External HDD Issue

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Jason Smith

Jason Smith

PCHF Member
Mar 27, 2022
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Hi all,

Not sure what's going on here so I'll just tell you what I know.

I have an old 3.5" external hard drive, probably about 10 years old. I had it in an old enclosure until something happened and I stopped using it. I think I lost the power cable and never got round to sourcing a new one.

I recently purchased a new enclosure but when I've plugged it in and scrolled through the drive, the file types are all messed up. I can't open anything and was wondering if there's any software that might be able to recover what I have on here?

I have some of the following file types:

.hjm
.nts
.hts (which is after a folder?)
A few PNG files on there so I know it's not completely corrupted.

Inside the folders, there are files called chunk.01 through to chunk.10 in some of them.

I'd appreciate any advice or direction as to whether or not I can recover this data.

The drive is a Seagate Expansion Drive 1TB.

if you need any more info let me know.

Thanks in advance,

Jason.
 
Malnutrition said:
I'd run a check disk on the drive.

From an elevated command prompt.

chkdsk c: /f


change the c: to the letter of the drive in question...




Or run this software, it does the same thing.
Make sure and check thorough test.
Also check correct error and verbose.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the reply. So I ran chkdsk and these are the results...can't see any errors though. Should I give the software a shot or is it pointless?

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.19044.1586]
(c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Windows\system32>chkdsk D: /f
The type of the file system is NTFS.
Volume label is Expansion Drive.

Stage 1: Examining basic file system structure ...
81152 file records processed.
File verification completed.
Phase duration (File record verification): 2.37 seconds.
2 large file records processed.
Phase duration (Orphan file record recovery): 0.00 milliseconds.
0 bad file records processed.
Phase duration (Bad file record checking): 0.22 milliseconds.

Stage 2: Examining file name linkage ...
133 reparse records processed.
Correcting error in index $I30 for file AF3.
Correcting error in index $I30 for file 13CBE.
81562 index entries processed.
Index verification completed.
Phase duration (Index verification): 1.46 seconds.
0 unindexed files scanned.
Phase duration (Orphan reconnection): 6.55 milliseconds.
0 unindexed files recovered to lost and found.
Phase duration (Orphan recovery to lost and found): 0.81 milliseconds.
133 reparse records processed.
Phase duration (Reparse point and Object ID verification): 2.31 milliseconds.

Stage 3: Examining security descriptors ...
Security descriptor verification completed.
Phase duration (Security descriptor verification): 54.59 milliseconds.
206 data files processed.
Phase duration (Data attribute verification): 0.52 milliseconds.
CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal...
Usn Journal verification completed.
CHKDSK discovered free space marked as allocated in the
master file table (MFT) bitmap.

Windows has made corrections to the file system.
No further action is required.

976760000 KB total disk space.
315514120 KB in 1271 files.
1272 KB in 207 indexes.
0 KB in bad sectors.
176940 KB in use by the system.
65536 KB occupied by the log file.
661067668 KB available on disk.

4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
244190000 total allocation units on disk.
165266917 allocation units available on disk.
Total duration: 3.92 seconds (3924 ms).

C:\Windows\system32>
 
Morning guys, apologies for the late response.

I've managed to have a play with the hdd and can move things from it but the file format stays the same. Still no joys in getting the data readable.

Most file names are intact, there are some that I think may have been images (which is what I'm looking for) but their file names are just the date.

Anything out there that might put things back together or am I just going to have to bite the bullet on this one?

Cheers,

Jason
 
www.lifewire.com

How to Fix Corrupted Files

Corrupted files can occur on any file type, including Word, Excel, PDF, image files, and Windows system files. But you might be able to save that information by trying a few of these corrupt file repair tips.
www.lifewire.com www.lifewire.com
 
So I've tried a couple of repair tools, no joy. I've tried a file converter and they wont recognise the file types so again, no joys.

I'e just realised I hadn't attached any screen shots of the drive. Please see attached, not sure if this is of any use. I've noticed that the second image (2) has equal sized files.

The drive is a Seagate, again not sure if this info is useful. I did try to open the Seagate dashboard but it's not supported on my OS (Windows 10).

I'm not precious about the videos, I'm just sure I have a load of images on this drive from my time in the Army and it would be a shame to lose them.

Thanks again guys.

EDIT:

Attached image 3 as there looks to be a file of some sort with PVR_REG_INFO so I don't know if this is of any use either. I tried to open it with Notepad but it only gives me the following "à$2{>Æ".
 

Attachments

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Have you tried to rename the files? For instance right click select rename and add .png or .jpg or .jpeg to the pics?

blog.filestack.com

Complete Image File Extension Lists for Developers

JPEGs. PDFs. SVGs. Even for the most savvy developers, keeping track of all image file extensions isn’t easy. Read on for when to use which image format.
blog.filestack.com blog.filestack.com
 
I can't see the pictures I'm looking for unfortunately. I think they're in one of the folders with the "chunk" files in like on image 2.

Is there anything out there that might be able to put the files back together, assuming that's what's happened?
 
Recuva would give it a red hot go, but it usually can't 'stitch' files back together if the master FAT file is corrupted or the files in question are fragmented.
it just recovers files that are flagged as corrupted when they get opened.
 
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Bruce said:
re-opened as per OP request.
Click to expand...
Thanks Bruce.

Apologies all, not been well recently so this has been low on the priority list.

Updates since the last ppst, I've tried renaming the files to multiple formats but no joys on any of them.

It seems as though the files have been broken down into the chunks, do you have any ideas of which software could do this? I might be able to download one of them and see if it can stitch the files back together?

Is there anyway to look at what might be in the chunk files to see if the images are in there?
 
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