Using GParted to rescue data and format hard drive to NTFS

Question

I'm having problems booting to Windows XP due to bad sectors on the hard drive. I've tried fixboot and fixmbr from the recovery console. That only made matters worse. Now I want to use GParted to attempt data rescue and format the hard drive to NTFS. Unfortunately, I get an error (Picture 2) when trying to recover my files, and the option to format the hard drive is grayed out. The only thing I can do is create a new partition.

When I click "view" I get the "Unable to open the default file manager" error

Solution

For recovering data use Testdisk: http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk There is also a nice step by step tutorial: http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Step_By_Step

To format, make sure that the partition is not mounted by running on terminal the command mount. If it is mounted, umount it with umount /mnt/path and then format with mkfs.ntfs /dev/sdX.

Comments

[Vinicius Tinti]

Post more info if possible about the errors that you might be having.

[Ishan]

Shouldn't I be able to recover data using GParted? Why is it not letting me? If not: can I boot to Ubuntu Live CD and download the executable file for TestDisk?

[Vinicius Tinti]

GParted is not intend for recovering a partition AFAIK. Yes you can boot a live cd and install TestDisk.

[Ishan]

But I can't even format it. I will try unmounting the hard drive as you said. Can this be done using the GUI? I'm not too good with running commands.

[Curtis Gedak]

If you receive the "Unable to open default file manager" message then you can move the window aside and directly open the file manager using either the menu or icon on the desktop if you have an icon. See the GParted Manual for more instruction.

[Naveen]

Shutup and use photorec!!