Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsme.general (More info?)

I have a 160-GB Seagate hard drive, model ST3160022ACE. This is a
slave drive, used only for data files (114 GB of multimedia files I've
been editing); the OS is on the master.

The other night I was watching an MPEG file on this drive when Media
Player Classic suddenly stopped in the middle. When I exited Media
Player and opened Explorer to inspect my files, they were gone. The
folders that were in the root directory were still there, but the
entire contents of my "Video" subfolder -- four subdirectories and 42
files (plus more files in the subdirectories) were missing.

Windows still reports 114 GB in use on the drive, so I think the DATA
is still there, but the file recovery programs I've tried, including
OnTrack Easy Recovery Pro and RecoverSoft Media Tools Professional, are
only able to find and recover about 50 GB of the files.

Meanwhile, Norton Disk Doctor reports file structure errors on the disk
but only gets halfway through before failing, with the error message:
"Unable to repair DOS Boot Record."

The only diagnostic program to give me any sort of meaningful data so
far has been Seagate's own diagnostic utility, "SeaTools Desktop."
Below is the SeaTools report. Can anyone suggest how I might proceed
from here? I'm totally lost as for what to do next. Thanks to anyone
who can help.

----- REPORT -----

File Structure Test Result:

Partition 1 (FAT 32 (160 GB) ) Result: Critical Error(s)
260 Critical Structure Error(s)
377 Non-Critical Structure Error(s)

Critical errors were found during the scan.
These could be one or more of the following:
- Invalid directory entry
- Invalid file or directory name
- Invalid file size
- Invalid file chain
- Cross-linked file chains
- Bad cluster value in file allocation table
- File allocation table mismatch
- BPB mismatch
- Invalid free space value

Minor errors were found during the scan.
One or more orphaned data blocks were found.

0 KBytes in 0 files
1 directories were found
0 KBytes in 2 deleted files
0 deleted directories were found

ERROR SUMMARY:
DIR Cross Link 1
DIR Structures 259
Orphaned Data Blocks 376
Invalid Free Space Value 1

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsme.general (More info?)

My thought is that the OS attempted to read/write somewhere past the 128GB
point on the HD. 9x/Me systems can only do that with drive overlay software
installed. I think when they find space past the 128GB point they write
garbage there that corrupts data.

You oftentimes can get away with using a drive larger than 128GB by only
partitioning like 120GB of it, leaving the rest as unused.

Microsoft first made Windows compatible with 48-bit LBA with a patch and
registry change for XP Gold, then just included it with XP Service Pack 1.

Once your files have been corrupted it's really difficult to recover
anything usable. OnTrack makes some software for that, but I think for
recovering large amounts of material it gets expensive.
--
Dennis
Asus A7V880 AthlonXP3200+ Radeon 9600XT M-Audio Revo
Asus A7V333 AthlonXP3000+ Radeon 9550 SBLive5.1



"Dennis Q. Wilson" wrote:

> I have a 160-GB Seagate hard drive, model ST3160022ACE. This is a
> slave drive, used only for data files (114 GB of multimedia files I've
> been editing); the OS is on the master.
>
> The other night I was watching an MPEG file on this drive when Media
> Player Classic suddenly stopped in the middle. When I exited Media
> Player and opened Explorer to inspect my files, they were gone. The
> folders that were in the root directory were still there, but the
> entire contents of my "Video" subfolder -- four subdirectories and 42
> files (plus more files in the subdirectories) were missing.
>
> Windows still reports 114 GB in use on the drive, so I think the DATA
> is still there, but the file recovery programs I've tried, including
> OnTrack Easy Recovery Pro and RecoverSoft Media Tools Professional, are
> only able to find and recover about 50 GB of the files.
>
> Meanwhile, Norton Disk Doctor reports file structure errors on the disk
> but only gets halfway through before failing, with the error message:
> "Unable to repair DOS Boot Record."
>
> The only diagnostic program to give me any sort of meaningful data so
> far has been Seagate's own diagnostic utility, "SeaTools Desktop."
> Below is the SeaTools report. Can anyone suggest how I might proceed
> from here? I'm totally lost as for what to do next. Thanks to anyone
> who can help.
>
> ----- REPORT -----
>
> File Structure Test Result:
>
> Partition 1 (FAT 32 (160 GB) ) Result: Critical Error(s)
> 260 Critical Structure Error(s)
> 377 Non-Critical Structure Error(s)
>
> Critical errors were found during the scan.
> These could be one or more of the following:
> - Invalid directory entry
> - Invalid file or directory name
> - Invalid file size
> - Invalid file chain
> - Cross-linked file chains
> - Bad cluster value in file allocation table
> - File allocation table mismatch
> - BPB mismatch
> - Invalid free space value
>
> Minor errors were found during the scan.
> One or more orphaned data blocks were found.
>
> 0 KBytes in 0 files
> 1 directories were found
> 0 KBytes in 2 deleted files
> 0 deleted directories were found
>
> ERROR SUMMARY:
> DIR Cross Link 1
> DIR Structures 259
> Orphaned Data Blocks 376
> Invalid Free Space Value 1
>
>