Recovering data when there are physical disk errors
A common reason for data loss is when critical sectors on a drive have failed. Often it is only a small number, but even then the PC will fail to read the disk. CnW Recovery software has tools to overcome this problem and typically recover the large majority of the disk.
It is very important that any action you take does not damage the disk further. Continuous reading of a failing disk can damage the platter and heads. If data is very critical, then a software solution such as this may not be sensible, and you should contact a hardward repair specialist. If however, the data is not critical, this can be a low cost approach that may help.
Stage 1
The first stage in recovery is to image
the disk, and many times a good image will be made quickly, with just a few slow spots where there are disk errors. Once an image is made, this may be used as an input to the normal recovery routines
Stage 2
There are times when a disk is very corrupted and cannot be imaged. At times also, the USB interface will hang. At this point there are two ways forward. The first is to try different hardware, and maybe even connect the drive directly to the computer, and not via a USB or Firewire interface. The other solution is to skip areas of the disk that cannot be read. The CnW Software will build up an image file in any sequence, so if required the final 10GB can be imaged first, followed by any other area. There are also very useful tools to assist in imaging just the directory area of an NTFS disk
Stage 3
If the above two solutions are being slow, the third stage unfortunately is patience. A badly damaged disk may take several days to image which is why the stage 2 approach of skipping unrequired areas can help.