Best current Partition Recovery software?

[techiedavid]

Hi, I've had a HDD recently become unreadable even after chkdsk scans and repairs and I remember 10+ years ago using an excellent partition recovery software that would find and restore a partition from a corrupt hard drive with good success (assuming the drive isn't physically damaged too much) to at least recover most of the files but I can't recall the name of the software.

If anyone has some good recommendations to try for this that would be most appreciated, thank you!

 

[Diggs]

One of my main tools for drive recovery is Linux using DDRescue (DDResue-GUI in my case). IMHO it should be part of every techs toolbox. If DDRescue has problems (or wants 2 weeks to scan a drive) I send it to the recovery pros. (...and please be careful with CHKDSK as it can do more damage sometimes than good.)

...I should add that DDRescue doesn't rebuild or diagnose partition problems. It makes a corrected of media errors copy on another drive of the same size (or bigger). From there you can run CHKDSK, bootrec, etc. on the corrected drive and not worry about your data getting further corrupted. Others here can point you at their favorite partition software (Partition Magic comes to mind) that you would run on the corrected drive.

 

[frase]

DDRescue & R-Studio Recovery.

 

[Markverhyden]

Always make a full disk image to do the work on. Nothing worse than the patient dying under the knife. Second the observation about CHKDSK. Haven't run it in close to 20 years.

Cristophe Grenier's TestDisk has been around forever. I used to use it all the time with XP and earlier OS's with great success in restoring partition tables.

However you make the image you want to copy that to make sure you have a viable backup. Never assume the patient is viable even if you have a good image. Copy the image made and you now have a backup. Do what ever you want to the backup for recovery. R-Studio does an excellent job with recovery by file type. So if no viable partition table comes up you can still get a lot of data. Just won't have the file names.

 

[Diggs]

I keep forgetting DDRescue now has a Windows version. Anybody tried them both?

 

[Metanis]

Second the observation about CHKDSK. Haven't run it in close to 20 years.

Chkdsk is a great tool for quickly determining if there are logical errors in the MFT. Just run it bare with no switches and it runs in read-only mode.

I don't run it when I'm sure there are hardware issues, but I do when Windows is being weird.

 

[britechguy]

I keep forgetting DDRescue now has a Windows version. Anybody tried them both?

I've tried the DDRescue GUI software under Windows 11, but the drive being recovered was too far gone.

Not the friendliest UI, but it was worth the couple of bucks I paid for it, and the person who developed it did respond to a query I made quite promptly.

 

[phaZed]

IMO, DDRescue under Windows is a lot less desirable. Windows has gotten better in many respects, but it still doesn't handle failing hardware very well, like Linux does. Not to mention all of the different data calls and indexing, etc. that Windows wants to do as soon as a drive is plugged in.

 

[lcoughey]

Thanks guys for giving me hope that. It seems like yesterday that most of the replies to a post like this would never suggest making a backup clone first.

When it comes to imaging in Windows, you might find that R-Studio's latest imaging features are better than ddrescue or hddsuperclone. I am not sure if they work with the demo version of the program, but can confirm that they are even better when used with a DeepSpart USB Stabilizer (5G or 10G) or a RapidSpar unit.

 

[frase]

No one requires the full version of R-Studio Data Recovery or R-Studio Technician.

 

[britechguy]

No one [who is a field technician] requires the full version of R-Studio Data Recovery or R-Studio Technician.

[Fixed that for you.] I'd be willing to bet that those in the data recovery business certainly do, or at the very least would use far more of the functionality, far more frequently, than you or I ever would.

 

[frase]

I did not mean "no one" I meant "One" sorry typo. I own the field tech version. Unsure what happened there? Maybe my monkey brain trying to do ten things at once.

R-Studio Tech

 

[frase]

I did not mean "no one" I meant "One" sorry typo. I own the field tech version. Unsure what happened there? Maybe my monkey brain trying to do ten things at once, commas mean everything in meaning or definition.

R-Studio Tech