III.II.II Scanning the Drive
GetDataBack will now scan your drive for every available information regarding the original file system. The scan
will take some time, you should at least allow an hour of scanning for every 50 GB of drive capacity.
However - if the scan takes much longer than this, there is something wrong. It is normal if the scan is not
completed within a couple of hours.
There are the a couple of reasons why the scan can take very long:
1. Your drive has a physical problem. If the drive has a lot of bad sectors (damaged areas on the drive's
platters that cannot be read anymore) or is otherwise damaged, the scan can take really long if it's ever
going to finish.
If you get only an occasional bad sector message, but the scan is otherwise progressing, choose "Ignore"
in the warning windows and let the scan finish.
But if you receive a lot of read error messages, or the scan seems to stall or is taking forever, your best
bet is to stop what you are doing and to make an Image of your damaged drive first. By making an Image
you will reduce the stress on the drive (which if physically damaged can fail at any moment). Once you
have created the Image you can perform the data recovery for the Image instead of the drive - just select
the Image you made in Step 1 of GetDataBack (Image Files). You can use GetDataBack to make an
Image, the only other thing you'll need is enough space on another drive to store the Image to.
Instructions on how to create an Image are on our website at http://www.runtime.org/gdbimage.htm.
2. You are scanning an external drive through the USB port. Scanning a drive through USB takes much
longer than scanning a drive that is connected to the internal IDE-cable of your computer. In extreme
cases the scan can take 10 times longer, especially when using USB1. Consider taking the drive out of its
casing and attaching it directly to the IDE-cable. See chapter I.II.II. External Drives above.
