Disk read error - Possible ntfs partition corruption

[Deleted member 397]

hello, sorry to make my first post a cry for help.

I have 2 hard drives:
40GB Seagate - Master
20GB Maxtor - Slave

and had two OSes:
WinXp Pro SP2 on Master
Fedora core 4 on Slave

On the master, i have four drives:
C: -- windows
**Extended Partition
D: -- Programs
E: -- Documents
X: -- localhost (Test web server)

I usually install every application the D drive, and have all my pictures, music, etc on the E drive. Although, i had a few small but important files on the desktop (which inevitably was stored on the C drive, of course)

I installed Fedora because I'm interested in Linux and have recently been dipping my toes in various distributions. I decided that Fedora was still too unstable to be kept, and deleted it. Using fixmbr in the Windows recovery console to get the windows boot loader back on, i restarted, and immediately got the error "A Disk read error has occurred. Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart".
I really needed those files on the desktop, so i got my simplyMEPIS CD and installed that onto the Slave drive, and used K3B to burn all my documents and stuff to DVD, (which, incidentally I've done twice before, with exactly three months between backups, on account of windows becoming unstable and crashing both times). I was able to read the D (hda5), E (hda6), and X (hda7) drives, but not the C (hda1), which led me to believe that the partition itself might be corrupt, like the meta-data or something. I have since installed windows Xp over Linux on the Slave, and tried some recovery tools that I have, but no luck.

Has anyone got any idea how this happened, and what is a possible way to recover the data on the C drive?
Thanks for bearing with this long post.

 

[Mercutio]

Cripes man, this is not a long post. Trust me.

Alright, first thing first, most likely, your MFT has gone off in the weeds. That's not THAT big of a deal, but if there's no working copies of it or its file index, you have real work ahead of you. The fact that Windows acknowledges that there is enough of a file system that it's TRYING to read something is actually fairly positive. Of course, don't let anything write to your problem child, but it's probably worthwhile to check what Disk Management has to say about it.

Second, you normally need another drive to do recovery with. Hopefully you have something on hand. I know you're only looking for a couple files; I've used flash cards for small recoveries, but I tend to worry about the integrity of data on any drive with a corrupted partition.

Third... you don't mention what tools you've tried, but GetDataBack NTFS has worked miracles for me. *ANY* data recovery takes patience, and any tool that works quickly isn't doing what it's supposed to. Just about any reputable product offers a trial version, too, so don't be afraid to go looking for different things.

Um... Make sure you've used the relevant manufacturer's tool to ensure the physical integrity of the drive. In my experience, if the drive isn't in the process of dying, you should be able to get most if not all of the data off of it once you find a tool that works for you.

 

[Deleted member 397]

ta muchly, Mercutio. All recovered. Pity i can't recover the whole partition. Then i wouldn't have to reinstall windows. did i mention i can recite my key from memory? :roll: I like linux....
ta again, you've saved my files' lives. wneddnce: (Heh, i like that guy!)