Major disaster.. Lost all Celestia work!

[t00fri]

CC,

while I can't guarantee, I suppose copying from your disk should be OK. CHCKDSK has repaired your disk to be logically consistent (otherwise it would complain). So despite looking incorrect at places (wrong dir naming), it should behave like an intact file system more or less.

In unix terminology this "safe removal" is just to mean that the drive has to be unmounted before unplugging it...

Fridger

Thanks for the comment Fridger. I'm sure you're right. I suspect however that any folders which have become "inaccessible" / corrupted (as above) will not be copied, because the windows "copy" will use the index.
I believe the best chance of retrieving lost files will be using some sort of clone tool to get the files onto another disk, and then rebuild the master file index from that. I just don't know which tool would be the best to use.

I understand the reasons for "Safe Removal". The main reason is to ensure that all cached writes are completed before un-plugging, and no files are still open in applications.
It's just frustrating that it sometimes seems to refuse to "complete". This really needs to be 100% reliable in my opinion.
I'm not sure what the cause of this is, but I suspect that windows explorer is sometimes the culprit as there is a long known bug which causes it to leave "open locks" on files. (I think some other apps have the same problem sometimes.)
This I guess could cause the "Safe Removal" to "hang" like it does sometimes.

CC

CC,

indeed, I would not use the high-level copy command of Windows. It is much preferrable to use a low-level, partition-based copy. I know that certain drive vendors offer such software free of charge on their sites. Seagate, for example, has "DiscWizard", which is quite convenient. Some time ago, they stated that at least one of the two involved drives should be from Seagate. Then there is of course Norton's Ghost which costs only little if you don't own it already.

The situation is much easier (and more elegant) in case of multi-OS setups, with Linux residing on some partition. The Linux low-level copy is 'dd' and already part of the system. It copies virtually anything! All you got to do then is one command line like in the simples case,

dd if=/dev/sdb3 of=sdb3.img

dd is a most versatile command with many more options! You can of course send the output also over the network to some other drive etc. The output partition image sdb3.img can then easily be mounted under Linux on a healthy harddisk. This is perfect, since after mounting, you can investigate the file system in detail, retrieve modify etc..

You can also write an .iso file instead and either mount it or burn it with image-burn mode on a DVD. There is free Windows software allowing to mount .iso files under Windows. too.

As to "safe removal": Personally I would recommend to switch off the cached write mode in case of external USB drives. This makes the drive slower, of course, but much much safer! Since the purpose of an USB drive is mostly NOT to "break speed records" ,but rather to be seen in it's mobility etc. (remember USB 2.0 is pretty slow already, compared to internal drives)

Good luck,
Fridger

[Chuft-Captain]

Thanks,

DiscWizard might be a possibility...I have a feeling that the damaged USB drive is a Seagate drive... and if not I guess I could buy a Seagate replacement, which would satisfy the "1 of them being a Seagate" requirement.

One thing I didn't specify when doing the original CHKDSK, was to check for bad blocks/sectors. (I just did CHKDSK /F )
I wonder if the more thorough test might do a better job of the repair???

Cheers
CC

[Guckytos]

Thanks,

DiscWizard might be a possibility...I have a feeling that the damaged USB drive is a Seagate drive... and if not I guess I could buy a Seagate replacement, which would satisfy the "1 of them being a Seagate" requirement.

One thing I didn't specify when doing the original CHKDSK, was to check for bad blocks/sectors. (I just did CHKDSK /F )
I wonder if the more thorough test might do a better job of the repair???

Cheers
CC

Hi Chuft-Captain,

if I may give you an advice: Copy everything you can, while you can!

With other words, make first a backup of all the data you can access and only then even think about doing a more thorough check with CHKDSK. In the wors case, if the HDD acts up again you could loose all.
You could either use the Seagate drive or try to download and run a Live Linux system to do a low level copy as Fridger described. Or perhaps, if it allows it try to use something TrueImage for Windows (Trial Version, but only if it let's you store and restore) or look if you can grab an older version that was bundled with an PC magazine. The older one will normally do the job you want it to do.

Regards,

Guckytos

[t00fri]

CC,

here is the link for downloading the latest SuSE 11.2 LIVE .iso file.

http://software.opensuse.org/112/en

Burn it and boot: then from a console you can either backup your entire USB disk with 'dd' or just copy a partition and mount it....

Fridger

[Fenerit]

Thanks,
.
.
One thing I didn't specify when doing the original CHKDSK, was to check for bad blocks/sectors. (I just did CHKDSK /F )
I wonder if the more thorough test might do a better job of the repair???

Cheers
CC

If there are sectors logically broken, it could achieve a good result. With sectors physically broken not, of course. In the case your HD was to be recovered, I suggest to copy all and then reformatting, because it should be a working HD too.