Restoring hard drive without format

[charlieahill]

I raised a similar question a couple of weeks ago, and got a lot of help from this forum, so I wanted to try and further my understanding. I have a secondary hard drive in my computer, that when plugged in, causes windows explorer to periodically hang. It also shows up in My Computer, but there is no indication as to volume size, and if I try to open, or view properties of the device, explorer crashes. (Disk J)

I downloaded Linux (DSL) and can access the harddrive, and open all of the files when running Linux through a virtual machine, however, haven't yet managed to work out the necessary permissions to copy these files across to a new hdd.

But I can't work out why Linux can open these files, yet Windows can't. Any ideas?

 

[BikerEcho]

Linux simply ignores windows permissions. That's one reason why Linux can open files that windows can't.

 

[evan.briggs]

get your self a copy of something like partition wizard, and there are some recovery software on there. there is also hirens boot cd.

 

[charlieahill]

I ran a full scan with Partition Wizard, and the hdd is now running 100% fine.

Thanks for the help!