Restore FAT 32

Is it possible to restore the FAT-32 tables on a disk without necessarily losing the data on the disk? The cause of this disaster is unknoown but in mid-computation, the computer just shut down last week and when restarted refused to find the WD20gb drive, although the Maxtor 60gb slave was still accessible in dos.

At present, the computer(s) will not even see the disk and any attempt to fix it with Partition Magic (error 008), the Western Digital Lifeguard tools or Maxtor's "MAX-BLAST" have proven unsuccessful.

I've put it in as a Master, then Slave and it presently is in an external drive hsg and while it shews up on File Explorer as "M" and shows as shared, any attempt to access it produces a "Drive Not Ready" message. (It's jumpered as a "slave.... is that right?)

Help?

 

Does the drive mount in diskprobe? Can you view sectors? Its not clear to me if the disk is shot, or just not mountable. What do you see in device manager? will diskpart let you view the partition table? Does your bios detect the drive?

 

There are a few tools around to recover a messed up MBR.
(The drive must be back inside the box (ide) for these tools to work)
1. TESTDISK ... free and google for it (not so easy to use).
2. Partition Table Doctor ($35 i think but easy to use) http://www.ptdd.com/
3. For a FAT drive the DISKEDIT DOS tool (from Symantec system works any recent version) will work from a boot floppy and can even copy the backup of the FAT table (this probably is not needed). DISKEDIT is very low level so harder to use than either of the above tools.
4. WinHex ($50) but very low level runs inside windows and can see external drives.
Best

 

Hi p,

I take it that the drive is a Western Digital. Do the Lifeguard or MaxBlast utililities "see" the drive (when you have it on the IDE connection, it shows the drive's information)? If the utilities see the drive you can exit the utility program to a DOS prompt then copy any data you need to keep to another drive. After that, you could use a low-level (zero) format to completely wipe the drive, then use the utility (lifeguard?) to partition and format or use jubalsams' utilities to try to recover.

Is "M" a shared drive allocation that was given to it, or has "M" just shown up as a new drive?

Please give us some details on your drive, system and OS.

Matt

 

Replies

Lets take these in order:

JoeHobart: I'm not familiar with "Diskprobe" or "Diskpart ".
Under Fdisk the drive does not show up at all, nor did it (I think) show up in Device Mangler. I had thought it was just toastie but (see below)...

Jubalsams: Thanks for the tips but I'm tap-city for spending cash for a few months... gigs are few and far between at present! I did d/l M. Grenier's TestDisk but my, it IS a thorny little thing, innit? I'll need to put the disk back in the box and try it. Interesting, tho! I DO have the Symantec SysSuite but have had a few nasty experiences with it and will reserve that for a "no-options option "

Mattman: It is a Western Dubious WD200A 20GB but DataLifeGuard just returns an error (0008 if I remember, with an instruction to contact WD's support staff.... as an aside, since when has all the **** technical suport moved to Baluchistan? I tried talking to Linksys' tech support people and.... well, it wasn't pretty. I'll hold off on WD's tech line until I REALLY get desperate!) MaxBlast didn't find the disk either but it, at least, didn't castigate me with error codes... it just sat there and... sat there.

Now, as to "M ": When I put the thing in the External Housing and hooked it up it originally didn't show at all, so I rebooted and it did show up (in Windows' File Explorer) as "M ", although clicking on the icon produced nothing. The external is hooked up via USB. Yesterday AM I was futzing about and noticed that the external drive was powered off and so switched on the power: when the icon appeared on the file list I just hit it for the heck of it and my old "C" drive appeared!

It was up long enough for me to recover a few things (such as an Email backup) to a "native" drive... and then it disappeared again! After copying several other files (unfortunately I'd kept most of my data on the "E" drive which would have been the first logical drive on the extended partition) I clicked back to the "M" and while the drive icon was still there, the data was no longer accessible.

So, I rebooted (my version of two aspirin) and left the power on on the external and once the thing had finished, the drive was not longer shewing in the list at all.

So I turned off the external HD and rebooted, then once stable turned on the external's power and still no drive.

Gone again. I'm really stumped, now. How could it not show, then show, then not show?

I've checked all connections (changed USB cables, tried an external hub, put other USB devices thru the same connections with no problem) but (so far) the drive has not reappeared.

This is getting to be Rod Serling territory.

Thanks for the help so far! Any thoughts on this chazzerai?

 

Uggg. it may not be Twilight Zone ... but the drive electronics going ...

Here is another tool : DriveRescue is pretty good (and free). No longer supported but will pull stuff from deleted partitions. This is a direct download link:

http://www.planetmirror.com/pub/majorgeeks/drives/rescue.zip


Best

 

Apology

Have not had time to deal with all your great tips as I'm involved with Phila Folk Festival.... next week I'll have free time to get into this and will let you know what worked (I hope).

Thanks!

 

Sounds like its working till it gets a little heat in it.
Try putting it in the freezer and then connecting to retreive the rest of your data.

 

update

Still working on this.... it looks as though I really have to put the drive back into a box in order to get this thing recognized.... no problem, since I have several P-II and AMD chasses sitting about being end-tables at present. I just have to stick a processor and some RAM in one and give it a shot that way.

I fear that jubalsams is correct... drive electronics dying is most likely, but it's still within warranty and I know that Woefully Dubious is very good with replacements, having had a few in the past.

I do begin to wonder, however... of about 12 WD drives I've owned, these will be #4 & 5 which have died and gotten replaced... not what you might call a sterling track record, non? I'm sure that the amount of data we pack onto a fragile platter-series and the electronics needed to store and retreive same will be approaching their limits somewhere in the next few terrabytes. (I saw a Tiger ad for a MAX 200GB for about $150 the other day... Cheez, Louise! How much more can we cram into a 3.5 drive?)

Well....just venting. Thanks again to all and I'll be back as soon as I either conquer (???) or give up (MUCH more likely!).