Long Time Scanning

[JohnP]

Hi

I'm scanning a 500Gb Hitachi PATA hard drive which is a slave drive with video files stored on it, I think I have a corrupted Master File Table. The drive started failing after a Vista reinstall to my main drive which is SATA, imeadiately after I got bad SMART command and system hung until F1 to resume, then it recognised the drive without partitions as raw, couldn't access it or see files. I downloaded ZAR and installed, followed the Unformat Partitions guide. ZAR pre scanned (I think) for 10 - 11 hrs and then, when I thought it had finished and would show the results, started a full scan on the raw disk. Currently I'm at 31Hrs and 45% complete, its saying its found 0 files and 0 directories but there are no red dots and lots of blue and green dots. I don't want to cancel, but this means 60 Hrs of scanning. I'm using the trial version, I hope I won't have to rescan if it finds files and I want to register the software.

Should I stop it and start again, can I speed it up, is this normal?

Many thanks

[JohnP]

CPU usage is shown as 2 - 4% on the program, 2.5Mb/sec
50% at 33Hrs 33Mins, No red dots, only green and blue.
ZAR Version is 8.3

[JohnP]

I decided to cancel the scan, 66 hours seemed like a long time and may stress the drive. I rebooted, CHKDSK tried to run, it reported corrupt MFT and tried to recover it. Didin't work. Got back to desktop, restarted ZAR, the prescan went through in 20 - 30 mins, I was getting same values as above but this time I had a value for seek/sec instead of just 0.

Left the drive overnight, its now done 9.5 hrs and its 83% done. Its saying its doing a quick scan to identify data and found 0 files in 0 locations. I have blue dots and green dots but no red dots. When I cancelled the scan last night it was saying it was doing a full scan not a quick scan. So it looks like it will eventually do another full scan which I suppose will take another 66hrs?

Is this right or am I just wasting time and stressing my drive.

[JohnP]

Its now 11Hrs and the program has entered Full scanning mode. Looks like I'm still in for a 66HR scan. I'll stop the program again and try something else for now.

Can anyone give me confirmation that what is happening with this drive is to be expected.

Should I wait out the 66Hrs?

[JohnP]

I've tried 2 other programs, one I already owned and didn't seem to work when I tried it first and another I downloaded a trial version of. They both began taking a long time to scan, I now realise this to be the case with my first program. Any quick scan option doesn't really find anything.

So I guess I'm stuck with long scanning times?

Should I give up with this drive or peservere through the scanning?

[Alexey V. Gubin]

I'd like to see the SMART status details.

1. In the physical disk list,
2. Right click the disk in question, pick "S.M.A.R.T. information".
3. The detailed listing should appear, click "Save to file"
4. Post that file here (it is in a plain text format).

Also, make sure the drive is still in DMA mode. Refer to this article,
http://www.z-a-recovery.com/art-powe...ly-failure.htm
Scroll down to the section labeled "Symptom III - Drives in PIO mode, high CPU load".

If you have about 1TB of free space available, consider making an image of the disk. This is a best course of action with a faulty drive.

1. Start ZAR.
2. Proceed to the point when it prompts you to select a physical disk.
3. Right click the damaged drive, select "Create image file".
4. Enter the file name and location when prompted.

You can only store the image file onto the NTFS partition (FAT has a 4GB file size limit).

This image file can later be analyzed in a same way the physical disk is, but at significantly faster speeds. Considering the recovery is a multi-pass process, this gives a significant advantage.