Why SOOOOOOOOOOOOO LONG? GRR

[Glenn71x]

I am trying to recover files from a failed 40 gig laptop drive. I have hooked up the drive up with an IDE converter to my main PC. I am doing a full format recovery since the drive is not even readable. Anyhow...the search has now been going on for 22 hours and it is only at 144767 out of 78140160 ! Thats not even 10% At this rate it is going to be scanning for 10 days. What gives? Why so slow ?

Thanks
Glenn

[GDH]

The drive is connected via IDE so it should not be a speed thing.

What file types to you have selected? When you run a Complete Format Recover you need only selelct .doc, .xls, .bmp, .jpeg, .pdf, .zip, .avi - these files are used to find missing file system and reconstruct all of it, not just these file types. If you have added additional file types it is not required and will only slow the program down. You can remove file types whilst the search is in progress by clicking on the OPTIONS button, FILE TYPES tab and making the selection.

The only other reason for going slowly is that the drive has bad sectors.

[Glenn71x]

It has bad sectors thats what probably led to the drive totally crashing. Don't most crashed hard drives have bad sectors? I have not checked any additional files. I actually removed some. I think I checked 4 file types. This really does seem like it is going to take over a week.

[GDH]

Windows likes to try and read a bad sector multiple times before it gives up and moves on to the next one.

The only thing you can try is to try and miss the bad sectors (they are usually grouped together) by going to OPTIONS - ADVANCED and putting a tick in the box for "prompt for start cluster". It may take some experimenting to work out where the bad parts of the disk are.