Help! Big problem with external hard drive! Around 100 self-created cars for GP4 might be lost!

Hello guys, I urgently need your help today, as I have a big technical problem. Back in February I had a big PC crash which lead to a destroyed internal hard drive. As I have a external backup plate, only a few pictures were lost I think. A few days ago I wanted to get the data of the external hard drive, which contains also around 100 textures and some cars.wads for GP4, back to the new computer, as I need some of the textures for a new project. But unfortunately I have no access to the external hard drive anymore, the pc is loading for a very long time and then says "Access denied. Invalid Parameter." Sometimes the Windows explorer is crashing as well and I get a complete black or blue screen, which disappears imediately when I pull the external plate out of the usb port. I tried already another cable and on another pc, but nothing changed. I really feel a bit helpless now because I never had such an issue ever before. I don't want to take the hard drive to a professional data recovery shop as I don't have much money because of Corona and I also don't like to put private data to the hands of strangers.

If anyone has an idea how to solve this problem, or if anyone knows how to use freeware data recovery tools, please let me know. Thank you for any help guys!

Your TGF1DRIVER

Hey TGF1 I just googled it and came up with 3 possible things to look at... The 4th is one thing you don't want and that is to format the drive. You could try these to see if it helps any

Solutions to the parameter is incorrect on external hard drive
Solution 1. Run CHKDSK. CHKDSK is the Windows built-in hard drive error checking and repair utility. ...
Solution 2. Run SFC scan. ...
Solution 3. Check the virus. ...

Thank you, I already tried the checkdisk-function, but it seems not successful. The hard drive is loading very slowly, but once the data were there again, but when I tried to copy it the explorer crashed again. At this time the hard drive had its name "Elements F:/" back for a short time, most time it is only called "Local Hard Drive F:/" when it's not working properly.

hmmm does it usually run on usb 3.0? the cable with a blue bit inside?

There is a software called HDD regenerator which may solve your problem but it is not free, unfortunately.
However, the main purpose of the unregistered demo version is to display a report which contains information about the possibility to regenerate the entire disk by means of the registered full version.
Personaly, this software saved me a lot of time and money, once.
I won't tell it will be the same for your but it is worth to try it:

[www.dposoft.net]

The other method is the clean room but this is very expensive.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Excalibur schrieb:
-------------------------------------------------------
> There is a software called HDD regenerator which
> may solve your problem but it is not free,
> unfortunately.
> However, the main purpose of the unregistered demo
> version is to display a report which contains
> information about the possibility to regenerate
> the entire disk by means of the registered full
> version.
> Personaly, this software saved me a lot of time
> and money, once.
> I won't tell it will be the same for your but it
> is worth to try it:
>
> [www.dposoft.net]
>
> The other method is the clean room but this is
> very expensive.

Great, but the country I live in has no dollars.

First of all, try the demo version. The report will tell you if HDD regenerator is able to repair your HDD and to recover your datas lost. (It will try to regenerate the first found bad sector). If not, it means that this solution is not for you so it won't be useful to buy it.

Edit: Also, depending of your HDD's brand (mark), I know that you can download free tools to analyse your HDD, such as Western Digital Dashboard: [support.wdc.com]
Sometimes, it may fix your boot sector.
So, if it is not a WD, try the support center of your HDD mark.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________





Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/01/2021 01:34AM by Excalibur.

My hard drive is called "WD Elements". Maybe it will be enough when the boot sector is being repaired. Can you give me a link to a tool which can do this please? Thank you.

You should eliminate the possibility that the fault lies within the external enclosure (or the USB port) first - so if you can connect the HDD directly to a PC it would make sense to do so.

If you can't do that (because you're using a laptop for example) can you connect another HDD to the enclosure instead to make sure it works OK?

You really need to be sure the enclosure isn't at fault before you attempt recovery.

Could HIRENS help??? I am not sure.

TGF1Driver2 écrivait:
-------------------------------------------------------
> My hard drive is called "WD Elements". Maybe it
> will be enough when the boot sector is being
> repaired. Can you give me a link to a tool which
> can do this please? Thank you.

I have posted the link above your message: Western Digital dashboard.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I use, sometime ago, to recover my HDD files, a progrma called "Get Data Back". I don't remember if its free or paid.

With this program, I recover 90gb files from a old HDD.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PLEASE VISIT: Grand Prix Mods Blog

Excalibur schrieb:
-------------------------------------------------------
> TGF1Driver2 écrivait:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > My hard drive is called "WD Elements". Maybe it
> > will be enough when the boot sector is being
> > repaired. Can you give me a link to a tool
> which
> > can do this please? Thank you.
>
> I have posted the link above your message: Western
> Digital dashboard.

Thank you for your help. I have downloaded that dashboard and now it's searching for disk drives since half an hour.

@kerleyf1: I think I will try this program at the weekend, thank you.

Before you go into payware programs, I'd try to fire up Ubuntu with an Ubuntu-live stick and see if you might be able to access the HDD from there. Win10 has a really bad NTFS bug that often happens when you swap external drives between different operating systems. Had Win7 and Win10 running simultaneously for a while and it ruined two of my external drives. Fortunately, I could still access one of them, at least, in Ubuntu to rescue most of the data.


GPGSL : Team Owner of 'Maverick Track Performance' (MTP)

JohnMaverick schrieb:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Before you go into payware programs, I'd try to
> fire up Ubuntu with an Ubuntu-live stick and see
> if you might be able to access the HDD from there.
> Win10 has a really bad NTFS bug that often happens
> when you swap external drives between different
> operating systems. Had Win7 and Win10 running
> simultaneously for a while and it ruined two of my
> external drives. Fortunately, I could still access
> one of them, at least, in Ubuntu to rescue most of
> the data.

I already tried Ubuntu indeed. It is also recognizing my external hard drive, but it also cannot find the partitions, also after a few hours of loading. If you have an idea how to upgrade Ubuntu for free or what else I can try with this software, please let me know. Thank you.

kerleyf1 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I use, sometime ago, to recover my HDD files, a
> progrma called "Get Data Back". I don't remember
> if its free or paid.
>
> With this program, I recover 90gb files from a old
> HDD.


name of software, Runtime Getdataback. Check your pm, i am going to send you to link of it.

I would like to hear SDI's opinion for this issue as well. Maybe there is an easy software fix for my external hard drive that our great god of programming can do within 5 minutes.

Don't think so.

---

My Grand Prix 4 Files
I'm a total dick. How many people can say that?

Turbo Lover schrieb:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Don't think so.

I trust in SDI, the great master of the GPG forum.