NTFS partition crash (boot sector damaged)

M

misiek_to_ja

New Member
Hello everyone,

Yesterday I had partition crash on Windows XP SP3 (second logical partition - D, NTFS, not encrypted or compressed). I've got problem similar to the one described at "Erasing Encrypted NTFS Files Causes Partition Crash" post. What happened exactly ? After using Eraser's "Only First and Last 2K" option to erase directory containg 30-40 files nothing happened. My directory was still there (also the files), even after Explorer refresh (F5). I've done it twice and still nothing happened. No error message from Eraser in all cases. Suddenly my partition showed in Explorer as unformatted. Reboot didn't help. It was really hard to recover, but as someone mentioned there is a really nice tool called testdisk. It turned out that NTFS bootsector has been damaged. I've copied backup boot sector over damaged boot sector, and now everythins is ok. But now I'm really worried about using Eraser . PC is 3-weeks old with new WD CAVIAR 1TB WD10EACS SATA II 16MB CACHE. I have tested the HDD thoroghly and everything seems to be OK. I'm using Eraser for 4 years now and it never happened before. Any ideas ?
 
Yesterday I had partition crash on Windows XP SP3 (second logical partition - D, NTFS, not encrypted or compressed). I've got problem similar to the one described at "Erasing Encrypted NTFS Files Causes Partition Crash" post. What happened exactly ? After using Eraser's "Only First and Last 2K" option to erase directory containg 30-40 files nothing happened
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Under NO CIRCUMSTANCE is anyone to use "Only First and Last 2K" option, it should have been removed long ago but somehow wasn't. Search this forum for details.
 
Hi Carver :)

You are right that the first and last 2KB overwrite method on older versions of Eraser did have a bug.

However,

As far as I know this was fixed quite some time ago so you should be able to use the first and last 2KB method with confidence.

I have personally tried it and it worked ok for me. :)
 
If not the first and last 2KB bug than what I have 2 WD 120 Gig drives and had a similar problem. I may have over reacted but misiek_to_ja doesn't mention what version of Eraser he used.
 
Hi Carver.

It is interesting that you have also had the same problem, “misiek_to_ja” and you both have Western Digital drives. Can I ask if your drives are SATA too ?

Would you say the problem you experienced with your WD drives was because of the first and last 2KB ? I know you did have some trouble a long time ago with the first and last 2KB but I am unsure if this is what you are referring to now.

Thanks.
 
Well I do know that Eraser did cause problems with the first/last 2kb pass, which I hope have been fixed in v6, but as far as I know it works as of 5.8.3 (IIRC, aka 5.83). Even then, it was only when the pass was used with the erase unused space feature. If this is not the case please elaborate on your use-case (steps to reproduce the problem, Eraser version, OS, hardware, file system).

Joel
 
I have Eraser 5.86a from the very beginning. I don't know if it is relevant but few days before the crash i performed erasing unused disk space on this drive (something about 70gigs, the rest is filled up with files) using one random pass.
 
OK, i'll have a go at it. I'll format my external drive with NTFS, populate it with a bunch of folders, and then erase it using FL2 kb. Did you erase using the Explorer extension or the Eraser program?

Joel
 
Joel said:
OK, i'll have a go at it. I'll format my external drive with NTFS, populate it with a bunch of folders, and then erase it using FL2 kb. Did you erase using the Explorer extension or the Eraser program?

Joel
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Joel, I erased using Explorer extension. One more thing: after the recovery process, directory which made me so much trouble was still there. What is more interesting there was .sfv file containing checksums of all files - i ran quicksfv and all checksums were ok, files were untouched. It is hard to recall for me now but i think that FL2kb erasing process wasn't as it should be. Something was slightly different than expected. Maybe the erase process was too fast (files were ~50megs and now i'm feeling that it was slightly too fast) or maybe i couldn't see 'total progress bar' going. I don't know now exactly, but it was different than usually. And definitely something has been erased and it wasn't that directory. Now i think that there can be some 0/NULL bug or something ? It is really strange that boot sector residing at sector 1 (but sometimes referred as 0) was destroyed. In testdisk before copying backup sector over damaged one, you have an option to view differences between them. And my boot sector hasn't looked like boot sector, there was no NTFS string at the beginning etc. I'll try to reproduce this bug and give you more information.
 
Overwriter said:
Hi Carver.

It is interesting that you have also had the same problem, “misiek_to_ja” and you both have Western Digital drives. Can I ask if your drives are SATA too ?
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Re read my post, not the same but a similar problem.

Would you say the problem you experienced with your WD drives was because of the first and last 2KB ? [/quyote]

It was.

I know you did have some trouble a long time ago with the first and last 2KB
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It was, as I said in my previous post we dont know what version of Eraser misiek_to_ja was using.

but I am unsure if this is what you are referring to now.Thanks.
Click to expand...
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It's not like you to be unsure :D
 
Interesting you noticed the little tidbit about WD drives - all my drives at home are Seagate disks, so maybe that is the cause of the problem. Faulty WD firmware? For one, I think that's very far fetched since we use only Windows calls, we don't play around with the disk and the disk structures. I really cannot think of what else may be the problem.

How about software you run that may be locking files? I know Windows Search locks a few .edb files which can throw Eraser off sometimes (the endless loop and growing filesize problem)

Joel
 
Joel said:
How about software you run that may be locking files? I know Windows Search locks a few .edb files which can throw Eraser off sometimes (the endless loop and growing filesize problem)
Joel
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The directory and all files were downloaded through utorrent. During the first erase try utorrent was running so my first thought was that files were locked and i need to close it. What is strange files were not seeded, so they should not be locked. After that i erased that directory again and nothing happened. The direcotry was still there. So I erased another two directories, also downloaded through utorrent and directories were still there. After some time my partition showed in Explorer as unformatted. After that i rebooted OS and started recovery process. Maybe here is the problem ? Utorrent ? What is strange i was using fl2kb erasing on utorrent downloaded files for 2-3 years and everything was ok. Currently I'm using utorrent 1.8, not the newest one, but i have reason for this :)
 
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