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Unable to read MFT


Kevin04

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Hello,

as you may guessed by reading the topic title, I'm getting this message when trying to scan a partition of my new hard drive. I select the drive, click on scan and this message appears on the bottom left, the little progress window doesn't even show up.

It's a new Seagate GoFlex Desk 3TB external hard drive, I splitted it into 3 partitions and encrypted each of them with TrueCrypt. Recuva has no problems analyzing any other partitions or TrueCrypt volumes, it's only about the ones on this new hd. Oh, and I have absolutely no problems working with these partitions - I can use them just like all the others. CHKDSK doesn't report any errors (the filesystem had some errors before, and Recuva seemed to analyze forever when trying to do it then. It stopped saying there's not enough RAM. I fixed that by running chkdsk /f), too.

So, I think something's different about this one. They may had to change some options in order to achieve this size, I don't know. I had to update my TrueCrypt version in order to encrypt this drive. It failed with any older version (while it did fine with all my other drives), that gave me the idea of this new hd being different. Also, if I'm trying to do a standard search with GetDataBack, it only shows the hard drive without its partitions (while all the other HDs HAVE their partitions of course). However, if I want to recover deleted files with GetDataBack, it acutally detects all the partitions and also the mounted TrueCrypt volumes (just like Recuva), and provides some information about the partitions. The only value of these that differs from all my other partitions is Secs/cluster: While my internal and other external drives all have 8 Secs/cluster, the 3TB drive only has 1 Sec/cluster. Could that have to do with anything? GetDataBack also fails in analyzing this partition, I guess it also has issues with the MFT.

If you need any additional info about this drive, feel free to ask. I'll post it, provided that I know how the get the infos, since Windows, Speccy and also Everest didn't quite help me when searching for possible values that differ from my other drives.

 

I'm not quite sure if this is the correct board to post it, so please forgive me if you think it fits better in one of the other two boards, and just move it.So, I suppose there's not workaround for this right now, but will this be supported in the future? I hope so... since I'm, obviously, trying to recover some files I accidentely deleted, and I don't want to leave the partition untouched for months in order to avoid overwriting the deleted files.

Thanks for reading. :)

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  • 4 weeks later...
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Unfortunately I have no answer Kevin. It may be something to do with the sector size. I have read about the tendency in disk design to move from 512k to 4096k sectors, so you may be a bit of a pioneer.

 

I can only suggest that you try another recovery product to get you moving on this. The devs do read the forum and occasionally contact users with particular problems.

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Okay, understood. Thanks. I just wanted to see some kind of response since I've already waited half a month and I can't touch the partition due to fearing to overwrite deleted files.

I'll edit this post if I find something that helped me (I hope you wouldn't see this as advertisment for other products! I'd prefer not having to look for other recovery software)

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  • 7 months later...

Well, on Dec 20, 2010, Mr.G announced Recuva v1.39.

 

Change log:

 

? Fixed bug that caused "Unable to read MFT" error.

? Improved support for exFAT drives.

? Improved support for Windows 7.

? Added mnemonics to the Wizard.

? Extended logging for Windows 7 64-bit.

? Added link to Online Help.

? Fixed bug that could cause analysis fail on U3 drives.

? Minor bug fixes.

 

I am using Recuva v1.40.525. It reports "Unable to read MFT" on a brand new Western Digital 3T drive where I accidentally deleted a just copied, large folder, which I need to recover.

 

Since this error was fixed in v1.39, what would you suggest? <_<

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Kevin and Mark.

 

You guys don't say what kind of data you're each trying to recover, but if Recuva can't quite do it for you at the moment, maybe have a look at "TestDisk" and "PhotoRec". A number of punters on here have had success with one or both of these, and they're freeware.

 

TestDisk and PhotoRec:

 

TestDisk Documentation:

 

PhotoRec Documentation:

 

Between these two utilities, you may be able to either do something with your drive/partition, or recover data. At first glance they may look like command line utilities, but they're not.

 

The important thing is to recover your data, so I hope this may help.

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Kevin and Mark.

 

You guys don't say what kind of data you're each trying to recover, but if Recuva can't quite do it for you at the moment, maybe have a look at "TestDisk" and "PhotoRec". A number of punters on here have had success with one or both of these, and they're freeware.

 

TestDisk and PhotoRec:

 

TestDisk Documentation:

 

PhotoRec Documentation:

 

Between these two utilities, you may be able to either do something with your drive/partition, or recover data. At first glance they may look like command line utilities, but they're not.

 

The important thing is to recover your data, so I hope this may help.

Thanks, Dennis.

 

I have chosen to simply re-copy the folder that I accidently deleted. It takes about 14 hours using FastCopy, but it is a lot faster than trying a deep scan (where filenames might not be recovered) that would take three days.

 

Will finish the copy in about 5 1/2 hours... :blink:

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I am using Recuva v1.40.525. It reports "Unable to read MFT" on a brand new Western Digital 3T drive where I accidentally deleted a just copied, large folder, which I need to recover.

Some applications do not work for 3 TB HDD.

Perhaps those that will work on a 3 TB HDD draw the line at 1 TB or less partitions.

What size is the partition you were recovering from.

 

Thanks for FastCopy.

I was going to recommend considering Teracopy which is very much more reliable than native copy because of MD5 checksums,

But just looked at it and FastCopy is looking much better - now downloaded ready to try.

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Some applications do not work for 3 TB HDD.

Perhaps those that will work on a 3 TB HDD draw the line at 1 TB or less partitions.

What size is the partition you were recovering from.

 

Thanks for FastCopy.

I was going to recommend considering Teracopy which is very much more reliable than native copy because of MD5 checksums,

But just looked at it and FastCopy is looking much better - now downloaded ready to try.

Hi Alan -- the drive is a single partition and the folder held 1.6T of files. The files were not lost (as they were being copied from another drive), only my time, a few grey hairs, and a little reality check from someone known not to make mistakes. :lol:

 

Noticing that Piriform indicated that the limitation was fixed in an earlier Recuva update, I was simply letting them know that the MFT issue was not resolved.

 

As for FastCopy, I think you will like it. I have been through many of them (e.g. Robocopy, RichCopy, XXcopy, TeraCopy, etc.), and from what I have read (I am getting too chronologically challenged to confirm their findings... ), it appears to beat them all. Besides, what is a percentage point here or there anyway. ;)

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