recover external disk file structure

A forum on data recovery using the professional data recovery software R-STUDIO.
pete69
Posts: 3
Joined: Tue Dec 28, 2010 8:19 pm

recover external disk file structure

Post by pete69 » Tue Dec 28, 2010 8:32 pm

I am using a WD mirror 2TB drive (raid1 i.e 1TB storage) on a Linksys E3000 wirless router with USB connector for attached storage.

My Win7 backup tried to backup to the online drive (it has managed it before) when something went wrong. The route was no longer accessible although still allowing internet throughput. I powered down the router (pulled the plug) and on restart my main partition on the attached drive was not recognised by the router.
On direct connection to my PC the drive was reported as being corrupt.

I have made an image of the drive and am slowly going through the file types.

I was wondering is it likely that the MFT file has just become damaged? is there a chance of recovering the disk before failure with its entire file structure in place. It will take a long time to go through 12million files manually :shock:

Any help would be much appreciated.

Alt
Site Moderator
Posts: 3129
Joined: Tue Nov 11, 2008 2:13 pm
Contact:

Re: recover external disk file structure

Post by Alt » Wed Dec 29, 2010 9:49 am

I believe that you Linksys router works under a sort of custom Linux, therefore the disk should be formatted as Ext2/3/4FS rather than NTFS.
You may scan the drive and most likely you should find your corrupted partition with most files being recoverable. See Disk Scan in the R-Studio on-line help for more details on disk scans.
BTW, my Asus router experiences the same problem quite often. I have to use my old computer as an FTP and network share server.

pete69
Posts: 3
Joined: Tue Dec 28, 2010 8:19 pm

Re: recover external disk file structure

Post by pete69 » Wed Dec 29, 2010 10:12 am

Thanks Alt, your right in the Linksys software but they do say it will work with ntfs.
Lesson learnt the hard way.
I have scanned my disk but to be honest I get a strange result in that the easiest recoverable files are those from my PC which were only on the drive in win7 backup form. Very little has been found of the files that were there :?

Alt
Site Moderator
Posts: 3129
Joined: Tue Nov 11, 2008 2:13 pm
Contact:

Re: recover external disk file structure

Post by Alt » Wed Dec 29, 2010 11:11 am

Well, when a Linux NTFS driver crashes an NTFS disk, it crashes it completely. This is a problem with all non-Microsoft NTFS drivers.
Still, strange enough that R-Studio found so few files, there still must be tracks of them on the disk.
Did the scan find the right partition, and if yes, which color is it?

pete69
Posts: 3
Joined: Tue Dec 28, 2010 8:19 pm

Re: recover external disk file structure

Post by pete69 » Wed Dec 29, 2010 12:31 pm

I have scanned the H: Partition (the damaged one).
I have 3 green recognised sets and 72 orange sets.
Only 1 green set shows the correct capacity with the correct start and stop points.
It has approx 11million files in 20,000 folders totaling 2.18TB (on a 831gb partition).
There is very little structure to this with most folders and files being given numeric names.
As mentioned previously, it appears to be the files of my C: drive when I go through them.

Should I have scanned the entire drive rather then the partition?

I am working from an image rather then the disk.

Alt
Site Moderator
Posts: 3129
Joined: Tue Nov 11, 2008 2:13 pm
Contact:

Re: recover external disk file structure

Post by Alt » Wed Dec 29, 2010 2:24 pm

I think it's worth trying, but I'd put the hope on the scan for known file types, which can be done simultaneously.

Post Reply