Testdisk almost worked

Garg

I've got an external USB hard drive here at work that I can no longer open in Windows ("the device could not be opened because of an I/O error"). Disk Management shows a blank in the column for file system (it's actually NTFS). Scandisk didn't help.

I ran Testdisk according to Thrax's guide, and it was able to ID the partition. I told it to write the partition info, restarted, but it still won't open up. I'm going to try to get the boss to buy GetDataBack, but is there anything else I can try in the meantime?

Thanks,
Garg.

troll

I'd remove the drive from the USB case and plug it onto an IDE cable in a machine to do any work on it.

GetDataBack will work like a charm if the drive is not fried, Hopefully it's just the USB box causing your issue.

Thrax

Run chkdsk /r on the drive.

Garg

Thanks guys!

troll wrote:

I'd remove the drive from the USB case and plug it onto an IDE cable in a machine to do any work on it.

GetDataBack will work like a charm if the drive is not fried, Hopefully it's just the USB box causing your issue.

Unfortunately, it's a Maxtor branded disk/enclosure, not an enclosure that was bought empty and had a drive installed in it. It doesn't look like I can remove the drive.

Thrax wrote:

Run chkdsk /r on the drive.

I started running chkdsk /r before I left work today, and it found some errors right away. I thought Scandisk (with all the options checked) included chkdsk's functionality, but I guess not. We'll see in the morning how it worked

Thrax

You can remove drive from the maxtor enclosures. Pop a few pics up and I can probably get you on your way; I've disassembled most of them.

Garg

Chkdsk worked! Ah, the sweet sound of accessible data.

Backing things up now, before the drive gets moody again.