Q:
Data recovery on Windows XP external drive
hi..im using windows XP professional,and i have external hard disk to back up my files..im copying some file to my external hard disk when the computer hangs and I unplug the external disk to the USB of my computer but when i check it again the filenames of the files and folder in the external disk is like a greek writing of something..and i cant open the folder or even the files,i cant delete it either..the error says "filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect"... i just want to know if it is possible to recover the folder or files ?...thanks i really need an answer...GOD bless
ASKED:
Apr 6 2009 3:49 AM GMT
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A:
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There are many software based recovery tools available. I have used R-Studio and others for bad/corrupt disk recovery. I like ones that make an image of the disk first, use that for the recovery and restore to a separate location preserving the media (then you can still use a third party hardware recovery service if necessary). You need a large workspace and lots of time depending on the size of your disk,
In your case, it will be very difficult to recover information. From the description of what happened, my guess is that only part of the information was written. So you have file fragments and a partially corrupt file table. A disk editor can look at the bits, but unless they are text based files there may not be much there to recover. If you are capable of determining file type from the file header and then editing the bits you may can save some of the information (I don't get into that level of work).
As to cleaning up the fragments, use a command prompt to delete the corrupt entries after you have attempted to recover the information. A checkdisk may be required first to repair the file allocation tables. Worst case, copy everything off that you can and reformat.
A better choice on USB drives is to reboot the system if the process can't be killed when a file copy hangs. You will still get fragments but there is less of a chance of corrupting the the entire file table on the drive and losing existing information.
