Diskpatch help

[Madman_Greg]

Hi, I have an issue with my hard and am trying the DiskPatch demo, with a view to purchase if it enables me to recovery my data.

The error message I get when trying to boot the PC is as follows, A disk read error occured" Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart

I have started the PC with Diskpatch and basically, I see with status screen, but no info in the data files (e.g. Current disk / Scan complete etc....)

The diskpatch program has been running for some 20 minutes or so, the disk light is on...


The disk size is 160GB, is the above normal, should Diskpatch takes this long to scan the drive ?

Thanks for any replies

[Joep]

Hello,

I don't understand ...

I see with status screen, but no info in the data files (e.g. Current disk / Scan complete etc....)

What data files? The logfiles? Can we see?

The diskpatch program has been running for some 20 minutes or so, the disk light is on...

What kind of scan? A partition repair or a surface scan?

[Madman_Greg]

The Discpath programe does not get to show me the disk that is installed, so I do not even get to see a scan option.

I connected the disk (SATA) via a USB caddy to another PC on the weekend, it recognised it, but windows stopped the device.

Are there any options for starting Diskpatch with any DOS switches to see if I can get it to recognise the disk.


The disk is spinning and the green disk light is on. 

Thanks again

[Joep]

it's on ALL the time?

[Madman_Greg]

Yes the disk light is on from the moment Diskpatch starts up.

I guess there are some bad sectors it cannot read.

Thanks

[Joep]

Hello,

Ah, doesn't sound too good. If you start DiskPatch with the /NPF and /DNC parameters (DP.EXE /NPF /DNC), does it get any further then?

[Madman_Greg]

Yes that worked, but trying a full scan got stuck around 35%.

What would you suggest I do next.

Thanks

[Tom]

During that scan, did you observe the read error counter go up? What was the displayed value?
Have you aborted the scan, and if so, how? Is there a log file (in the DPFILES folder) and if so, please post it.
This may be obvious but the caddy has it's own powersupply, yes? Just checking...

Just to be clear here: the USB connected caddy thing may work, but in this type of scenario it is always best to connect the disk directly, and preferably to the original PC. Unless that PC is known to cause trouble, but that doesn't seem to be the case. If another PC is used then connect the disk directly to that PC.

[Madman_Greg]

Thanks this may take some time, I need to try and see if a USB stick will work to store this on, or find a floppy disk (now what do they look like  )

Then I can run through the various diags and save the reports. If I can get the USB to work, then it will be easy. If I can't then I can  run LINUX from a CD to copy from the floppy disk to USB.

I will get back to you.

[Tom]

I asked some questions in my previous post, please answer them.
A USB key will work fine (to save log files to) but you must make sure it's formatted as FAT or FAT32.

Copying the floppy image to USB won't work, but if it does (maybe you know something we don't) i'd like to know how you did that.

[Madman_Greg]

Sorry its taken some time, but I finally got back to my disk problem.

I tested writing to a USB stick by creating a analysis log by scanning the USB stick. So got that to work.

I then set about running the analysis log against the problem drive. It has not finished yet and has stopped around a third of the way through the disk (according to the sector count).

I have the following message

Maximum read errors (32) reached at 110093461, select one of the following

Reset read errors. continue operation
Disable read retries, continue operation
Disable Read Error threshold, continue operation

What would be the best operation to go forward with

Thanks

[Tom]

Well, this means that the disk is in bad shape. You say a third of the way through the scan, and this particular scan doesn't read all sectors on the disk (just the ones that may hold partition information) so it's safe to assume that there are many more sectors that will give read problems. Not good.
You might as well stop this scan, you know what you need to know now: the disk is bad. And in this state it's a bad idea to perform a partition repair.

If the disk holds information that you need back you should clone the disk as soon as possible, and then work from the clone.

Is that disk still connected through a USB caddy? If so, that's not the best way to access the disk, and most certainly not the best way when you want to clone a disk. It would be best if you could connect the disk directly to a connector (SATA you said, i believe) and then continue working with it.

[Madman_Greg]

If the disk holds information that you need back you should clone the disk as soon as possible, and then work from the clone.

Is that disk still connected through a USB caddy? If so, that's not the best way to access the disk, and most certainly not the best way when you want to clone a disk. It would be best if you could connect the disk directly to a connector (SATA you said, i believe) and then continue working with it.

The disk is connected via the SATA connector in the PC, not the caddy.

The create analysis log has stopped at 35%, after running all night, with the ignore error count option selected.

Are you able to recommended a clone software to use. I have a second (good) disk in the PC, which has windows on one partition (primary boot) and a number of other data partitions (non boot).

Thanks   

[Tom]

First: if the pc has been at this analysis log all night, things are bad. Again.

Second: when cloning a disk everything on the target disk is destroyed. Obviously, since cloning means that each and every sector of the source disk is copied to the target disk. So make sure that, IF you decide to clone the disk, you have a target disk that doesn't contain anything that you need. It is, in fact, best to wipe the entire target disk before starting a clone, but this is not mandatory.

Third: DiskPatch is able to clone bad disks (it is in fact one of the primary recovery functions in DiskPatch) but i'm not all that positive about the outcome; the problem disk seems to be in real bad shape. But like i said, if you have data on the source disk that you need back, try a clone. It's the best way to go from here.

[Madman_Greg]

OK thanks....

so just to ensure I get this right.

I need an empty disk, formatted for NTFS that I do not wanted trashed by the Clone.

Does the Clone s/w function from the Demo ISO disk, as a test ?

Thanks again