BleepingComputer.com: RAW HD

Seems that for no apparent reason our D: has decided to become RAW... I wasnt home when it happened so I can describe exactly what happened. At first from my wifes description it sounded like navidad trojan which apparently attacks executable files becuse she couldnt run anything, but upon my own inspection I found that all progs that were installed on D: wont run but those on C: do... When i try to open D: it says its not formatted and asks if i want to (of course I dont, i have important files on there!). Properties states the format is RAW.

I have downloaded a RAW recovery tool to recove the more important files and then i guess I'll reformat...

3 questions:

1. once reformatted will the drive be safe to use?
2. why would this have happened in the first place?
3. I dont suppose there is a way of placing the fat formatting back on the HD and keeping the exisint file structure... in other words just putting the file back to how it was.

you guys rock btw! I have recieve good help from here before.

no thoughts on the matter?

Your data is very likely still there, but the partition table (kind of like a table of contents for the drive) may be damaged or corrupted.

You might want to take a look at TestDisk. It's a freeware app that can repair damaged partition tables. Please be sure to read all the instructions first as ic can be a little confusing for a first timer.

As to the wisdom of continuing to use the drive, download and run HDD Health (bottom of the page) to check your drive's SMART status.

thanks for the info andrew. do you sugest i recover important files before i use testdisk? I mean will testdisk make the existing files unusable? i am currently about to use the demo of ZAR to recover files but at 4 folders each time it could take forever.

so recover first than testdisk or the other way around.

Teskdisk shouldn't damage any of the files, and (if I remember correctly) can also recover files from a damaged partition by copying them to another partition. I'd say go ahead and use Testdisk first and see whether you can repair the damage and/or transfer the files using it first.

andrew, you are indeed amazing. format restored... just checking the HDD health.

many thanks for your help and wisdom

Glad to hear it and happy to help.

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