ZAR hangs after completing scan

[Alexey V. Gubin]

Recently there was an influx of reports of ZAR hanging after completing a volume scan. The problem occurs in both image recovery and filesystem recovery modes.

This post will be updated to reflect the most current developments.

Symptoms:
ZAR completes the identification process normally (the volume map fills completely with data), and after this, a process stalls, with no disk activity (check - LEDs blinking on the devices) and no CPU usage (check - Ctrl+Alt+Del and use Task Manager, "Performance" section). The "Elapsed time" counter in ZAR continues ticking, but no other activity can be observed.

Current status:
This issue is believed to be resolved as of version 8.3

[Alexey V. Gubin]

In all image recovery cases, please report the megapixel number of a camera.

[ausie1]

I have just bought V 8.3 and I am having the exact same problems as described. ZAR scans, shows root, folders and files but when asked to copy will freeze trying to copy the first file after copying the folders. Have had the same result using 2 computers.

[Alexey V. Gubin]

The log file
C:\Program Files\ZAR\logfile.txt
may contain the error message near the end of the file - what is in there?

[ausie1]

I changed some settings, Time out set to 200, unticked avoid repeated retries and set the skip factor to 32 and it now has retrieved files from the formatted disk. Problem solved.
Cheers

[Alexey V. Gubin]

Interesting. Honestly, I found it surprising that it worked. We'll have to keep an eye on it. Anyway, good that it finally worked out.

[Binki]

Hi.

I have just had a similar problem. I downloaded the ZAR software today (11/29) and installed. I borrowed an external USB Western Digital drive (120GB) model WD1200BB, from a friend to backup pictures, etc. before I did a computer rebuild. I confirmed it was all there before disconnecting the drive, by comparing the Main Drive and the USB Drive contents a folder at a time. (Yes, tedious, but made me feel better).

After the rebuild I reconnected the drive. It seemed to connect and I got the messages that a drive was available, could not see it, except in Administrative Tools | Computer Management | Disk Management. It showed there as 'Unallocated'. I tried on all 3 home computers and at work, no go. Same error every time. No virus is found on any of our computers and we have different scanners running, so some overlap.

I followed the tutorial here: http://www.z-a-recovery.com/partitio...y-tutorial.htm. On the 'Scan for missing partitions' dialog, all seemed well, but then at 91% it just stopped, all CPU, MB/sec, etc. stopped. The light on the drive blinked occastionally. After another hour still at 91% I clicked 'Stop Scan'. Nothing. Clicked again. Nothing. Being patient, I waited. Eventually, when I came back, it was at the 'Select Volume to Process' dialog and showed a FAT volume.

I did the next steps in the tutorial, highlighting it and clicking next. That worked. I get to the 'Volume Analysis' screen. It shows all white squares. The Elapsed time is ticking off, now at 16 minutes. Filesystem is 'Not known yet'. Raw scan is about 1%. 0% CPU and 0.0 MB/sec. 0 seeks/sec. 3304 KB read cache.

I tried what the previous person did, adjusting the Runtime control settings, but nothing happening. So, it looks like 'something' is happening, the drive lights flicker now and again, but nothing on the scree has changed except elapsed time and Current operation and its progress bar is about 1/30th, not having move for several minutes now.

I will keep trying. If we can get this working, you've got a sale! Thanks.

Gary

[Alexey V. Gubin]

Looks like the device stalls at certain point, at 91% drive. After that, no further read can be made. This typically happens if the drive itself got a bad block and USB enclosure fails to handle it properly. So you need to get rid of the usb enclosure if at all possible. Since the drive is regular Parallel ATA one, is it possible that you get it out of the enclosure and attach directly to the motherboard?

If yes, then you need to try as described here for a drive unformat. However, during step 4, "Select logical volume", there will be nothing listed. You need to click "Define volume manually" and select "There was only one volume" in the dialog appeared. Everything else is pretty much standard.

[cadrock]

I just completed a scan of a WD1200BEVS hard drive that was dead. ZAR completed the scan and I could see the files to recover. I selected the files to copy and went the next screen.

I am stuck on that screen. I can click on any of the buttons, change any of the options, however nothing does anything.

The "start copying the selected files" doesn't do anything.
The "skip current file" doesn't do anything.

Even the "Exit" simply pulls up the message, are you sure you want to exit, then it doesn't exit.

Please help.

Thx.

[Alexey V. Gubin]

What does it mean "dead" drive?
And then
1. Restart it,
2. On the first screen click "Advanced Configuration", then under "General" change "Normal logging" to "Extended logging", and click OK to close configuration.
3. Retry the scan to see if it locks up again.