How to recover v2i (Ghost image) files

[senki66]

I have run search and save files with RMF but get back only bmp,jpg,pdf,ppt,wav,doc,zip files. There are no mp3,avi and the most important *v2i ghost image to restore my system. As I see the program restored only those filetypes which have been set at the start of the process instead of all files as the help says. Could somebody help me how to get back ghost image and avi and mp3 files?

[GDH]

Hi,

Could you tell me exactly how your files were lost?

Have you written any new data to the drive since the loss?

How big is the drive? Does it currently show up as a drive letter?

Thank you.

[senki66]

Hi Graham,

As always it is a long story.
The disk is a Samsung 500 GB Sata. From the beginning I had problem with the diskor DVD or motherboard I couldn't clarify which cause problems such the system is totally slow down until it became totally unusable. Then in the eventlog appear a lot of Controller error on device Ide/0 or something like this.
If these problems occurred I used to unplug and plug SATA cables to another slot and restore the system from ghost image. It could resolve the problem until now.
Disk has been partitioned to a primary (c,system, Windows Vista x64) and a logical (E) partition for data. The system partition has been backed up with Norton Ghost 12 (unfortunately) to the same physical drive (E).
Last time when this problem occurred I was unable to restore ghost image.
Ghost said Invalid image file. I tried to do a lot of silly actions , I don,t remember exactly (e.g. reinstall windows, set partition active). Finally I have lost my data partition too. About 450 GB data (images, movies, etc, and the v2i ghost image of the c: partition.
Now I rerunning the search process and I am going to try the Folder View instead of File type view but I'm not sure that it will help.
Sorry for my verbose but couldn't explain in shorter format.
Thanks in advance for any hints.

[senki66]

Have you written any new data to the drive since the loss?

I don't know exactly, it seems that somehow there is a Windows installation on it but it's not a working bootable one.
RMF recognize that there are two partitions on the disk but their sequence seems to be changed.

How big is the drive? Does it currently show up as a drive letter?

It shows only 1 drive letter for the whole disk instead of original 2.

[GDH]

Hi,

The only way to find the Ghost image is to find the Master File Table record that points to its location.

Do do this you will need to run a "Complete Format Recover" on the physical drive and search for the default file types. In your case, if you have the time, you should let this search run all the way over your disk, because it is possible the MFT is further down toward the middle or end of the disk.

I am not sure from your descript-ion if you have already run this search. You may have, in which case it sounds like your MFT has been screwed up and destroyed. Thus, the only way to get files off is to search for the header and footer (in RMF this is what the file type selection does - which is why you get files back with names like "recovered_jpeg_x" as the MFT is the only place where the file name is held).

Unfortunately, it is not possible to search for the GHOST file header, because the file structure is complex, compressed, and they are usually large and fragmented files.

[senki66]

Could you estimate how long does a full search take on a 500 GB disk?
My search is already running more than 44 hours. It is on the second phase,
"Analizing file system fragment number xxxxxx" but the Files and O/S items found number hasn't increased in the last 20 hours. The process indicator shows
about 25%.

[GDH]

Hi,

It should not take this long, it sounds like it is stuck. Follow these instructions to see if you can get them back more quickly: http://forums.getdata.com/computer-d...ard-drive.html