PC-3000 Forum

I've a Maxtor 6E020L0 (20GB). The drive is good working order. When plugged into the normal ide port Windows shows the drive as D: but when clicked, no directory/file is listed at all, a complete blank. On some occasions, Windows would ballooned a massage at the lower right task bar saying the directory/file structure is damaged and recommending the use of chkdsk. Of course we all know that chkdsk is the worst program to use in such situation! So it wasn't used.

Now, both DE and R-studio were able to recover the COMPLETE directory & file structure; everything seemed PERFECT. However, when files were randomly selected and opened, they all appeared showing gibberish chars. For example I opened a .html or a .txt file, instead of seeing normal readable text, I saw extended ascii chars all over while plastered with some familiar readable text from other files.

It seems to me that although the directory/file structure is intact, the data addresses associated to each file are corrupted or have been shifted some what.

Is there anyway to rescue the files? Thanks.

Jeff

Hi gcgm

I see 3 possibilities:

1) If the drive have only logical problems (i.e. formated) - most common case
this can sometimes happen, and software it will recover directory and file names correctly, but content will be damaged
for example, in fat32 filesystems, this is mostly because this information can still be found in directories but fat chains have been erased, so only the first cluster of the file is correctly recovered, all the others will be right only if file is not fragmented
you can try RAW recovery in DE as it might give a better result

2) If the drive have S/A problems
you should check it with your pc3000, make a backup of sa and try some stuff (like translator regen, smart cleaning, glist cleaning)
maybe the sa fix applied was not good, you can try another method (i.e. if you overwrited mod18, try translator regen)

3) Heads can have a problem of fixing to servo track
the least common of possibilities, only as a last resource!
first you can try to re-write calibration modules (21, 1E)
if there is no other option, you can first make a full clone using DE, then try head swap.

But if you ask me, I would say chances are:
1st case - 95%
2nd case - 4,9%
3rd case - 0,1%

-BR-