Linux HDD "lost format"

[CorBlimeyLimey]

I have an external USB HDD attached to a network via a Linksys network storage device which runs under Linux. Without warning the Linksys device is reporting the HDD as being unformatted. The Linksys is working fine as I have installed, formatted & am using another HDD. I can easily reformat the original HDD using the Linksys, but want to recover the files it contains first.

I do not have access to a Linux computer, but if I did, would there be a relatively simple way to recover the files?

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[MikeHalloran]

Boot your Windows computer from a Knoppix CD, and you will have a Linux computer with an amazing suite of tools.



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

Thanks Mike, I will give that a try. At almost 713MB that will take a while to download though.

Have you had any direct experience retrieving files from a HDD per above?

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[MikeHalloran]

My daughter's Dell has a 40Mb hard drive. It developed a big bad spot that prevented the computer from booting, or doing anything usable. The technical side of Dell was very supportive, in the sense of providing instruction by English- speaking Indians who actually seemed to know what they were doing, and who provided direct callback numbers to bypass the queue, responded to email, stayed on the line during some of the shorter diagnostic procedures, and just did everything possible to salvage the drive without trashing the contents.

Once the drive was declared dead at the age of 13 months, and not recoverable, the business side of Dell just flat refused to:
- acknowledge or even investigate a paper snafu whereby a 24 month service conctract had morphed into an unwanted external floppy drive.
- replace the drive under warranty.
- sell a replacement drive at a reasonable price, or even a street price.

Oddly enough, when the same drive is sold at retail, it carries a five year warranty, but I guess Dell buys them without warranty.

With Knoppix and DSL Linux (I forget why, but I had to use both) I was able to copy nearly all of her content to a USB external hard drive, repartition the drive so the bad area is not used, reformat it, and copy most everything back to the (now 30Mb) hard drive, and get it running and usable again.

All of this was done while we were on vacation, in a location where Walmart is the only source of computer parts within 50 miles.

I mostly use dialup on a second POTS line, and most ISO images will download within a day or two with BitTorrent. Knoppix is really big, though. It's probably worth buying the book "Knoppix Cheat Codes" just to save the download time. DSL is really small, and might be good enough, depending on what you need to do.




Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

Well, pleasant suprise with the download. The connection was really good today and it only took about 2 hours.

I will see what damage I can do & let you know.

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[CorBlimeyLimey]

[pout] I wasn't allowed to play with the drive. [/pout]

The powers that be decided that it was better to use a professional recovery service and that my time was better used by getting product out of the door. Spoilsports!

Oh well, at least I now have a Knoppix CD.

Thanks again Mike.

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