How to recover corrupt files?

[jezze]

A couple of week ago my hard drive wasn't working right. I managed tofix it booting with the recovery console and using the tools that come with it. Now I can not read, delete, modify, etc some very important files. I was wondering if someone knows of a program I can use to try to repair those corrupt files.

 

[khha4113]

Sound like you have problem with permission not corrupted files. Log in as administrator and change permissions for your account.

Good or Bad have no meaning at all, depends on what your point of view is.

 

[jezze]

My "administrator" account is disabled. I use the "user" account which is part of the administrators group. isn't that enough?

 

[khha4113]

I use the "user" account which is part of the administrators group. isn't that enough?

No. In Workgroup or standalone workstation (which I believe is your case), even user that have administrator privilege cannot access files that belong to another user in administrator group if that user chooses to make them private (unless your computer is part of domain, then administrator has full access to all accounts' files).
By login as administrator, I meant you can login with your account (as it has admin right), and check your file's <b>properties\security</b> tab to see if you have full control of the file.

Good or Bad have no meaning at all, depends on what your point of view is.

 

[jezze]

Thanks for the info but it didn't work. Ilog in with the administrator account and I took ownership of the files I can't open plus gave my self full right(again) but it didn't work. I'm able to open the files but this is what I see:
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ß9>(§•–kt³¼ñ ’ ¡'RõÓx&Po5ÔÂ7üŽÄ¯ SÔ1
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!ÉãÍÌæ4‡Ø;GÂ3ÂŽ‰VÊ ©Q(ˆ
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Now I'm almost sure that those files(word, pdf,excel) are 100% corrupted.

 

[Codesmith]

If the files are truely corrupt there is on way to uncorrupt them. The parts of the files thate are corrupt are gone foverver.

If instead its just the file table thats messed up then there are plenty of programs that will let you recover your files. Though if the file table is in bad condition you may end up losing the file names and directly structure.

I prefer Forensic Utilities Suite and FinalData.

To maximize your change of recovery you should leave thedrive as untouched as possible. Don't boot from this drive, error check it or format it! Each such operation may overwrite area's of that still contain your lost files.

Install it as the secondary drive in a working system then run these utilities and see what it can recover. It will take many hours so leave then running overnight and check the results in the morning.

 

[zoo_lander]

I don't know if i'm a bit late to reply to your thread but if you check out GRC.COM you might find something, the guy who runs this site makes some decent tools.