Corrupted Hard Drive. Any recommended software for repair?

I have a corrupted external hard drive. The directory is still readable, but many files are not readable.

Does anybody have a recommended software solution for this type of problem?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Are you running Mac OS, Windows, or Linux? On the Mac, I like Data Rescue 3. It has saved my rear end several times, both when I worked in post production and on my own personal projects.

I am running Windows 7.

I'll look at Data Rescue 3. Thanks for the tip.

I am still open to more advise.

Thanks

Very often data corruption has nothing to do physically with the disk. Try the disk on another computer using different cables and a different connection scheme if at all possible. I have had random data corruption that I thought was disk troubles but was actually a data cable issue.

Bill

Easeus software has worked well for me in the past, however it can take a very long time in some cases to work its magic.

http://www.easeus.com/

I use it with Windows Vista Business 64 bit.

I purchased "Recover My Files" from recovermyfiles.com. The software seems very user friendly and it appears to have been successful in recovering my files. I'll post more when I have more time to review the recovery.

Disclosure: I have no vested interest in this company and I paid full retail price for it. I purchased it directly from the website and downloaded it.

ive recovered a external hard drive using 'chkdsk'

goto the comand prompt and type ' chkdsk D: /r '

where D: is the drive you want to fix, and the added /r is for repair

good luck,,

for deleted files i use 'Recuva' loads of useful malware free programs can be found at www.filehippo.com

Thanks for the tips.

+1 on Gary's advise. Also try to copy and paste the file onto to same make and model harddrive......

I'd recommend a regular high pressure air blow out of you PC case, it'll make you machine last longer(also down clocking and lowering your CPU voltage slightly).

SSD for the win longterm, they are about activations, not rpm/time hooked up.

Does anybody have a recommended software solution for this type of problem?

Once I found Photorec, I have not looked back. This tool is the best; it's open source, gets actively developed and has years of maturity.

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec

I can't recommend this tool any more strongly. It is a slightly technical tool which does require a bit of reading up on to use properly, but if you don't mind console apps then go for it. It's not pretty but highly functional.

cheers,

-3ric

Thanks for the tips. I'll try all of them. Photorec looks really interesting. It even has a help forum.

I recently had to recover friend's harddrive where it wasn't being mounted on either Windows or Mac machines. Failed boot sectors. I tried the Seagate's Recovery software and it recovered all her files like a charm. Here's the link to the software http://tinyurl.com/d993os7.

Dan, what kind of external harddrive do you? It's possible that the USB cable is failing or the USB port that you are using isn't supplying enough power for the harddrive to work.

i hope this helps

S