"bad file record signature" from partition magic chkdsk /f in recovery console reports unrecoverable errors

November 11, 2008 · Filed under data backup and recovery

Its happened to 2 sata ntfs 750gb drives and i dont know why (maybe overheating or bad psu?) data recovery software works but needs 3 days to copy each drive!

Is there a quicker way to restore the drives?Is it the mft or boot sector or the partition table?Which is safe to restore or rebuild without losing the chance to do a slow data recovery if all else fails?

What about trying Norton Disk Doctor at reboot?Can Spinrite fix this?what about Partition Table Doctor boot disk?
Any advice much appreciated as I cant afford to lose this data as i dont have a backup with me.

Weirdly one of the drives had an old xp boot partition and was giving the same error and unreadable except with active@file recovery but when i tried to boot from that disk xp somehow repaired the first (active) partition in a few minutes as it booted and it is now ok while the second logical (650GB!!) partition is still unreadable but recoverable.
I guess I need some kind of Hard Drive Super Specialist!

As you do not have a backup the sensible thing to do would be to wait it out. But if you can not afford to do this spinrite is your only other option I can find.

If it was fixed before however it could simply be the partition table giving an incorrect reading because it is damaged in some way. Try fixing it with Disk Internals.

Here is the download link: http://www.newfreedownloads.com/transfer-DiskInternals-Partition-Recovery.html

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2 Responses so far »

  1. 1

    jubeitigeruk said,

    January 25, 2008 @ 2:18 am

    Your bound to get problems when you have such big HDD mainly in the copying area.

    Reinstall! haha, id think your pretty much going to have to wait it out for how long the program will take even if it is going to work that is a good thing! Lucky on that side if you ask me.
    References :

  2. 2

    serioussamp said,

    January 26, 2008 @ 7:38 am

    As you do not have a backup the sensible thing to do would be to wait it out. But if you can not afford to do this spinrite is your only other option I can find.

    If it was fixed before however it could simply be the partition table giving an incorrect reading because it is damaged in some way. Try fixing it with Disk Internals.

    Here is the download link: http://www.newfreedownloads.com/transfer-DiskInternals-Partition-Recovery.html
    References :

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