Access is denied. The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable

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Stephan

Stephan

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I usually don't post much in this subforum but this one is very urgent.

I have a Seagate 500GB external hard drive. When I was able to convert it into NTFS, I realized that the PS3 doesn't support NTFS drives so I was screwed then I found AOMEI which allows me to convert my drive from NTFS to FAT32 without having to lose my data. So at first it was doing well but then an error came in while the conversion is going through and the results? The title says it and now I can't access my drive.

So my question is, if I were to format my drive (last resort to fix and convert my drive), would there be any chance of recovering files (esp. files that are used to play console games on PC)?

Yes I know backups are a thing but with a limited space on my laptop plus my PC being fixed, backups are currently impossible at the moment.
 
Stephan
if I were to format my drive (last resort to fix and convert my drive), would there be any chance of recovering files
Click to expand...
Formatting completely wipes the drive so any files on it would be gone.
 
Stephan
I usually don't post much in this subforum but this one is very urgent.

I have a Seagate 500GB external hard drive. When I was able to convert it into NTFS, I realized that the PS3 doesn't support NTFS drives so I was screwed then I found AOMEI which allows me to convert my drive from NTFS to FAT32 without having to lose my data. So at first it was doing well but then an error came in while the conversion is going through and the results? The title says it and now I can't access my drive.

So my question is, if I were to format my drive (last resort to fix and convert my drive), would there be any chance of recovering files (esp. files that are used to play console games on PC)?

Yes I know backups are a thing but with a limited space on my laptop plus my PC being fixed, backups are currently impossible at the moment.
Click to expand...

Some recoverable data could be left in place if you do a "quick" format that just clears the file system table. However, if the format is a full disk format then it's far less likely that you'll get something the size of an ISO back.
 
You'll have a better chance of recovering your data the way the drive is now than you would have after a format, even a quick format.

You will be needing specialized data recovery tools to have any chance whatsoever of success.
 
BobK
You'll have a better chance of recovering your data the way the drive is now than you would have after a format, even a quick format.

You will be needing specialized data recovery tools to have any chance whatsoever of success.
Click to expand...

Agreed, though that may not be as hard as it sounds. A linux live USB might be able to pull off mounting at least a portion of the external drive (maybe each portion under a different file system). I'm sure there are tools in linux for drive recovery. That's the route I would be pursuing.
 
Danoff
Agreed, though that may not be as hard as it sounds. A linux live USB might be able to pull off mounting at least a portion of the external drive (maybe each portion under a different file system). I'm sure there are tools in linux for drive recovery. That's the route I would be pursuing.
Click to expand...
Agree that's possible, it depends on how much of the filesystem is still intact. It also depends to an extent on how the drive is partitioned.

But yeah, it probably starts with a linux live CD/USB. "dd" of course can be used to read the drive except for physically damaged sectors (and maybe even those). Not a job I'd be looking forward to tackling.
 
Thanks for the tips guys but I found a way to fix this.

Apparently I can't access my drive yet but with PartitionGuru I was able to access my drive that is now unaccessible. Note that I didn't format my drive yet so I'm gonna back up all the files before doing the format.

Still cheers to those who tried to help though.
 
Boot up a Linux distro and run "sudo ntfsfix /dev/<partition of your device>." I have fixed drive errors this way in the past. And PS3 recognizes FAT32. Why Windows removed the ability to format to FAT32 via GUI, I have no idea. In Linux distros, you can usually format it natively using a program called GParted.
 
stonesfan129
Boot up a Linux distro and run "sudo ntfsfix /dev/<partition of your device>." I have fixed drive errors this way in the past. And PS3 recognizes FAT32. Why Windows removed the ability to format to FAT32 via GUI, I have no idea. In Linux distros, you can usually format it natively using a program called GParted.
Click to expand...

You can format FAT 32bit under the GUI format, just nothing above that 32GB volume size.
 
Grayfox
You can format FAT 32bit under the GUI format, just nothing above that 32GB volume size.
Click to expand...

And Windows fails again. I have never had a problem formatting any volume to FAT32 (whether it's 32GB or 3TB) in a Linux distro with GParted.
 
stonesfan129
And Windows fails again. I have never had a problem formatting any volume to FAT32 (whether it's 32GB or 3TB) in a Linux distro with GParted.
Click to expand...

It is not windows fault.
It is microsoft, they made the fat32 file system and it was never made to go over the 32GB volume limit.
Just cause you can use it, microsoft cant guarantee nothing will go wrong so they block it


But I use Gparted live to format things, or clone things.
 
If you want to format your drive from NTFS to FAT32, use FAT32Formatter. It's a GUI program.

When I finally backed up my files and had to start formatting, I saw that Windows doesn't support FAT32 formatting if your drive is more than 32GB. So I had to use FAT32Formatter to format my 500GB drive and it was a success.
 
Grayfox
It is not windows fault.
It is microsoft, they made the fat32 file system and it was never made to go over the 32GB volume limit.
Just cause you can use it, microsoft cant guarantee nothing will go wrong so they block it


But I use Gparted live to format things, or clone things.
Click to expand...

Gparted is a great program, wish they would make it for Windows.
 
stonesfan129
Gparted is a great program, wish they would make it for Windows.
Click to expand...
gparted is available as a bootable CD or USB, so there's really no need for a Windows version. Besides which just about every Linux live CD distro includes it.

Will gparted run under Cygwyn, does anybody know? If so then one could just install Cygwyn on their windoze box; much like many Linux users use Wine.
 
BobK
Will gparted run under Cygwyn, does anybody know? If so then one could just install Cygwyn on their windoze box; much like many Linux users use Wine.
Click to expand...

Look on the Gparted webpage.

But on the Cygwin page it does say this
a way to run native Linux apps on Windows. You must rebuild your application from source if you want it to run on Windows.

So just download the source code and compile it.
http://gparted.org/download.php
 
Grayfox
Look on the Gparted webpage.

But on the Cygwin page it does say this
a way to run native Linux apps on Windows. You must rebuild your application from source if you want it to run on Windows.

So just download the source code and compile it.
http://gparted.org/download.php
Click to expand...

Cgwyn comes with (or makes available) a huge number of unix programs. I was just wondering if gparted may be one of those apps they already have available.
 
Looks like my thread became a guide for those who needs help on their drives though.

Shall I rename it since my problem has been solved? I like to keep this thread going and it looks like we got our own resident GTP hard drive savvy users.
 

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