MFT and MFT backup both bad, any suggestions?

CuckooCuckoo
edited February 2011 in Hardware
Recently my 750GB storage drive decided to become entirely corrupt/unreadable. This is purely a storage drive and contains no OS/few deleted files. Upon running TestDisk it informed me that both of the master file tables are bad and therefore unrecoverable through this tool. Upon more research I found some other information suggesting a few tools for this specific problem. These tools were GetDataBack, Zero Assumption Recovery, and a third one which the demo version only allows recovery of files up to 128kb rendering it entirely useless IMO. GetDataBack did not find anything interesting except some jibberish files which were of no meaning to me (likely from AVG antivirus or something). The only program which has given me any sort of success has been Zero Assumption Recovery. This program takes quite some time to run (~1hr on a quadcore) and seems to recover my entire or what looks like most of my entire file table. The only problem is this program too, requires payment in order to restore more than 4 folders consecutively, and given that I've 750GB of Movies, Mp3s, TV series, games, etc. organized very meticulously, there are approximately ~10,000+ folders and at 1 hour runtime this would take forever. I was looking for a similar alternative that could possibly restore more/all of my files without payment or for less than the cost of that program which I believe might run me $60 if I find no alternative solution. I tried downgrading to the version 8.3 of ZAR and it seemed to lock up and fail entirely, which the newer one does sometimes but not every time. When trying to end process it forces me to reboot adding even more frustration to the idea of doing 4 folders at a time WHEN IT WORKS and rebooting each time it fails. Any suggestions in regards to any of this, even if it is simply a solution for how to force the ZAR.exe process to end? ANY advice would be greatly appreciated as this is essentially my lifelong collection of music/film/etc.


Edit: Windows XP SP3 NTFS.

Comments

  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited February 2011
    Try Recuva.
  • CuckooCuckoo
    edited February 2011
    Thrax wrote:
    Try Recuva.
    Recuva just said "failed to find MFT" and didn't do a damn thing. already did. I need something capable of restoring a MFT basically. nothing has seemed successful except ZAR
  • ardichokeardichoke Icrontian
    edited February 2011
    If both the MFT and the backup MFT are damaged you're most likely going to end up having to pay for commercial software. I'm aware of no free software that can pull off such recovery on NTFS. If your data is that important, it should be worth it to pay 30 bucks for some software that can save it. You should also take this as a lesson: backup backup backup.
  • allenpanallenpan ThunderBay, Ontario, CAnada Icrontian
    edited February 2011
    use GetDataBack NTFS

    if not i think demo allows u restore with limitation
    http://www.runtime.org/data-recovery-software.htm

    it also allows u to recover from a hdd with bad sector, just need to punch in the bad sector location to skip and avoid it
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited February 2011
    He already tried GDB and said it did not work.
  • allenpanallenpan ThunderBay, Ontario, CAnada Icrontian
    edited February 2011
    ooops read it too fast
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