Bad Sectors and Missing MFT on NTFS

[DrNick]

I haven't purchased the program just yet so I can't say anything for what they look like after being recovered. I did however sort them by filesize and then by looking in the preview window you can see that there are lots with the exact same files inside the zip.

There's a screenshot attached of the window.

[DrNick]

Just wondering if anyone here has any more ideas. I'd like to entertain the possibility that I might still get some of my stuff back, however this program doesn't seem to be working quite right.

Anyone?

[danwat1234]

So, does the complete file search look at the MFT as long as it isn't completely corrupt?

I know it searches for the structure of files physically in case the MFT is not complete, but does the complete file search use the MFT to assist?

That would be very helpful in recovering fragmented files from a corrupted NTFS volume.
I have about 250GB of data to recover, mostly movies, executable archives, south park episodes, etc..
thanks
dan

[GDH]

The first part of the "Complete File Search" is a scan of the MFT. The second part of the search is a search of the drive cluster by cluster.

You can see this in the progress bar - it will change from searching for "delete files" (MFT) to searchin cluster xxxxx of xxxxx.

[danwat1234]

Yes, i realize now that the software looks at the MFT for deleted files, but does it list all the files in the mft as results in the complete file search method, or just entries in the mft with the deleted attribute in them?

I have an inaccessible volume, so I can't jsut access uncorrupted data using explorer I need recover my stuff to do it for me.

I self concluded that doing the full -format method will list all files in the MFT.

now for another post..

[danwat1234]

Here it is:
Quick question: With full format method, i am assuming( and know) that it begins by looking for lost files sector by sector. But, the program won't detect the files in the MFT records until the program reaches the part of the volume that contains those MFT entries? am i right?
So then it would list them, after verifying the files location.

thank you

[GDH]

When you do a "Complete Format Recover" the program is searching the drive for MFT records for individual files.

As part of this search we ask you to search for 5 default file types that were on your disk. Recover My Files uses these file types to narrow in on the old MFT and partition information.

In the progress window of the a "Complete Format Recover" is "OS Items Found" - these are MFT file records found.

At the end of a "Complete Format Recover" the program uses the information it has collected to rebuild the old partition.

I hope this helps.

[danwat1234]

Yes it does. thank you

[rick720]

i had exactly same prob with same maxtor drive and size, i made it a slave, installed windows on an xtra drive and ran chkdsk on the slave/former boot drive, it solved my problem and let me boot, now that i am in windows on the drive i want, gonna get a good backup (long story) and then clone the drive just in case, now one more thing, once i made the drive the master boot drive 0/0 it ran chkdsk on its own, i let it the first time, it rebooted and wanted to do it again so i cancled. good luck, i know i lucked out

Originally Posted by DrNick

Hello,

I just downloaded a trial of the program and am trying to figure out the best settings for my situation.

I have an 80GB internal Maxtor ATA drive with a single NTFS partition. It had a lot of files on it, primarily MP3s, videos, and downloaded programs (zip and exe's). All of a sudden, Windows would not recognize most of it and when I ran CHKDSK it said that the MFT was corrupt. The next time I rebooted the disk was completely unusable. Disk Management said it was a RAW drive and wanted me to initialize and format it. I DID NOT format it.

So what I have is an 80GB drive with apparently no MFT. Upon scanning it with other recovery tools, they all had a problem with bad sectors near the beginning of the drive. This lead me to believe that the drive has bad sectors in the MFT region, however I haven't been able to even find any files using these other programs.

Recover My Files is the only program so far that has actually found anything. I did the full format scan and while it did find a few files, there were only about 40 or so where originally there were in the 50,000 range.

My question is, what settings should I use for this disk? I'd REALLY like to get my stuff back (obviously and have have reason to believe that most of it should still be there since I've not done anything to the drive since the crash and from what I can tell the MFT is simply missing.

Thanks a ton!

Nick