Thorvald of Lym
A Little Sketchy
One year ago, my computer suffered an accident that led to rapid degradation of system integrity, culminating in total boot failure. I have been trying to recover the hard drive ever since.
Initial attempts to back up the disk were aborted as the software kept encountering read-errors. Concerned that prolonged running might lead to permanent corruption, I then tried to copy critical files directly via accessing the drive as a periphery device. This revealed a second major issue: the disk's data index was damaged such that it couldn't be read by general file explorers (and locked them up when the USB is plugged in).
Attempts to read/recover the drive via programs run from Windows failed—either they didn't recognize it exists, or couldn't interface with it. It can be read by boot drive utilities (UBCD, EaseUS), and I had started a sector repair sequence that I only cancelled because I needed the computer for other things.
This initial repair was enough that, when I returned some days later, opening the boot options triggered the system's built-in drive checker. While it seemed to work, it was phenomenally slow, scanning ~10% of total sectors over roughly a week before a blackout interrupted it.
I have not played with the drive since. While I am cautiously optimistic it is at least partially recoverable, I am hesitant to access it through boot utilities in case it procs the system check, which can't be cancelled by the user. I'm wondering if anyone knows of an equivalent utility that can be run off the Windows OS, and safely interrupted by the user. While I have spare computers that could be devoted to a potentially month-long continuous run, I'm wary that further freak blackouts would further damage the drive.
Initial attempts to back up the disk were aborted as the software kept encountering read-errors. Concerned that prolonged running might lead to permanent corruption, I then tried to copy critical files directly via accessing the drive as a periphery device. This revealed a second major issue: the disk's data index was damaged such that it couldn't be read by general file explorers (and locked them up when the USB is plugged in).
Attempts to read/recover the drive via programs run from Windows failed—either they didn't recognize it exists, or couldn't interface with it. It can be read by boot drive utilities (UBCD, EaseUS), and I had started a sector repair sequence that I only cancelled because I needed the computer for other things.
This initial repair was enough that, when I returned some days later, opening the boot options triggered the system's built-in drive checker. While it seemed to work, it was phenomenally slow, scanning ~10% of total sectors over roughly a week before a blackout interrupted it.
I have not played with the drive since. While I am cautiously optimistic it is at least partially recoverable, I am hesitant to access it through boot utilities in case it procs the system check, which can't be cancelled by the user. I'm wondering if anyone knows of an equivalent utility that can be run off the Windows OS, and safely interrupted by the user. While I have spare computers that could be devoted to a potentially month-long continuous run, I'm wary that further freak blackouts would further damage the drive.
