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Question

Corrupt data on an external drive

Mar 11, 2018 9:25AM PDT

I have a Toshiba 1 TB external Hydro I have a Toshiba 1 TB external Hard drive PH 3200U – 1exb
I can’t access it in windows it says that it is corrupted. I have use Recuva I did recover a lot of files but as far as I can Tell it just undeleted files that it found in non rewritten spaces. That’s fie but I want recover corrupted files.

I have I have tried to talk to a couple retail computer fix people and they are estimating hundreds of dollars.

I should also say the drive appears to not have any physical damage. I don’t have any history of dropping it or shorting it out or anything. The light comes on andI hear the disc wearing the way inside the housing.

I would love some advice on how to proceed. It would be great if you guys could avoid the usual finger wagging about not properly backing up my data. I already admitted I was wrong that’s why am here.

Discussion is locked

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Clarification Request
Recuva has a DEEP SCAN OPTION.
Mar 11, 2018 9:29AM PDT

But before I ask, be sure to NEVER WRITE BACK TO THIS DRIVE. If you do, you will remove any further recovery options.

So, research Recuva's deep scan option.

PS. Taped finger to mouse so it didn't wag.

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Yes
Mar 11, 2018 10:40AM PDT

I did several deep scans. Diep scans were the only ones that provided any results at all. And if they actually took three days. When I reviewed the files there were a lot of multiple files of the same thing and there are a lot of files that I didn’t want to store. That’s why got impression that they were just undeleted files. How can I tell if reCuva is actually uncorrupting files

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Recuva has never "uncorrupted files."
Mar 11, 2018 11:18AM PDT

So that's a dead end. Let's go over why files go corrupt. The number one reason is the user continued to use the drive or wrote to the drive after the damage to files or file system occurred. There is no tool made today that will uncorrupt a file. Let's go over why.

Scenario. The file is deleted. Now that the file is deleted, the sectors are free to be used. Now if you write to the drive, one of say the hundred sectors is written over by another app or file, when you recover the file recovered is going to be corrupt. There is no app made to undo this damage. It's gone forever.

Really hard on folk that want files back intact.

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a couple things
Mar 12, 2018 5:54AM PDT

1. the drive became inaccessible all at once, so I don't know how i "continued to use the drive".
2. there are software products that claim to recover corrupted data, but i can't find one reviewed on cnet that is less than 9 years old.
3. I assume I am not uncorrupting the file, just recovering parts of it.
4. what are these computer repair people selling if that can't recover corrupt data?

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Amswer to your question (#4)
Mar 12, 2018 6:21AM PDT

Those people are selling people that can recover deleted data. That's not the same as corrupted data.

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The other scenario.
Mar 12, 2018 9:55AM PDT

All it takes is one random write fail and the volume can be blown.

As to claims to recover corrupted data, once the file is corrupted I've yet to find any app uncorrupt it since the sector that held the data is long gone.

-> That out of the way, a "uncorrupting" app might repair the header of the file so it opens in say Word but that's about all it can manage since the data is long gone.

And this leads up to why companies promote and sell such apps. There's a lot of money to be made even if it doesn't work all the time.