How do I go about this then?! Please help me if you can

[mr_chimp]

Hi, I had alot of videos and mp3's saved on my xbox hardrive. Whilst ftp'ing some files over it froze up.

The file is partitioned with c: and E: being designated for operating system and apps, and F: being the biggest and with all the vids etc on.

I reinstalled an O.S on the C: and E; partions - being very careful to leave the F drive well alone.

I plugged the drive into my computer after someone recommended RMF. And running the software it seems to find lots of files, however I was hoping to get an idea of the best way of going about retrieving the files.


The F: partition has not been formatted or had anything written to it since the crash. ISO game images can be ftp'ed off the drive but the video, audio and picture folders show empty - although the space is still taken up on the drive.

Any help would be very much appreciated!

[GDH]

Hi,

The best thing to try to start with would be a "Fast Format Recover" of the "physical drive".

This search should find all three partitions are rebuild the file system to show you all files in "folder view" of the results screen. It is a fast search and should take no longer than 30 minutes.

However it is hard to say how screwed around the file system is, so you may like to follow this up with a Complete Format Recover. In order to try an maintain the search speed, I suggest you do a Complete Format Recover of drive F: and just search for .mp3 files. At the end of the search it should rebuild the file system (including video files) and display the results in Folder View.

Please let us know how it goes.

Thank you.

[mr_chimp]

dang! thanks for the rapid reply!

Will run the scans as advised - a couple of questions

will the 1mb "recovered" files that show up during the scan be formed back into a file at the end of the process or will I have to join them manually?

also, as I didnt format the drive or do anthing other than reinstall on the other two partitions will that make it any likelier or getting my files back? I can hack losing what was in the folder I was ftping to it only had a few vids in but there were literally hundreds of episodes of shows. It was running fine then a crash so I was hoping that most of the data would still be there but unreadable in its current form.

Thanks again for your help.

[mr_chimp]

thanks for the speedy reply! I will run the scans as advised.

A couple of questions, it hangs up on a full format recovery when anelysing (sic. - swear filters rock) a file unless I uncheck "determine filesize" box. Will the 1mb pieces marked "recovered" be joined up at the end of the process or will I have to rejoin them manually?

Also, if the ftping has mangled something so its undreadable in the xbox for just those folders as it seems it has - is the data still there waiting to be pieced back together, or do you think that its too much to expect those files to restored complete. I havent formatted or written to the drive.

Thanks so much for your help

[GDH]

The Fast Format Recover wont show you any files until the end, where it will try and rebuild the file system in "Folder View" and show you your full file and folder structure.

When you run the Complete Format Recover - it first looks for files by their unique header and footer - it will default to 1mb in size which is why you get the 1mb "recovered" files showing in File View of the results screen. This should not effect the end results, the program will try and rebuild the file system and show you full file and folder structure with full file sizes in Folder View at the end of the search.

Your situation is a little complicated - because you have 3 partitions and music and movie files are large (and usually fragmented).

If you don't get good results with the above searches then I suggest you click on MANUALLY SET OPTIONS and then in the SEARCH tab make the "search for lost files" default file size bigger than your biggest lost file, then click OK and search the drive letter.

Good luck.

[GDH]

Please click the UPDATE button on the main program screen to make sure you are running the latest version.

Your files should still be there - its just the file records that tell the PC where they are on the disk are screwed around.

Try the other options first - and then if you don't get good results with the above searches then I suggest you click on MANUALLY SET OPTIONS and then in the SEARCH tab make the "search for lost files" default file size bigger than your biggest lost file, then click OK and search the drive letter.

This will give you bigger "recovered" files that are more likely to contain your TV shows.

[mr_chimp]

Hi, I've run a full format recovery searching for lost files only MP3s selected to search for. It took 39 hours and found 10,000 files. But I just have thousands of 1mb files? No videos or anything else. I clicked folder view and it just shows lost files and then the fragments.

Any suggestions please?