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Damaged Partition
    #16161379 -

A number of months ago, my external drive tipped over, and stopped working.

When I inserted it into my computer, I found that it showed up in the BIOS, but in Windows 7 it showed up as unallocated space

Using partition recovery software (I believe it was Active Partition Recovery, but I cannot be sure), I was able to extract the files from the damaged partition.

This hard drive contained mostly video files -- typically mkv.

However, the files that are retrieved -- which are roughly the same size (from 1.5 to 8GB) have the file extension of either GPG or SWF, with file names such as "f7733484.swf" and "f204156617.gpg"

I've looked around on the net, but haven't found too much about this.

Does anyone have any ideas on how to convert these back into their original format? Or are these damaged files, and I might as well just delete them and start over?

Kind of annoying, as it had around 800GB of video on it.

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Re: Damaged Partition [Re: HeavyToilet]
    #16173966 -

What happens if you try to play them in a media player like VLC?


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Re: Damaged Partition [Re: HELLA_TIGHT]
    #16174157 -

From the ones I've tried, they do not work. With VLC, the program crashes, and with MPC, it says it cannot render the file.

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Re: Damaged Partition [Re: HeavyToilet]
    #16174443 -

You might be SOL.

You also might want to try using TestDisk, I used it to successfully recover some files.


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Re: Damaged Partition [Re: HeavyToilet]
    #16174847 -

HeavyToilet said:
A number of months ago, my external drive tipped over, and stopped working.

When I inserted it into my computer, I found that it showed up in the BIOS, but in Windows 7 it showed up as unallocated space

Using partition recovery software (I believe it was Active Partition Recovery, but I cannot be sure), I was able to extract the files from the damaged partition.

This hard drive contained mostly video files -- typically mkv.

However, the files that are retrieved -- which are roughly the same size (from 1.5 to 8GB) have the file extension of either GPG or SWF, with file names such as "f7733484.swf" and "f204156617.gpg"

I've looked around on the net, but haven't found too much about this.

Does anyone have any ideas on how to convert these back into their original format? Or are these damaged files, and I might as well just delete them and start over?

Kind of annoying, as it had around 800GB of video on it.


your drive will always show up in the Bios. Your partition however contains your file system. It only shows up in grub, or registered with a disk made to read the partition table, such as gparted.


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:kingcrankey: I did not say to edit my signature soulidarity! Now forever I will never remember what I said about understanding the secrets of the universe by paying attention to subtleties!

:facepalm: I'm never giving you the password again. Jerk

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Re: Damaged Partition [Re: imachavel]
    #16188999 -

it looks like the recovery software misinterpreted some blocks of data as having .swf or .gpg headers, and "recovered" those blocks. your actual data is somewhere in the jumble, but the recovery software couldn't quite make sense of it from what was left. i've had similar issues with recovery software. if you try a couple different recovery programs, you might get different results as they have slightly different algorithms for making sense of the data. most of them offer a free trial where you can see if anything worthwhile would be found.

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Re: Damaged Partition [Re: dund]
    #16189099 -

I have a suspicion that the data would be fine but the rest of the drive would not be. The problem with most drives is that they have moving mechanical parts so if they experience great force or shock then one of the mechanical parts which helps read and write data on one or all the platters might be broken or in a sub standard condition. If this is the case then software would do very little or nothing to remedy the situation.

If you have data that is really important and valuable then there are companies that can take the platters out of the faulty drive and use working hardware to retrieve the data but this is very expensive.

It will be good when solid state drives become cheaper and mass produced.

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Re: Damaged Partition [Re: migraineur]
    #16191509 -

I think you need to format it with this: http://imgur.com/ILb9l

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Re: Damaged Partition [Re: cokane]
    #16194167 -

cokane said:
I think you need to format it with this: http://imgur.com/ILb9l


I was thinking of putting a drill through the old hard drives I have lying around. There are so many people who chuck out computers and hard drives that have valuable personal data on them. I've found multiple USB drives at university with such information.

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Re: Damaged Partition [Re: migraineur]
    #16194483 -



I was thinking of putting a drill through the old hard drives I have lying around. There are so many people who chuck out computers and hard drives that have valuable personal data on them. I've found multiple USB drives at university with such information.


I haven't be very lucky with finding old hard drives with any data on them that I want. But someday when I do get a hard drive with good data (movies,music,books,porn) I want, its going to be awesome.

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Re: Damaged Partition [Re: HeavyToilet]
    #16197012 -

HeavyToilet,

It sounds like your drive experienced a mechanical failure which resulted in physical damage. In this case, it is very hard to recover any data. If you have VERY important files, there are companies that will basically do surgery on your drive to recover what they can. Software recovery programs really don't work as they should, especially if the drive is physically damaged.

If you don't have VITAL information, I suggest you try wiping the whole drive and start fresh. Run a program called HDTune, either now or after the wipe, to make sure that your drive isn't experiencing any errors. If there are errors, try wiping the drive and running it again.

A hard drive falling will essentially "scratch" the disc inside the hard drive, causing it to be faulty. Think of trying to play a CD or DVD that has been scratched; it will stutter and have difficulty playing.

Hope this helps. PM me if you need more help.
:peace:


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