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Hard drive unreadable

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peterleemaxwell

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Posted January 6, 2013 at 12:21PM

I am after some help. I have reached the limit of my knowledge and I'm hoping there is someone who will help with a little of their experience. I have an old desktop that had a slave hard drive. I removed it when that operating system (XP) said it needed formatting before it could be used. It was perfect when I last used it two years ago. I ran Linux thinking that would pick it up with no success. I removed it along with the jumper and placed it in a hard drive carrier on a new PC. Same result. It does 'spin'. Next I used some hard drive rescue software. Sure enough all was there jpegs and all the programmes. When I tried to open -nothing. Whatever I try to use to view in, same result. All are differing sizes. Are there any options I could try? Has anyone successfully managed to gain a result? Thanks in anticipation.

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peterleemaxwell

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Posted January 6, 2013 at 8:32PM

Could I ask as I have no knowledge of this, if the files are there and intact as such why they cannot be opened? Is it because of the H.D. table out of sync? In other words the FAT allocation table. Should I try 'TestDisk'? Is the disc now US in it's present form and only reformatting would fix? Could I ask what you think went wrong? Hope you don't mind me asking.

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Fruit Bat /\0/\

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Posted January 7, 2013 at 2:03PM

The disk is US in its present form and probably because the FAT is corrupted, but that should leave the files in usable condition once located and copied to a new location.

Not sure why your recovered files will not open unless they they are encrypted by a password protected user account on your XP version of windows, that's why I was asking if you got an "access denied" message.

I have successfully used Test disk a few times to repair the MBR or FAT on a drive and thus recover the whole drive without formatting and losing all the data on the drive.

Testdisk and how to use

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peterleemaxwell

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Posted January 7, 2013 at 2:38PM

Thanks Fruit Bat /\0/\, I will keep trying and will use 'TestDisk' and give it a go. I did notice some 'PDF' files with the correct icon but would not open up using the correct programme. I don't understand as it was a slave. The master has the O.S. on it. It has a duel start. (XP and Linux) Non of the files are encrypted. perseverance hopefully I'll see a result, fingers crossed. Best Wishes

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peterleemaxwell

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Posted January 7, 2013 at 2:38PM

Thanks Fruit Bat /\0/\, I will keep trying and will use 'TestDisk' and give it a go. I did notice some 'PDF' files with the correct icon but would not open up using the correct programme. I don't understand as it was a slave. The master has the O.S. on it. It has a duel start. (XP and Linux) Non of the files are encrypted. perseverance hopefully I'll see a result, fingers crossed. Best Wishes

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