I need a thorough data recovery tool for an external NTFS disk with a trashed MFT?
My external drive decided to go bad today. unfortunately it does have a ton of data on it as i was just beginning to set up a new backup routine.
I need a good data recovery tool. It appears that the Master File table on the disk is trashed. It can be read find which i proved with a demo of a VERY expensive tool. Is there any thing in the freeware or cheap $$$ range that can help me pull my data off? Retaining directory structure and file names?
At this point, I just take the data intact…
Any recommendations? The utilities I’ve seen recommended on here were on websites that were rated unsafe by WOT and Mcafee SiteAdvisor.
Must run under XP.
Your experience based advice will be greatly appreciated.
Stellar Phoenix …
Best and Secure….
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/Digital_Photos_Recovery_Using_PhotoRec is rated safe, it’s free and it’s a good education to boot.
Test Disk, in deep scan, may fix the problem. PhotoRec will recover the files (but not the file names), if the situation is that bad. Neither one writes to the disk under test, so you can try either one, then the other, then different options, etc.
Read the entire site. Then expect to spend a little time trying things. (I’ve restored drives that had all sorts of things, MBR, boot sector, etc., wiped.)