Did Norton Speed Disk Kill My HardDrive?

[jlcanuck]

SYSTEM
AMD3000+ XP
OS Windows XP Professional SP2
Motherboard ASUS A7V-333X

I've got a Maxtor 200 GB HD (NTSF - only one partion) housed in an external case connected via a USB 2.0 cable to my computer. I was trying to defrag my HD using Norton Systemworks 2004 Speed Disk and during the defrag, the system hung and stopped defragging suggesting the disk lost its connection via the USB cable so I turned off the HD and restarted the defrag. The HD restarted ok once I turned it off and on but once I restarted Norton Speed Disk the system lost its connection during the defrag again and this time, when I turned the external case off and on to restart the HD the disk now says missing file system and the volume and all data seem to be LOST!

I cannot even view the drive in Windows Explorer nor does Norton DIsk Doctor work since it says it is missing the system. In Windows when I go into Control Panel/Administrative Tools/Computer Management/Disk Management I see the HD connected to my PC but it says the volume is not recognized and says it is in RAW format with no system data.

The preliminary diagnosis I have done suggest the HD is working (spinning smoothly without any clicking noise) but all the system data and contents seem to have been lost. The system is now asking me to reformat the drive - but I certainly don't want to do that since I have 160 GB of data I want to keep. Did Norton Speed Disk destroy all the file system data on my external HD when the system hung? Could it be that fragile and dangerous to the system???

MOST IMPORTANTLY IS HOW DO I GET MY DATA BACK. I HAVE NOT DONE ANYTHING TO THE HD SINCE THIS HAPPENED AND NEED SOMEONE'S ADVICE! HELP!!!

[Darthtanion]

Re: Did Norton Speed Disk Kill My HardDrive?

You have stumbled across the number one reason that I do not use Nortan Systemworks. Not only can it cause problems, it is also a terrible resource hog.

Now that I've stepped off my soapbox, lets look at a couple of things. First off, any sort of defragging utility (even the one that comes with Windows) will hack up a hairball if you have any background disk activity going on. If you have the Systemworks suite installed, it likely is running stuff in the background, even on your external drive. Since it is in the process of moving data from one place to another, it is possible that it scapeed the partition table when the thing crashed. Since NTFS does not utilize a "system area", it is also possible that it was working with the allocation elements of the drive when it cratered. This would cause the power-off you did to lose the file system. I won't say this IS what happened, only that it is a possibility.

Do a Google search and look for some sort of file recovery program, or check out some of the other threads that talk about this topic here in the forums. Don't reformat the drive until you try to use a recovery tool to get your data back.

Good luck.

[mangohead95]

Re: Did Norton Speed Disk Kill My HardDrive?

Once I had a drive that was completely Dead (it was old), The Drive contained so many important things i was banging my head against the wall (it had 8 months work on Programming)..About 2 days later my neighbor told me to try to plug the drive in using Linux.. I Used Live Cd Ubuntu And Managed to get every single Bit of data off the Drive, Although i did have to manually "mount" the disk, i Recovered all of my data. Although our situations are a little different You could definitely give linux a try (after all what do you have to lose)... As for what i think Norton Did is just completely screw with your partitions. Try linux (using a Live CD you dont even have to install linux, and even better its free) plug it in , at the least it should take the drive and then try to see If you can mount it to the system, If not, then i cant reccomend anything but to pay someone to help you. You could Call norton and Explain the situation (if you are very angry explaining anger always seems to work) and see if they can compensate the loss.

Finally Most external drives Using Nfts dont need to be Defragmented I have had a backup drive of mine for 3 Years now and the other day i went to see it was only 14% fragmented, as long as you don't read and write all the time to the drive it shouldnt need to be defragged.

In review Try Linux ( Download Ubuntu | Ubuntu ) it might just save you.

[PrairieDawg]

Re: Did Norton Speed Disk Kill My HardDrive?

mangohead95, in November of 2005 your information might have helped the original poster ... although I doubt it since the link is for Ubuntu 9.04 and 9.04 didn't exist then. All is not lost though as there may be others with this issue. I'm just pointing out that it is always a good idea to check post dates.