.

Then please run Chkdsk /f /r on this disk and report back exactly what was found in Disk Management and with Chkdsk.

 

[mart442]

My computer just needed a format, it hadn't had one for quite some time. I do an AVG virus check every now and then, I have had the occasional warning of a trojan virus but that wasn't the reason for the format.

I did a clean install on a SATA drive. No other drives were attached during this, including the IDE drive.

Please let me know if any other info would help.

I'll do what you said and report back, thank you very much for your help.

 

[mart442]

When I initially try to scan the drive it doesn't scan anything, I then need to open each 'main' folder, for example 'my pictures' by clicking 'continue' when I receive the message, 'you don't currently have permission to access this folder'. I did that for all the main folder and then scanned the drive with AVG, no viruses have been found.

One curious thing is that all these folders have a padlock symbol on them.

I've now gone to the disk manager, this drive states: Disk 2 - Basic 232.88 GB, Online, Healthy (active, primary partition) NTFS

I'm about to do a Chkdsk on that drive, where can I see what Chkdsk has found?... when it finishes it just resets, is there some kind of log?

 

[mart442]

Can anyone offer me any more advice on this?...

I have done another chkdsk but there is no change.