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Hard Disk Crash Recovery 
Tools & Procedure


If you've lost data, suffered a virus attack or hard drive crash, or accidentally reformatted your hard drive, there is hope. A new breed of PC disk recovery tools go far beyond the capabilities of DOS' undelete or Windows' ScanDisk. Here are some of the best tools. There descriptions are taken as it is from their vendors site. Anything written in italics is edited by me. *** indicates the ranking more the better

TOOLS Required in Disk Crash


1) Power Quest Lost & Found (http://www.powerquest.com/) *****

Rather than spending thousands of dollars to send your hard drive to a data recovery center, Lost & Found lets you automatically recover and restore data after accidental (or even intentional) data loss, or from corrupted media caused by a disk crash or logical system failure. Our patent-pending technology will even recover data if the partition has been reformatted or if the FAT tables have been destroyed! In fact, as long as your disk is still spinning, Lost & Found can locate and recover almost any file, anywhere on your disk.

Well I have tried out Lost & Found once. It is a DOS base software and is easy to operate.  In my instant case it recovered all the data, while Norton Disk Doctor and Scandisk refused to operate and Norton disk doctor kept on crashing while operating on this drive. If your hard drive crash and  to recover the data you have to  keep ready other backup medium probably second hard disk or zip drive or box of floppy disks  as it refuse to recover data on damaged disk (though it is good for safety) .

 

2) TIRAMISU for FAT32 V3.03 Sophisticated Data Recovery Software for DOS and WINDOWS from Ontrack Data International  ****

TIRAMISU scans the drive even when there are physical damages. The found data are analyzed and reconstructed. TIRAMISU can handle drives without readable boot sector, readable Fat or readable directories. It can handle drives that are not recognized by DOS anymore.
TIRAMISU automatically creates a VIRTUAL DRIVE in memory. This virtual drive looks like a usual file manager. You can see the lost directories and files of your crashed drive. Now files and directories can be viewed and copied to a safe medium.
The extensive use of our sophisticated pattern recognition technology enables TIRAMISU to put the right pieces of data together again. Even disks with very few administrative informations left can reach a high recovery quality.
TIRAMISU recovers much more data than any other 'disk doctor'.
TIRAMISU is NON DESTRUCTIVE and READ ONLY. It does not put any data onto your crashed drive. Recovered data are restored to another destination (disk, diskette, network, interlink).
TIRAMISU works on WIN95 rel. B platforms with 32-bit Fat.
Versions for DOS/WINDOWS (16-Bit Fat), NOVELL and NTFS are available too.
DOWNLOAD NOW! (202 KB)

 

3. Stellar version 7.0  www.stellarinfo.com    *****

Well this is the best software for the data recovery. It won the PC World editors choice award for the data recovery.  This program sold like hot cakes when CIH virus destroyed many hard disks. While best product only one thing keeps it behind the Lost & Found - User Interface. Lost & Found can be operated even by general person but for Stellar it requires a novice user. But even after that it is best for your data recovery needs. Contact Stellar Info Systems, 205 Skipper Corner, 88 Nehru Place, New Delhi - 110011, INDIA for more info.

 

 4.  Crash Proof  http://unistal.com/crashproof.htm   ****

Crash proof is a Hard Disk Crash Prevention and data recovery software. Once installed Revives the disk against any kind of software crash. Vendor claims about crash proof are: 

protects the disk against any kind of software crash.
protects the disk against crash due to viruses like Win CIH, Worm, Explore...
protects the disk against Software malfunctioning.
the disk which has just been formatted.

You should use Crash Proof Because :

it displays the directory tree of the crashed disk.  * (It is important. If FAT gets corrupted you need this very much) 
it requires no technical knowledge to operate.
it requires only a few minutes to revive the disk.
it is the complete solution to multiple problems.



GET RID OF MESSAGES LIKE :

 No More Data Loss due to :

General Failure Reading Drive

 Accidental format

Invalid Media Type Error

 Deltree Files

Invalid Drive Specification

 Worm Explore.Zip Virus (*.Doc, *.PPT etc.)

Invalid Partition Table

 Any software / virus Crash

System Fault, Sector Not Found

  

Data Error Reading Drive

Well it is both a protective and recovery software.

 

UNDELETE -  I have emptied my recycle bin !!


What Happened to UNDELETE?

When Microsoft created Win95, they removed the UNDELETE program. In doing so, they made life miserable for people who either delete files from the Windows Recycle Bin or Quick-format their drives. You see, the smart guys at Microsoft figured it didn't matter if you deleted files from the recycle bin because the recycle bin protects you from accidentally deleted files.

But what happens when you delete the files from the recycle bin, and then want to get them back?

And then what happens if you Quick-format your drive under DOS or Windows? THAT causes the file names in the directories to appear erased, just as if had deleted them, but the data for those files is still on the drive. A FULL erase will actually write formatting information to all the file areas and totally wipe them off the disk, but a quick format leaves them there except for changing the directory entries. So what do you do about that?

 

5. How Repo 2000 Recovers Your Files

Repo 2000 is a Windows application program that runs on Win95, Win98, or Windows NT 4.0. The Master Boot Record must be intact on the drive you are recovering, and the drive to be recovered must not be the boot drive. Repo 2000 scans the drive to be recovered for directory entries, and rebuilds a table of all directory structures and files on the drive. Then it allows you to specify which files are to be recovered and the target drive to which to send the recovered files. You never send the recovered files to the drive being recovered because that would risk overwriting other files.

Repo 2000 will recover files from FAT12 drives (floppy diskettes), FAT16 (DOS, Win95A, and NT4.0) drives, FAT32 (Win95B and Win98) drives, and NTFS drives; it does this locally or over a network. A special feature allows a Win95 or Win98 workstation to recover files from an NT 3.51 server across a network.

 

6. Other Undelete Tools

Undelete 1.2 from http://www.alsos.com/home.html

Norton Unerase from Norton Utilities www.symentac.com

Unerase from Mcafee Nuts & Bolts www.mcafee.com


Other General Data Recovery and Tools For Daily Users 

Here are some utilities for Windows 9x systems : 

1. Norton Utilities - It is the standard and contains with others three utilities you need most

  • Norton Disk Doctor : It is available in two version. One for Windows and other replaces scandisk in DOS Mode. Windows version is though quite stable. DOS version I have tested from (Norton Utilities 3 till Norton 2000) causes General Protection Faults if large files or large disk is there. Norton Disk Doctor is just improved version of Scandisk with some bells and whistles and some feature extra. Norton Disk doctor is suitable for some minor glitches to FAT,  daily routine checks and recovering data from floppy disks in case of bad sectors and does that job quite well. But in case of disk failure this is not the tool you can trust with full confidence. Lost and Found and Stellar are recommended for more safety.
  • Norton Speed Disk : Used to optimize Disk. One of the best and better than windows defrag. 
  • Norton Unerase : Recovers deleted files. But still it lacks behind Lost and Found in recovering deleted files.
  • It also includes other tools like Norton Disk Edit etc. which  I think are for "super novice users".
  • What Norton Utilities don't  include from previous versions Norton Utilities 8.0  for DOS. DiskTool - It recovered bad floppies by putting new directory information on them It was able  to repair the most floppies which NDD can't even read. (180 Kb)


2. Nuts and Bolts - Another good Set of utilities from the creators of Mcafee Antivirus. with more or less same features and better user interface from Norton Utilities. It contains all the programs what Norton offers and because of it's simple and elegant interface and design it is recommended. Best way to protect and optimize computer system - McAfee Products.

3. FIX-IT Utilities -  Well to be frank I have never run Fix-It. But I have read a review about it in a magazine. According to the editor FIX-IT Utilities was also good. One thing kept it ahead of Norton and Nuts & Bolts was the speed and small foot print the program required compared to its counterparts. Well Norton System Doctor was a Big System Hog and clogged about 20 to 30 % of system resources compared to 5 % of Fix-IT.

4. Anti Virus Packages

Choice is simple toss a coin and choose. But I recommend that you should use both because in these times of internet where virus spread like a boooom  you should not trust on any one package and use both for more safety.

 

What To do before my HDD could Crash !!!

 

Well as old saying goes 'prevention is better than cure'.

Steps you should take before a crash (Preventions)

Rescue Disk

  1. Create a bootable Diskette
  2. It should contains latest drivers and utilities
  3. If you have any utility programs and Anti Virus packages such as Norton Utilities or Nuts & Bolts or McAfee which provides for   creation of rescue diskette. Create it.
  4. Keep your windows operating system CD always ready and in safe place.

 Backups

  1. You should always do regular backup of most critical data of your system.

 

!!! Crash !!!
??!@*!!*?* what to do !@*!!*?*??

 

You may face these problems

  1. System can't boot from my disk. !!! Pray God !!! .
  2. Though system can boot but some of my directories have been wiped out. !!! Ha Ha Ha  !!!
  3. I can't even see the directory listing. Listing shows some wired characters with ting tong tunes from small forgotten PC speaker.  !!! Ting Tong Ting !!!
  4. My hard disk has been completely wiped out.  !!! Best lets laugh !!! .
  5. If hard disk is partitioned all or some of partitions have been wiped out. !!! Hi Hi Hi !!!
  6. FAT is corrupted. !!! ho ho ho  !!! .
  7. More & more problems........... !!!  I am enjoying  !!! .

Solutions

  1. Keep it cool. Take it easy. Have a mug of coffee, sit, relax and start the work.
  2. First check for any loose cable or loose card inside your computer.  Make sure  all cable  connections are tight, all the connectors are screwed down and fixed properly in.
  3. Check whether your CMOS info is all correct. May be it go corrupted and you get invalid drive specification. Re enter bios setup by rebooting the computer and check that all things are entered correctly. If all other fails lets start the dirty work.
  4. Bring all your recovery rescue disks. Check their write protection tab. If not protected, lock them, there could be a virus.
  5. Boot from your disk.
  6. Run your anti-virus software.
  7. If there is virus cure it. Many times a virus makes Hard Disk inaccessible. If all goes well you will have your data back.
  8. Virus removed or if no virus found but hard disk is still damaged. Read on.
  9. Now run scandisk or Norton Disk Doctor, or Disk Minder (nuts and bolts). Errors found. Repair them with undo option. It may be needed in case hard disk is not fully repaired and you may use advance tools.
  10. Now turn of advance tools. Check above tools like Stellar or Lost & Found.
  11. Follow  their steps.
  12. If they require another disk for data recovery borrow a hard disk from your friend. In case it is not possible then keep large box of floppy disks ready. (it depends on your data size).
  13. All goes well  recover data thank me and god.
  14. Still at first stage - take your disk at data recovery shops. It's now there turn.


Data Recovered What to do now

  1. Take a look again whether you have not left anything on disk. Backup up everything you think you need.
  2. Is Disk still usable. Partitioned it again. Use Fdisk to delete old partitions, create new and then format. As it is good because many internal data structure on disk may have suffered damage so creating new partition is highly recommended.
  3. Hard disk is not usable. Don't throw it. Use it as a paper weight or for keeping coffee mug on it. It will impress your friends. Purchase a new disk.

TASK COMPLETED



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