Recovering files but *VERY* slowly - Leave it running?

[mkdevo]

So I had the C drive of an HP laptop fail after only about a year. The drive itself has 4 partitions (main/C, "SYSTEM", "Recovery", and "HP_TOOLS"). The C partition is the only one that isn't accessible in windows (shows in windows explorer but says it needs to be formatted when you click on it). 

 

ETA: This drive has been removed from the HP laptop, and I am trying to run Revuca on it from a different machine.

 

I had Recuva scan it, and after about 24 hours, it was only at ~52% (for a long time - seemed stuck there). I canceled the scan and saw that many undeleted files were found (which is what I want). I found my photo dir, which is what I'm most concerned with, and started recovering.

 

Recovery has now been running about 36 hours. 188 files have been recovered (8%), and Estimated Time Left is at 27 days. It *is* recovering, but very slowly. It has been at 8% since at least this morning.

 

Looking for advice on what I should do here. Clearly the files are still there and recoverable. Do I just let it run? Is there a better option?

 

Any advice would be appreciated.

 

Thanks.

[Alan_B]

Welcome to the forum.

 

Is this an early April Fool's day prank ?

 

A normal installation of Windows will see itself as running in partition C:\

and would NOT tell you that it needs to be formatted.

 

If you really have a problem then you need to post a screen-shot that shows all the details available in Windows Disk management.

 

[mkdevo]

Welcome to the forum.

 

Is this an early April Fool's day prank ?

 

A normal installation of Windows will see itself as running in partition C:\

and would NOT tell you that it needs to be formatted.

 

If you really have a problem then you need to post a screen-shot that shows all the details available in Windows Disk management.

 

Hi Alan,

 

Sorry, guess I thought it was obvious that I removed the hard drive and was doing this in another computer. I'm referring to the partition that was the C drive (It's K on the new machine)...

[Alan_B]

You are forgiven

 

A screen shot showing all details available about the entire HP Laptop HDD (SSD ?) as seen by Windows Disk management on this other P.C. would give us a better idea of the situation.

 

I will leave it for those with more experience of Recuva to give you further advice.

 

Regards

Alan

[Augeas]

I wouldn't expect any recover operation to take that long, but there are quite a few questions here.

 

If a partition is failing or has failed then you would want to recover live files, not deleted files, no?

Are you running a normal scan or deep scan?

Have you checked Scan for Non-Deleted Files?

What size is the partition, and NTFS or FAT?

Is the size of the recovery folder increasing?

You are recovering to a folder in a partition on another disk?

 

That'll do for a start. Some users have experienced Recuva running in a loop or stalling on what presumably is a corrupted MFT entry. This could be the problem. Is there any sign of movement? A severely fragmented partition would also give delays, but surely not to that extent.

[mkdevo]

I wouldn't expect any recover operation to take that long, but there are quite a few questions here.

 

If a partition is failing or has failed then you would want to recover live files, not deleted files, no?

- Yes, I checked the non-deleted files box in the options, which I think was the right thing to do?

 

Are you running a normal scan or deep scan?

- I'd run a normal scan. Canceled at 52%. 

 

Have you checked Scan for Non-Deleted Files?

- Yes. 

 

What size is the partition, and NTFS or FAT?

- 570GB, NTFS

 

Is the size of the recovery folder increasing?

- Yes, but as slowly as the files are being recovered.

 

You are recovering to a folder in a partition on another disk?

- Yes, recovering to a different hard drive.

 

That'll do for a start. Some users have experienced Recuva running in a loop or stalling on what presumably is a corrupted MFT entry. This could be the problem. Is there any sign of movement? A severely fragmented partition would also give delays, but surely not to that extent.

 

Thanks Augeas. See my responses in-line above.

 

ONE file has been recovered since I started this thread. Now at 9% (189 files recovered). It was somewhere around 90 files about 24 hours ago.

 

The drive is incredibly slow when I plug it in. It takes minutes for all of the partitions to show up in windows explorer. I can't get Disk Management to load while it's recovering - it hangs on "Loading disk configuration information", and none of my drives show up in Disk Management (not the case when the drive isn't plugged in).

[Augeas]

Hmm, looks like the disk is struggling. I should hang on in there. Are you recovering everything you found or just the undeleted files or just the specific folder? If everything then if you stop the recovery and then sort the file state into order or switch to tree view you could attempt the recovery on a smaller subset of files. You shouldn't need to rescan. The risk is, of course, that when you stop the recovery you might not be able to run another if the disk finally fails big-time. (I shan't be able to respond until tomorrow UK time.)

[mkdevo]

Hmm, looks like the disk is struggling. I should hang on in there. Are you recovering everything you found or just the undeleted files or just the specific folder? If everything then if you stop the recovery and then sort the file state into order or switch to tree view you could attempt the recovery on a smaller subset of files. You shouldn't need to rescan. The risk is, of course, that when you stop the recovery you might not be able to run another if the disk finally fails big-time. (I shan't be able to respond until tomorrow UK time.)

 

Only trying to recover files from my PHOTO directory (3,523 files; 86,395 ignored - from Recuva). 

 

It's really slowed to a crawl now. Only 5 more files recovered overnight (9%/194 files recovered).

[Augeas]

At this rate it will take weeks to finish. Can you look at Task Manager and see what's being hammered? Disk, memory or cpu?

[mkdevo]

At this rate it will take weeks to finish. Can you look at Task Manager and see what's being hammered? Disk, memory or cpu?

 

Recuva process is just using 155MB RAM and no CPU at the moment. This is on a brand new build with a 3.5GHz i7 and 16GB RAM - and plenty of overhead.

[Augeas]

Disk usage?

[mkdevo]

Also very low. 

 

Here's a shot of Recuva performance properties from Process Explorer:

 

[hazelnut]

Are you able to try running Recuva in safe mode?

[mkdevo]

Are you able to try running Recuva in safe mode?

 

I haven't tried, though I'm a bit reluctant as this *is* moving, albeit at a snail's pace. 

 

What would be the benefit of trying in safe mode? Also, do you mean running the program in safe mode or running from Windows in safe mode?

 

Up to 227 files recovered now...

[mta]

That's the gamble, continue on your current path and spend days crawling along, or risk trying something new in the hope it flies.

Of course there may be no difference and the time would be wasted, but what if it works !

 

The Safe Mode benefit would be that nothing else is running on the PC except core essential Windows stuff.

I guess @hazelnut is assuming/hoping there are background tasks that could explain your slowness.

 

At the pace it currently is progressing, it's worth a shot.

[Alan_B]

I just cannot pass up the opportunity to "teach grandma(s) to suck eggs"

Is it possible that the source and / or destination drives are connected via USB2 that happens to have fallen into USB1 mode

 

More seriously, could HDD issues have caused the system to access the drive in PIO mode.

 

IDE ATA and ATAPI disks use PIO mode after multiple time-out or CRC errors occur
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/817472

The above is at post #4 in

https://forums.malwarebytes.org/index.php?showtopic=117614

 

Post #1 in the above gives a link to a page with a VBS script,

But I guess that would greatly disrupt the recovery that is in progress.

 

I MIGHT however be safe to use Device Manager to determine whether PIO mode is in use, as stated in post #1,

but I have no experience to advice either way - I will leave recommendations for those with experience.

 

Regards

Alan

 

[pedro30]

Hello mkdevo.

 

Forgive me if this is perhaps a stupid question/advise, but have you try to run a hard drive scan and repair tool like HDD regenerator?

I had a problem with a hard drive in the past. It started to fail similar to yours, i tried to recover with recuva and other software but it wouldn t work.

Then a IT technitian told me that the hard drive probably had some bad sectors and recomended me HDD regenerator. So, i ran the scan with it and it showed about 5 bad blocks. It took me about a day and half and over 3 repair attempts, but after that all bad blocks were gone.

After that i ran the windows system files repair tool.

After that i ran the recuva, scan again and started the recovery process of my files, and still it took about 3 hours and something but i manage to recover the important stuff.

Hope this maybe can help????

I am not an expert in any way.

Good luck.

 

[Alan_B]

@pedro30

 

Your recommendation (which seems to cost $99 ) MAY be of use if a disk is worn out and you cannot afford a new one.

 

The last thing I would ever consider is risking any write action that might endanger data I wish to recover.

[pedro30]

@pedro30

 

Your recommendation (which seems to cost $99 ) MAY be of use if a disk is worn out and you cannot afford a new one.

 

The last thing I would ever consider is risking any write action that might endanger data I wish to recover.

Well, what i meant was that the recovery process maybe taking too long because maybe the hard drive had bad sectors in it.

About your reply Alan_b

first- in my case that was what i did exactly, and it worked perfectly. If the disk fails, why cannot also have bad sectors which is what hdd reg repair. i had already 3 hd with the same problem and i used hdd reg and recover both the disk and the data on them.  

second- i am pretty sure that you can find a tool like hdd reg, but freeware.

third-even if you can afford a new hd, if you can rescue it why then buy a new one? to tell your friends that you are  filty rich?

fourth- i did not recommended anything. i asked a question and told my personel experience. Follow it or not well, it is up to mkdevo and i really do not care.

[Alan_B]

fourth- i did not recommended anything. i asked a question and told my personel experience. Follow it or not well, it is up to mkdevo and i really do not care.

You were given by an "IT technitian" what you yourself described as a recommendation to use commercial software which I refuse to name.

You tried that commercial software and it helped your situation.

By asking mkdevo if he had tried that type of commercial software I understood you  to be endorsing its potential suitability for his situation.

 

Sorry if that offends you but I understood you to be recommending that he risk using commercial software.

 

Commercial software that is designed to write to his disk with the purpose of fixing bad blocks,

and might well overwrite data that could otherwise be recovered by any one of many alternative data recovery utilities,

which REFRAIN from writing and thus destroying what the next alternative recovery  utility could rescue.

 

Personally I have forgotten how many pure data recovery utilities I downloaded and tried before I was able to recovery everything that had been held on a 600 GB HDD.

I absolutely refused to allow anything to write to that HDD until I had rescued all data.

I used Windows Disk Management to change the status of the drive from ONLINE to OFFLINE,

and this ensured nothing could write to the HDD whilst running under Windows.

Only then did I dare to download software that I MIGHT misunderstand and inadvertently authorize to write to the HDD.

[pedro30]

Ok Alan_B.

I was not offended in any way.

And i did not Knew, about that. i trusted blindly on the technitian and now i see that i really shouldn t. I guess i was lucky in my case.

Well, i guess we learn from our mistakes. Now if anything happens again to any of my HDs, i will do the way you told on your last reply. It seem surelly much more safe.

Damm!!!! Damm!!!!, how could i´ve been so stupid and dumb untill now? I know this is not the place for this post, but Thank you big time for open my eyes.

Cheers.

[Alan_B]

Dear Pedro

 

Learning from mistakes is very effective.

That is how I do my best learning

 

Better to learn from other people's mistakes,

but learn at every opportunity

 

Regards

Alan