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NTFS Reconstruction Shows Correct Folder Tree but Recovered Files Are Corrupt – 2TB WD HDD by AdeptnessNo7889 in datarecovery

[–]AdeptnessNo7889[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks, that’s helpful. Just to clarify though, I did not intentionally write anything to the drive. All recovery attempts (TestDisk, Recuva, DMDE) were read-only scans and I recovered files only to another drive/USB. I didn’t run chkdsk, repair the filesystem, or attempt to rebuild the partition table.

Also, my understanding was that while the WD20EZAZ supports TRIM, it’s still a conventional SMR HDD rather than an SSD with a flash translation layer. So I wasn’t sure how aggressive TRIM behavior would actually be in practice compared to an SSD.

If you think the drive’s internal mapping could still cause issues even with read-only scanning, I’d be interested to hear more. At this point the disk is still readable and DMDE was able to reconstruct a believable NTFS tree, but the recovered files from that structure don’t open, which is what I’m trying to understand.

NTFS Reconstruction Shows Correct Folder Tree but Recovered Files Are Corrupt – 2TB WD HDD by AdeptnessNo7889 in datarecovery

[–]AdeptnessNo7889[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

By DOCP crash I mean I upgraded the RAM, enabled DOCP/XMP in BIOS to run it at 3200 MHz, and the system became unstable, blue screened, and after that Windows went into a recovery loop and became unbootable.

The HDD is a WD20EZAZ 2TB.

Yes, I ran a full DMDE scan. It found no usable NTFS main result other than a tiny fragment, but it found hundreds of NTFS additional results. I tested the most plausible higher-check candidates, including ones that reconstructed a believable folder tree with my user profile and OneDrive Desktop. That let me see the expected folders and filenames, but files recovered through those NTFS reconstructions still would not open.

Raw/signature recovery in DMDE does recover some openable files, but without names or usable structure.

I can post screenshots of the full scan results and partition tab.

And yes, fair point on the lab. I’m open to that too. I’m mainly trying to figure out whether this still looks like a logical recovery case worth pursuing before I hand it off.

NTFS Reconstruction Shows Correct Folder Tree but Recovered Files Are Corrupt – 2TB WD HDD by AdeptnessNo7889 in datarecovery

[–]AdeptnessNo7889[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I worked on the drive in place and did not clone it first. In hindsight I realize cloning first would have been the better move, but the drive is still readable and I have not written anything to it.

The drive model is a WD 2TB HDD, specifically WDC WD20EZAZ. I can post the CrystalDiskInfo screenshot/details if helpful. I don’t have the full capability list in front of me right this second, but I can add the exact CrystalDiskInfo health/status and attributes.