Can I recover stuff from a corrupt backup?

[stuckathuntermtn]

So glad I had a mirrored raid. 1 drive started failing, so the backup i made last is fucked. Can't restore the image (which is what made everything worse) or my profile with all my shit.
I may have lost everything. I guess I could try recova now that I have a functioning windows install
I'm gonna go cry myself to sleep.

Sent from my cell phone. no, a cell phone.

[jgb@etree]

Your post doesn't make any sense (to me). If you had a mirrored raid setup, and one drive failed, you could give a fuck about your backup. Your single functional drive still contains 100% of the data. And when you pop in a new drive to replace the failed one, you don't want to restore a backup to it, the raid controller will rebuild the mirror and replicate a current copy of the data onto the new drive.

And I cant really figure out if you're saying you have a corrupt backup file or you backed up corrupt data. If the former, you may have some options. If it's the latter, you're fucked. But I just don't get why you even need to goto the backup at this point. That's the entire point of mirrored raid (besides performance).

[systemoverblow'd]

So glad I had a mirrored raid. 1 drive started failing, so the backup i made last is fucked. Can't restore the image (which is what made everything worse) or my profile with all my shit.
I may have lost everything. I guess I could try recova now that I have a functioning windows install
I'm gonna go cry myself to sleep.

Sent from my cell phone. no, a cell phone.

Are you fucking retarded (it was a rhetorical question). Sober up and explain your problem and maybe we can help you out.

[stuckathuntermtn]

My computer imploded.
Need to access corrupt backup on external drive.
Halp

Sent from my cell phone. no, a cell phone.

[systemoverblow'd]

That info doesn't halp

[RShea]

Start with the basics- computer imploded tells us nothing- what parts specifically failed? Diagnostics down to the part level. Did you try both of the drives in the mirror? The backup corrupted in what way? And also what software did you use to perform the backup?

jgb has it nailed- unless the raid controller completed failed, there should be data on one of the 3 drives (2 in the raid) or the backup drive, that should be able to be read.

[stuckathuntermtn]

Check disk, me, or something took care of the data on the remaining hard drive(mirrored RAID. Whichever number that is, 1?). The backup is a Windows 7 system image and a profile with music/docs/settings/whatever/pictures going ten years back.
Because Windows is so fantastic, I can't access individual files. Windows was successful doing a new installation, but it was all new. Gonna try the corrupt image and fixing it with GParted. CHKDSK's way of fixing ntfs corruption is to nuke the file table.
Also lost power somehow to the computer a few days ago, and that didn't help. Neither did the ensuing BSODing. I should have replaced that harddrive months ago.
So flame away, it probably all my fault.

Yes, I tried disconnecting each drive individually, and booting up, but it would try to install harddrive drivers and bsod with something about a page fault 0x50 and one time it even said registry error.

So the backup I made before rearranging hardware and that's corrupt.

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[RShea]

Have you run memory tests on the system (or replaced the memory). The Page fault stop error 50 is usually related to RAM or 3rd party software that is accessing invalid areas.

Troubleshooting of the error message is first thing to do. Your data maybe intact but the system memory or cache screwed up and making it appear there is corruption everywhere.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/libr...(v=vs.85).aspx

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/w...e-4a5556a460c8

Until you have a known good system, hard to say if all the stuff you say is wrong is fatal.

[stuckathuntermtn]

I'd say that was it, but it was definitely a bad drive. I managed to get it booting with a fresh install on one drive and on the other it probably wasn't even spinning. It seemed to be coming from latent raid drivers or something.

Please tell me there is a way to access a corrupted profile backup or something. It's almost ten years of photos, music, etc. Or a corrupted image. Chkdsk is weird. Should it take a long time to "correct" an error in an index for a file?

Edit again: it's restoring files! Hope this works!
Sent from my cell phone. no, a cell phone.

[stuckathuntermtn]

So, chkdsk seems to have restored all the files, but I can only boot into recovery.
What now?

Sent from my cell phone. no, a cell phone.

[RShea]

What the heck are you talking about? You did a restore from the backup after running chkdsk? Or you ran chkdsk on one of the 2 raid drives? If the data is out there- BACK IT UP on a new or different hard drive than the 3 mentioned....

Then before you stated that you did a new Windows install, so not sure, but Windows 7 has some options:
Windows 7 - Repair Install:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials...r-install.html
"This will show you how to do a repair upgrade install to fix your currently installed Windows 7 and preserve your user accounts, data, programs, and system drivers."
How to Run a Startup Repair in Windows 7:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials...up-repair.html
"Startup Repair is a Windows 7 system recovery tool that can fix certain problems, such as missing or damaged system files (ex: MBR boot file), that might prevent Windows from starting correctly.
How to Boot to the System Recovery Options in Windows 7:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials...y-options.html
"The System Recovery Options menu is on the Windows 7 installation disc. If your computer manufacturer (OEM) has preinstalled recovery options, the menu might also be installed on your hard disk as a recovery partition."
How to Create a Windows 7 System Repair Disc:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials...sc-create.html
"This will show you how to create a Windows 7 system repair disc to use to boot to the system recovery options if you don't have a Windows installation disc, can't find your Windows installation disc, or can't access the recovery options provided by your computer manufacturer."

And you had better get more than 1 drive for backup- always rotate multiple drives and multiple days of backups.

[stuckathuntermtn]

Yeah, so, some serious cmd prompt kungfu from the recovery console has got it trying to boot, but hal.dll is missing.
Fail.
Yes, I have a recovery cd. No, sfc did not fix anything.

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[splat]

Something tells me stuckathuntrmtn is operating in "safe mode".

I had a dll issue like that once and had Punani email me the file.
Dropped it into C and it worked just fine.

[ColinB]

So the data is accessible via command prompt/recovery console? Copy the data you need off of the array before you muck it up any worse.

[stuckathuntermtn]

I need hal

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[RShea]

Unfortunately there is not just 1 hal.dll.... it is the hardware specific file (different CPU's and all could use different hal.dll file.

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/errorh...ws-7-vista.htm

You have or have not tried a Win 7 Startup Repair? What about a basic test of the hard drive (use the manufacturer's drive tests like Drive Fitness Test or Seatools.

[stuckathuntermtn]

The ram is fine. The remaining hard drive should be fine. I can do a fresh install, but then it says my profile is corrupt when I try to do that.
So both the backup image and the backed up profile got corrupted because of the failing RAID. Might have used the wrong chkdsk switch too.
I loaded the corrupt image again and ran chkdsk/b. Took for ever and may have deleted some files.
Might try /r

Either that, or I'll do a fresh install again, but I need a way to get that profile.
I see that there are a bunch of zip files as part of the backup. I need a friend with another computer. No, I don't have a laptop and that's dumb.

Sent from my cell phone. no, a cell phone.

[stuckathuntermtn]

How do I run those harddrive tests?
like I said, the remaining harddrive should be fine, but should is the operative word.

Was blue screening when I started up with one or another hard drive unplugged. Might have been a bios setting. Now I don't remember. Don't remember how I got that backup either, if it was bsoding. Must have done it just before that started happening.
Fml

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[stuckathuntermtn]

I tried the bootmgr /nt60 all /force yesterday. It didn't work.
Might try starting again with corrupt backup (doesn't fail till the end), chkdsk/r, then possibly bootmgr again.


/babbling retard

Sent from my cell phone. no, a cell phone.

[RShea]

Unless it is the MBR (Fixmbr is that command) in all my time (30 years) of doing computer support- I've never tried your command to fix any corruption. So for the hard drive tools- as I stated each drive manufacturer has their own tools- Seagate is called Seatools, Hitachi has Drive Fitness Test, and Western Digital has Data Lifeguard. They are all Boot CD's that you create and run. The first 2 Seagate and Hitachi) will test any brand drive (but not fix if they find issues for other brand drives). Google or Bing is your friend as to where to get these- directly from the manufacturer's web site downloads. Run them on the mirrored drives and see if 1 or both pass or have bad sectors or what is going on. The diagnostics usually are non-destructive test to read the drive data first pass through.