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"unable to read boot sector".. what to do next?


Ty1980

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Hello,

 

I’m hoping that someone can help me out.

 

I have a 16 GB Transcent SD card that I use to take pictures with on my camera. Today I was taking some pictures and out of the blue got a ‘card error’ message on my camera.

 

When I got home I tried checking it on my computer with my SD card reader. When I plug the card in I get a message saying “you need to format the disk in drive F: before you can use it”. The card is recognized under my computers, but it says it has 0 bytes on it.

 

I have not formatted it yet. I have tried a couple programs such as Zero Assumption Recovery and Rescue My Files, but they haven’t been able to find any files on the disk.

 

The weird thing is that all the recovery programs I am trying say that the SD card is only 1 GB when it is actually 16 GB.

 

I have tried using Recuva, but get an "unable to read boot sector" error.

 

Does anyone have any idea of what I can try next to get my photos off the card and onto my computer?

 

Thanks,

Ty

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Option 1: Ontrack EasyRecovery Professional v6.22

 

Option 2: Install a trial version of Active@ Boot Disk (http://www.ntfs.com/boot-disk.htm) and burn a bootable disc. Boot your system using that bootable disc. Run Active@ KillDisk from the file menu and scan the SD card. If you find the files on the SD card, then you can use Active@ File Recovery option from the file menu to recover the files.

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The weird thing is that all the recovery programs I am trying say that the SD card is only 1 GB when it is actually 16 GB.

Possibly an excellent diagnosis of a FAKE card (not uncommon from eBay)

 

Google search phrase :-

fake 16 GB Transcent SD card

 

Response :- About 135,000 results (0.29 seconds)

and question "Did you mean: fake 16GB Transcend SD card "

 

Two relevant results

http://fightflashfra...d-card-problem/

http://fightflashfra...ld-on-ebay-usa/

 

The second result gives this link to a useful looking test tool

http://sosfakeflash....terfeit-drives/

 

I suggest that your 16 GB device may have been looking good whilst holding less than 1 GB of files,

but when you over-stuffed its genuine 1 GB capacity it trashed itself to hinder fraud detection,

and hence gave you a "card error".

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Possibly an excellent diagnosis of a FAKE card (not uncommon from eBay)

 

Google search phrase :-

fake 16 GB Transcent SD card

 

Response :- About 135,000 results (0.29 seconds)

and question "Did you mean: fake 16GB Transcend SD card "

 

Two relevant results

http://fightflashfra...d-card-problem/

http://fightflashfra...ld-on-ebay-usa/

 

The second result gives this link to a useful looking test tool

http://sosfakeflash....terfeit-drives/

 

I suggest that your 16 GB device may have been looking good whilst holding less than 1 GB of files,

but when you over-stuffed its genuine 1 GB capacity it trashed itself to hinder fraud detection,

and hence gave you a "card error".

 

Hi Alan,

 

Thanks for the interesting idea. Unfortunately I purchased the SD card directly from Amazon.com and am almost positive that I had taken and stored at least 2 GB worth of photos and videos on it.

 

One other thing that probably should have been a sign that something bad was going to happen is that I remember a few weeks ago when looking at the files from my PC that their was a couple of them that would say 'this file is corrupt and cannot be viewed'.

 

Does anyone else have any thoughts?

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Hello Ty, and welcome to Piriform.

 

Have a look at "PhotoRec", which is a powerful and very versatile Open Source (free) recovery utility. It doesn't have a "point and click" GUI but it does have a structured dialogue to follow, which isn't too difficult to get to grips with. It also has very detailed help files.

 

PhotoRec:

 

PhotoRec Step By Step:

 

The download also comes with it's companion program, "TestDisk", which you may also find useful with it's recovery and repair abilities.

 

Fix partition table, recover deleted partition

Recover FAT32 boot sector from its backup

Rebuild FAT12/FAT16/FAT32 boot sector

Fix FAT tables

Rebuild NTFS boot sector

Recover NTFS boot sector from its backup

Fix MFT using MFT mirror

Locate ext2/ext3/ext4 Backup SuperBlock

Undelete files from FAT, exFAT, NTFS and ext2 filesystem

 

TestDisk:

 

Help documentation links further down the page.

 

Hope that helps.

 

 

EDIT: Which operating system are you using by the way?

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Hello Ty, and welcome to Piriform.

 

Have a look at "PhotoRec", which is a powerful and very versatile Open Source (free) recovery utility. It doesn't have a "point and click" GUI but it does have a structured dialogue to follow, which isn't too difficult to get to grips with. It also has very detailed help files.

 

 

Hi Dennis, Thanks for posting. I have tried PhotoRec and didn't have any luck. I am just really perplexed by why it always shows up as 1024 mb.

 

 

 

Hello Ty, and welcome to Piriform.

 

EDIT: Which operating system are you using by the way?

 

I tried most of my tests on a Windows 7 64 bit build, but I also tried using recuva and a few other programs on a 32 bit windows 7 laptop.

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Ty, I recently encountered a very similar problem to yours. I got it fixed, but the applications are very brand specific. I was checking a user's Maxell 2 GB flash disk they wanted me to look at, that did exactly as you describe here.

_____

 

The only thing that worked for me, was downloading a Maxell utility that is called Mode Converter.

Somehow, the drive ended up only showing 1 MB out of 2 GB, & prior to that, it showed nothing at all & called for a format.

 

After using the Maxell utility, it was able to recover the partition back to normal state, although it stated it could not format the drive.

I QUICK formatted it in Windows, then ran Recuva & was able to recover all the pics off the drive. I will list below what I believe may fix it, just do NOT run a full format if you want to get your data back.

_____

 

Transcend has an auto format utility in the support section of their website.

I believe this may fix what problem you are having.

 

* Edit... The format utility says it will delete all data on the media... :( But if you want to get your drive size back, & if nothing else works, hey, it's worth a try!

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Hello Ty.

 

As Super Fast mentions above, it is possible to get a drive back to it's correct size, and I did it quite some time ago using Partition Management software, as my flash drive had mysteriously developed a second partition which I certainly didn't put there.

 

I only learned this after loading the drive into a Partition Management program, and in that instance I didn't have files I needed to retrieve.

 

As Super Fast says, formatting (quick formatting) is sometimes the only way to put a drive into a state which enables recovery software to access it and scan for files, but with all due respect to Super Fast's ideas don't go down that road yet.

 

It's after 3.00am here Ty, and I'm off very soon, but I'll be back on later today.

 

Can you download a free utility called "USB Image Tool", and provided it picks up your card, make a back up "Image" of your camera card with it. Your card is no different to a USB flash drive in this respect. I tested this out with my own cards.

 

http://usb-image-tool.en.malavida.com/

 

Use "Device Mode" as shown in this screenshot, and make sure you save it as a .img file. If you do this successfully then we can try stuff with the safety cushion of a back up, and it may also be possible to get files from the Image.

 

It will also enable a quick format of the drive with the knowledge that you can get the card back to "pre format" state by restoring the Image.

 

2011_12_24_031301.jpg

 

This is still fairly new stuff to me, and it may come to nothing, but it's worth a bit of effort to get personal data back, and having a back up gives us some freedom. I've also tried every suggestion I'll make on my own flash drives and memory cards.

 

If you can make that back up, I'll get back to you, and you can of course look into Super Fast's suggestions.

 

 

EDIT: I know this is fine with XP and Vista, not 100% sure about Win 7, although the program does not install. Just extract the contents of the Zip file into a folder of your choice.

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That may work, Dennis. But I believe on the flash drive I was checking, I had tried zeroing the partition I was on (the 1 mb partition) in an effort to clear the data so it would reset, including running the CMDline clean & clean all commands to try to reset.

 

To no avail. It appears the drive somehow developed a 1 mb & a 1.86 (2GB) partition, & that Windows was only showing the 1 MB partition.

As the data was fully preserved in the 2 GB partition since nothing had written to it, I was able to recover the data after running Maxell's mode converter to change the drive back.

_____

 

Of course, I still do not fully understand 1 thing, & that is this. When I ran maxell utility to create 2 partitions, it showed 2 partitions on plugging in the drive. In Windows, not just Maxell utility. I did not format either at this time, but then I re-ran it to change it back to 1 partition. I ran Windows quick format at this time, because Maxell utility was unable to.

 

I am a bit puzzled how Maxell caused the flash drive to show 2 partitions. In Windows explorer. Weird. Oh well, it worked, & that's the bottom line.

 

I, of course, would try Dennis's suggestion & maybe any other suggestion, in the event they do work, but I tried Ease US/Windows/many other utilities & they did nothing but show 1 MB partition no matter what I did or tried.

_____

 

Try whatever you can first, but if nothing works, then don't throw away the drive before trying the format utility listed under support on the transcend website.

 

I would go out on a limb and say that if a partition is being hidden & the one you are shown is the smaller one, that possibly no image backup utility would work, because they do not have access to the hidden, or secondary partition. I could be wrong on this, however, & Dennis's suggestion is very worth the try.

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If I remember this right (it was a while ago), when I loaded my wrongly displaying drive into Paragon Partition Manager, it showed one partition which was the size being displayed in windows explorer.

 

The missing space, the large bit, was displayed as unallocated space. Using Paragon I was able to delete the small partition, and then repartition the entire drive taking in the unallocated space.

 

This fix was one of those trial and error things, and I should have made a note of what I tried, what failed, and what subsequently fixed things. I didn't, but the unallocated space is the bit I do remember.

 

How it got like this in the first place I think was down to an install of a Linux distro.

 

With regard to Ty's problem, my main point above was to do nothing without making a back up Image of his card first. This USB Imaging is new on here, but it has a lot of interesting possibilities, especially the ability to mount the Image as a drive, or to extract files from it, but mainly of course to mess around with a flash drive or camera card, and then if something fails, restore the Image to try something else.

 

Early days on this, but I'm gonna pursue it relentlessly, as they say. :)

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Hello everyone, sorry for not responding sooner.

 

A couple of days ago I brought the card to a local computer shop to see if they could figure anything special about it, but I will forward them a link to this tread and hopefully it will help.

 

Dennis - I actually tried that usb image tool a week or so ago when I read you recommending it to another poster. If I remember correctly either the card didn't show up at all or it showed up but didn't let me backup anything to it. But I remember trying to plug in another working card into it and it worked perfectly.

 

I was able to successfully back the sd card up with some other programs, but it would only backup the 1 GB that was recognized.

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Transcend has an auto format utility in the support section of their website.

I believe this may fix what problem you are having.

 

* Edit... The format utility says it will delete all data on the media... :( But if you want to get your drive size back, & if nothing else works, hey, it's worth a try!

 

I was able to find this program (http://www.transcend-info.com/Support/DLCenter/DLSoftware.asp?ID=5&Func1No=3&Func2No=205) which appears to be Transcends recovery tool. I will forward it to the person currently looking at the card and see if it helps.

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If you haven't cracked it yet Ty, have a look at DriveImage XML, which is an "Imaging" program known more on here for making Hard Drive backups similar to the excellent Macrium Reflect.

 

It differs from Macrium in that it recognizes flash drives and memory cards.

 

http://www.runtime.o...veimage-xml.htm (Free for personal use and a very small install)

 

It also Images just the data on the disk and not the entire volume, and you can look at and extract files from the backup.

 

As it works differently to "USB Image Tool", it just might pick up your camera card. Worth a try, and if you need any help with it just ask.

 

One thing to note if you have some luck and get to the "browse and extract" stage, the "save location" button is almost out of sight in the dialogue window ...

 

2011_12_30_130851.jpg

 

If it does pick up your card it will be interesting as to whether it picks up the entire thing.

 

 

EDIT: Almost forgot ... that "Transcend" looks interesting although I'm not thrilled with their "Privacy Policy". Saying that, if it could get my lost data back when all else failed, I'd live with it.

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If I remember this right (it was a while ago), when I loaded my wrongly displaying drive into Paragon Partition Manager, it showed one partition which was the size being displayed in windows explorer.

 

The missing space, the large bit, was displayed as unallocated space. Using Paragon I was able to delete the small partition, and then repartition the entire drive taking in the unallocated space.

 

This fix was one of those trial and error things, and I should have made a note of what I tried, what failed, and what subsequently fixed things.

 

This is very interesting to me. I wonder if there were some resize option you may have tried in paragon, although I haven't used it much myself, perhaps a couple times here & there. I know in the utility I used for a Maxell drive, it basically flipped the partition.

 

In other words, it displayed a 1 MB partition but it also had a hidden 2 GB partition. The 2 GB partition was supposed to be the primary, but it was the hidden. The 1 MB was supposed to be hidden, but it was the primary. Since the 1 MB partition was the one being displayed, it wouldn't have worked to back up the data, since there was no data to be backed up on the 1 MB partition.

_____

 

The data was safe in the other partition, I just had to figure out a way to flip it back where the 2 GB (1.86 GB formatted) partition was the one being displayed when you plug the drive in, & the smaller 1 MB was the hidden.

 

I am thinking that this must be similar to the information on the drive that you are helping them with, although I am not 100% for sure, since I do not have the drive right here with me where I could check it out.

 

But I am definitely watching with interest, & it will be interesting to see if you happen on a solution to cause it to flip the partition with data on it to the primary one being displayed. As I recall correctly, a flash drive can only display a single partition on it, unless the drive's bit it flipped such that the drive appears as a HDD (Hard Disk Drive) instead of a FDD (Flash Disk Drive) to Windows.

_____

 

I might have to play with Paragon Partition Manager a bit to see if it can do it or not later. Ease US had no option to do so, although it would display the correct partition after the Maxell utility flipped the primary partition. I also noted that when the utility changed the status of the FDD to HDD, Windows would display both partitions (1 MB + 2 GB).

 

This was very cool, as I had never had a chance to see this happen prior to this, & to see it actually work was exciting to me. I hope that something I may have mentioned concerning flipping a partition, or some other piece, might trigger you to remember what it was you did when you had the allocated space problem.

_____

 

I am thinking, of course, that it must have something to do with flipping the partition on it, & that perhaps his drive is displaying the wrong partition. I could be wrong on this, of couse, but if you do remember what it was that you did concerning the allocated space, I shall make a mental note to try this on a junk flash drive I have, just for experiments...

 

The Maxell drive utility was specific to that brand drive & only worked with that drive, which is why I have such a high interest level in the outcome of this.

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I was unable to use a resize process to take up the unallocated space with Paragon because the "recognized" partition was corrupt and Paragon wouldn't do anything with it. This is what probably caused the wrong size to be displayed in Windows. Either the MBR or the Partition Table within the MBR was screwed, so the true size of the drive just wasn't available to be read.

 

As there weren't fortunately any files on it I needed, I was able to use Paragon to delete the bad partition, leaving the drive like this ...

 

2012_01_01_220839.jpg

 

Once that was done, with no volume/partition on the device I simply used Paragon to create a new Fat32 one using all the unallocated space ...

 

2012_01_01_221041.jpg

 

... which gave me a flash drive once again showing and using it's true size ...

 

2012_01_01_221059.jpg

 

I'm posting this in detail simply for the benefit of anyone who may need to do this, and sadly will only benefit Ty if he either gets the files off his card, or eventually gets to the point where all options to do that have been exhausted.

 

You can do this with a camera card as well.

 

Interesting as this is, we'll have to keep the discussion here relevant to Ty's problem, which is getting his files back first.

 

Edit:

 

For a problematic camera card, I was able to delete the partition, and then create a new one with no problems, but trying this with two different partition management programs, "Paragon Partition Manager 8.5" (No longer available) and "MiniTool Partition Wizard Home Edition 7.0", I was unable to create a partition to the full original size.

 

However, I went through the "delete Partition" process again, and then stuck the card with no drive letter and 100% unallocated space into my camera.

 

Up popped a "card error" message, but after ignoring that, I navigated to the "format card" section in my cameras settings, and it successfully formatted the card to it's correct original size.

 

All that remains is to load the card into Paragon/MinTools/Disk Management again and give it a drive letter to get it recognized by Windows.

 

NB: Paragon Partition Manager Free Edition 11.0

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