I have the following issue. A laptop (XVision SS-2505 with Windows Starter Edition) got its HDD corrupted. After checking the installation with a Windows 7 disk and seeing it was unable to even install or repair, I formatted a 4GB pendrive with Ubuntu Rescue Remix in order to access to HDD recovery tools, in this case, TestDisk.
I ran an analysis (both quick and deep) and thanks to that I can actually check the files on it. The NTFS partition is now readable from TestDisk, but now I have the following error:
Boot sector
ntfs_boot_sector: Can't read boot sector.
Status: Bad
Backup boot sector
Status: OK
Sectors are not identical.
As per the instructions I decided to use the backup boot sector, but then I get a Can't overwrite NTFS boot sector error. I tried rebuilding the bs and I got the same error. I later tried using chkdsk from the Windows 7 installation disk and it's identifying the drive as a RAW file system. I've searched in Google everywhere but I got no result, and I'm currently at a lack of ideas about what to do other than just grabbing the files and copying them into another drive.
As a note, I don't want to lose the files. If possible I need to keep the files and repair the system. If the Windows disk can get to read the partition, then I can just repair the installation to make sure everything is right, but for that I have to repair the boot sector.
Thank you beforehand.
Best Answer
Maybe it´s too late, but just in case... I have had the same problem: boot sector and its backup are different. But one of them is correct. The same tool you have used (TestDisk) allows you to save all the files in that disk whereever you want. It´s a very slow process (almost 30 hours for a 750GB disk) but I did save all the contents of my ISB drive.