W2K had BSD, now HD shows no file names but it's not empty. Help!

[Tim Breen]

From File Manager, following a re-boot, I can access the HD and the
volume is visible while the properties dialog correctly displays the
approximate usage but no filenames are shown.

So do I rebuild the FAT, or what?

TIA

Tim

 

[Arie Bant]

From File Manager, following a re-boot, I can access the HD and the
volume is visible while the properties dialog correctly displays the
approximate usage but no filenames are shown.

So do I rebuild the FAT, or what?

TIA

Tim

First reaction: If the properties widget displays the correct amount of
used space (approximately) then it is not the FAT that is faulty.
It seems more likely the pointer to the root directory in the boot
sector is damaged.
But could you give us some more information please?

What do you mean by BSD? To me that is a particular version of UNIX.

 

[Tim Breen]

First reaction: If the properties widget displays the correct amount of
used space (approximately) then it is not the FAT that is faulty.
It seems more likely the pointer to the root directory in the boot
sector is damaged.
But could you give us some more information please?

What do you mean by BSD? To me that is a particular version of UNIX.

Thanks for your reply.

BSD = Blue Screen of Death, infamous in the Windows world, blows you
out of whatever you were doing, dumps you to DOS, and presents you
with a (blue) screen full of error messages.

Here's my problem:

I have several external drives - usb, usb/fw, scsi - all in the
80-160GB+ range. I do photographic, video, audio, and some graphics
work and use Mac OSX and Win2000 (and OS9 and W98SE).

To facilitate moving the drives between OS's as needed, I bought and
installed Mediafour's MacDrive5, which allows either OS to access
their own and the other OS's drive space.

Last year I bought some WD120's fw/usb and was using them as a place
to park large data files i.e, 500-900MB and above.

One HD, while attached to a W2K box and being written to, suffered a
BSD and upon reboot the volume shows no directories or files BUT the
properties dialog shows that the disk is partially filled and it's
estimation of space usage sounds accurate in what I remember it should
be.

This drive contained only videos and other trash I was working on so
it was no big deal - it was basically just a huge scratch disk - but I
thought I'd spend a few minutes and try to fix it anyhow.

Here's where my recovery efforts began to break down: I couldn't
remember if the HD was originally formated for Macs or Windows, or if
it was, had I re-formatted it from one to the other, so I didn't know
which tools to begin with. I called Mediafour (MacDrive) and they said
"...use a disk recovery app."

Well, duh! Which one? Which OS? They didn't know and took no
responsibility for being part of the mix.

Okay. Cool. My Bad. Later.

So I shelved the disk to be fixed "when I get to it", which of course
I never did and so there it sits, full but unusable.

Part II

Last weekend it happened again (BSD), writing to a different WD, on a
different W2K box *but this time with data I need*.

Again, from File Manager following a re-boot, the external drive is
accessable, the properties dialog correctly displays the approximate
usage, and again no files are shown.

I'm fairly competent around hardware but this time I have no clue on
what to do or even where to begin.

Any suggestions?

Thanks again,

Tim

 

[Zvi Netiv]

The disappearing of the file system, especially after a crash, suggests that
something may have happened to the configuration areas (partition table, BPB in
the boot sector), or a change in the drive settings. The FAT (if it was FAT at
all, perhaps NTFS?) is the wrong place to start with (an apparently corrupted
FAT could be the *result* of what happened, but not the cause).

[...]

Here's my problem:

I have several external drives - usb, usb/fw, scsi - all in the
80-160GB+ range. I do photographic, video, audio, and some graphics
work and use Mac OSX and Win2000 (and OS9 and W98SE).

To facilitate moving the drives between OS's as needed, I bought and
installed Mediafour's MacDrive5, which allows either OS to access
their own and the other OS's drive space.

Last year I bought some WD120's fw/usb and was using them as a place
to park large data files i.e, 500-900MB and above.

One HD, while attached to a W2K box and being written to, suffered a
BSD and upon reboot the volume shows no directories or files BUT the
properties dialog shows that the disk is partially filled and it's
estimation of space usage sounds accurate in what I remember it should
be.

How was the drive installed at the time the BSD occurred? As first fixed drive?
As second? As external? What interface? What's the total drive capacity? How
was it partitioned? What file system? FAT32? NTFS?

[irrelevant section snipped]

Last weekend it happened again (BSD), writing to a different WD, on a
different W2K box *but this time with data I need*.

Again, from File Manager following a re-boot, the external drive is
accessable, the properties dialog correctly displays the approximate
usage, and again no files are shown.

I'm fairly competent around hardware but this time I have no clue on
what to do or even where to begin.

Any suggestions?

Maybe. First, please answer the questions above.

It's important that you attempt no writing to the drive before assessing the
problem, if you wish not ruin the chances to recover the data on that drive.

Regards, Zvi

 

[Christopher Fletcher]

[...]

Last weekend it happened again (BSD), writing to a different WD, on a
different W2K box *but this time with data I need*.

Again, from File Manager following a re-boot, the external drive is
accessable, the properties dialog correctly displays the approximate
usage, and again no files are shown.

I'm fairly competent around hardware but this time I have no clue on
what to do or even where to begin.

I had a similar issue not to long ago, with the exception that I had a power
failure instead of the BSOD. The drive was a 160GB Maxtor, single
partition, NTFS, Win XP, connected as the slave drive on the primary
controller. When I rebooted the computer I saw the same symptoms: drive
accessible in Explorer, but no files listed and the correct 'Space Used'
shown.

I did manage to recover (albeit with a bit of good fortune):

--The first thing I did was run chkdsk with the auto fix options. It took
forever (as it should with 160GB, I suppose) and reported a huge number of
bad sectors. After running chkdsk, Explorer showed some files, but it was
very slow and some directories (about 10GB worth) were still lost.

--Here's the shady part: thinking that I had trashed the drive, I began to
burn the data to DVD using Nero Express. On the 'Disc Content' window where
you add the files to burn, Nero showed an extra directory with all of my
missing files in it. I don't recall the name of the directory (it was a
number) and I have no idea why it didn't show up in Explorer. Regardless, I
was able get all of my data back.

--After I emptied the disk, I used the MaxBlast utility that came with the
drive to check for errors. It told me that disk failure was eminent and
recommended that I RMA the drive, which was of course out of warranty. I
did a low level format, after which MaxBlast said the drive was good. The
drive has been working in a Linux box for about a month now.

Like I said, I have absolutely no idea how/why the Nero thing worked, and I
was lucky to stumble on it. If your data is truly valuable I'd probably
look for a more 'correct' way to recover it. But maybe this can help in
some way.

Chris

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

[...]

Last weekend it happened again (BSD), writing to a different WD, on
a different W2K box *but this time with data I need*.

Again, from File Manager following a re-boot, the external drive is
accessible, the properties dialog correctly displays the approximate
usage, and again no files are shown.

I'm fairly competent around hardware but this time I have no clue on
what to do or even where to begin.

I had a similar issue not to long ago, with the exception that I had a power
failure instead of the BSOD. The drive was a 160GB Maxtor, single
partition, NTFS, Win XP, connected as the slave drive on the primary
controller. When I rebooted the computer I saw the same symptoms: drive
accessible in Explorer, but no files listed and the correct 'Space Used'
shown.

I did manage to recover (albeit with a bit of good fortune):

--The first thing I did was run chkdsk with the auto fix options. It took
forever (as it should with 160GB, I suppose) and reported a huge number of
bad sectors. After running chkdsk, Explorer showed some files, but it was
very slow and some directories (about 10GB worth) were still lost.

--Here's the shady part: thinking that I had trashed the drive, I began to
burn the data to DVD using Nero Express. On the 'Disc Content' window
where you add the files to burn, Nero showed an extra directory with all
of my missing files in it. I don't recall the name of the directory (it was
a number) and I have no idea why it didn't show up in Explorer.
Regardless, I was able get all of my data back.

--After I emptied the disk, I used the MaxBlast utility that came with the
drive to check for errors. It told me that disk failure was eminent and
recommended that I RMA the drive, which was of course out of warranty.

I did a low level format, after which MaxBlast said the drive was good.

Which is why I always recommend to check for bad power supply when
bad sectors appear.

The drive has been working in a Linux box for about a month now.

What does MaxBlast say now?

 

[C Fletcher]

"Christopher Fletcher" <fletch2003-AT-knology-DOT-net> wrote in message news:[email protected]
[...]

Which is why I always recommend to check for bad power supply when
bad sectors appear.

The drive has been working in a Linux box for about a month now.

What does MaxBlast say now?

[...]

MaxBlast says the drive is still fine. Incidentally, it was a power company
failure, not a power supply failure. I suppose the real lesson for me would
be to find a UPS.

Chris

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

[...]

Which is why I always recommend to check for bad power supply when
bad sectors appear.

The drive has been working in a Linux box for about a month now.

What does MaxBlast say now?

[...]

MaxBlast says the drive is still fine.

So far for the reliability of S.M.A.R.T. and it's ability to predict
drive failure. S.M.A.R.T. doesnt know the difference between mecha-
nical/electrical/magnetical and what else can fail a drive and failures
caused by temporary bad power supply or temporary overheating

Incidentally, it was a power company failure, not a power supply failure.

Which is why I deliberately said "power supply" and not "powersupply".

 

[Rod Speed]

So far for the reliability of S.M.A.R.T. and it's ability to predict drive
failure.

There was no 'drive failure' that SMART even attempts to report.

S.M.A.R.T. doesnt know the difference between mechanical/
electrical/magnetical and what else can fail a drive and failures
caused by temporary bad power supply or temporary overheating

Pathetic, really.

Which is why I deliberately said "power supply" and not "powersupply".

Obvious lie. No need to 'check for' with mains failure, liar.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

<reams of puerile trollshit flushed where it belongs>

"Rod Speed" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:[email protected]

 

[Rod Speed]

Some pathetic troll that cant even manage its own lines,
Folkert Rienstra <[email protected]> desperately
attempted to bullshit its way out of its predicament in message
and fooled absolutely no one at all. As always.