For what it's worth I seem to recall being able to read/write non-Mac LS-120 disks under Linux without any problems not long ago when I was testing an LS-120 drive I received. So at the very least you should be able to create a backup image of the disk that way (e.g. via `dd`). You'd also have your pick of any Linux-based data recovery software.

mscdex wrote on 2023-03-05, 07:41:

For what it's worth I seem to recall being able to read/write non-Mac LS-120 disks under Linux without any problems not long ago when I was testing an LS-120 drive I received. So at the very least you should be able to create a backup image of the disk that way (e.g. via `dd`). You'd also have your pick of any Linux-based data recovery software.

That certainly may be an option. I have close to zero Linux experience so there would be a fair amount of learning required to get to that point.

Were you reading disks that already had files on them? If so, do you know what OS was in use when they were written to?

Thank you for the suggestion. I will consider that if no one comes up with any Windows or DOS options.

... actually, is there some easily bootable Live CD that would allow me to test this and that would have recovery software built in?

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2023-03-05, 08:01:

Were you reading disks that already had files on them? If so, do you know what OS was in use when they were written to?

The disks I had were all brand new (shrinkwrapped), so no files. Only one of them was "DOS formatted", which was the only one I was able to test with by writing new files and reading them back. I kinda wish there was a way to make the "Mac formatted" disks work.

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2023-03-05, 08:01:

... actually, is there some easily bootable Live CD that would allow me to test this and that would have recovery software built in?

I don't have any recommendations as I've rarely used any data recovery software over the years, but there are a variety of live CDs bundled with different data recovery tools, some GUI, some CLI.

A brief search reveals there's at least:

• TestDisk - which you already mentioned, but does come on quite a few various Live CDs
• PhotoRec - by the same people who make TestDisk, works by looking for specific file type signatures. Seems to work with a lot more than just photos.
• Active@ LiveCD - a commercial solution with demo versions of some recovery, backup, and system tools on a bootable Linux-based live CD.

There are also other more specialized tools that help with recovering specific types of files (e.g. photos, PDFs, etc.).

I would suggest though where possible, to create a raw image backup of the disk first (in read-only mode) and then use the various data recovery tools on a copy of that backup image instead of the disk itself (for the tools that support working on images instead of original media). That way if the recovery tools end up further trashing the data you're trying to recover, you won't have lost anything.

mscdex wrote on 2023-03-05, 08:35:

The disks I had were all brand new (shrinkwrapped), so no files. Only one of them was "DOS formatted", which was the only one I […]
Show full quote

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2023-03-05, 08:01:

Were you reading disks that already had files on them? If so, do you know what OS was in use when they were written to?

The disks I had were all brand new (shrinkwrapped), so no files. Only one of them was "DOS formatted", which was the only one I was able to test with by writing new files and reading them back. I kinda wish there was a way to make the "Mac formatted" disks work.

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2023-03-05, 08:01:

... actually, is there some easily bootable Live CD that would allow me to test this and that would have recovery software built in?

I don't have any recommendations as I've rarely used any data recovery software over the years, but there are a variety of live CDs bundled with different data recovery tools, some GUI, some CLI.

A brief search reveals there's at least:

• TestDisk - which you already mentioned, but does come on quite a few various Live CDs
• PhotoRec - by the same people who make TestDisk, works by looking for specific file type signatures. Seems to work with a lot more than just photos.
• Active@ LiveCD - a commercial solution with demo versions of some recovery, backup, and system tools on a bootable Linux-based live CD.

There are also other more specialized tools that help with recovering specific types of files (e.g. photos, PDFs, etc.).

I would suggest though where possible, to create a raw image backup of the disk first (in read-only mode) and then use the various data recovery tools on a copy of that backup image instead of the disk itself (for the tools that support working on images instead of original media). That way if the recovery tools end up further trashing the data you're trying to recover, you won't have lost anything.

Thanks for the suggestions.

I'm not that familiar with disk imaging tools prior to Macrium Reflect, so I'm not sure what to use. I had recently downloaded Dolly to try to make backups of much older PCs, so I tried using that in Windows to make an image of the LS-120 and it did "something" but it was beyond slow. Every couple minutes it would access the drive for about one second, then the system would sit there idle for another couple minutes. Going by the sector count it gave me, that likely would have taken days to complete.

I guess the alternative would be to find a simple Windows 9x or DOS application that would allow me to image the disk in a format that I can then mount on a newer PC and attempt data recovery on. Does such a thing exist? It seems like any imaging software I find uses some proprietary format for it's images, which is very inconvenient for this use case.

... though, at that point I don't know if the newer OS will be able to make sense of the disk image because of the UDF differences mentioned earlier. Argghh...

EDIT: These programs seem to have compatibility with older operating systems so I'm going to give them a whirl when I get a chance...

https://recoverytoolbox.com/undelete.html
https://sourceforge.net/projects/kickassundelete/
https://www.winundelete.com/recover-deleted-files.asp

I would still prefer to make an image of the drive as recommended, but I still haven't found a good Win9x application that can do this. I will check out the list here:
I'm Looking for a List of Software That Can Make a Full Disk Backup of Windows 98 SE and XP that Runs on Modern OSes

I like to use the last free Parted Magic disk from 2013 to do backups, cloning and data recovery in similar situations. It should still be available for download.

The 2013 Parted Magic is available on the Ultimate BootCD.

Another leads to interesting softs, in particular check GRDuw v4.1.17:
https://msfn.org/board/topic/152567-ls-120-su … and-dos/page/2/

The ls-120 seems to be supported natively in BeOS, if you have some 500MB free on your Windows 98 machine...

What about WinImage? The older versions work on 9x, and as long as you don't save as the compressed .imz format, the images are standard. You could then try dropping the resulting image file into TestDisk.

There's also GRDuw, which is 9x only. It definitely works on LS120 drives, but you'll want to untick "skip empty tracks" for your undeletion purposes.

Thanks for the suggestions guys. I keep striking out but may have found something that works... I am trying both imaging software as well as data recovery software, just to see if anything at all will help with LS-120 disks in this situation.

WinImage doesn't detect the drive at all. It doesn't seem to have support for anything but hard drives? I've used it before for working with images, but I never realized how vague the interface is. It never really gives you an opportunity to select a drive letter and click "make an image". Nothing I could find would allow me to make an image of a specific drive. Lots of unexplained buttons that sound like they'd wreak havoc if I clicked the wrong one.

GRDuw seems to be incapable of working through errors, so inevitably there are going to be some errors on a 23 year old LS-120 disk, but it can't cope with that so it just fails. This would be infuriating if I really desperately needed this data. Just *do* it please. If one sector is not readable, then give me the option to proceed and copy the sector as blank or something... If one program is capable of bypassing drive errors, there's no reason another shouldn't be able to.

RecoveryToolBox File Undelete Free does *not* work in Windows 9x, even though the website clearly says it does. The installer simply says it expects a newer Windows version and refuses to install.

WinUndelete actually did a very quick scan of some kind and shows me dozens of deleted files, some of which actually look like they could contain something I'd want, but the free version only lets you add files to a recovery image, not actually see\recover them. When I try to recover files to an image it always gives me a Stream Data Error and doesn't work. I tried 20 different files, some were just 1kb text files, and they all did the same thing. It's unlikely that every one of these files is corrupt\broken in the same way, so I think it's a software issue, not a media\hardware issue. It's really lame that I'd have to pay $50 to find out if the paid version could successfully recover files without having the extra complexity of adding them to a recovery image.

Kickass Undelete doesn't install because it's missing various .Net files, and one looks like it is from .Net 4.0? I mean... come on. It apparently supports Windows 95. Who installs such a modern and gigantic (50MB installer!) software package to run a program in Windows 95\98? Probably takes forever to install on a hard drive. When looking into this requirement I also found people complaining the the program only works with non-removable drives anyway. 🤦 🤦 🤦 🤦 🤦

I got a registered copy of EASEUS Data Recovery Wizard back in 2012 via TrialPay, and that is generally a fantastic program, but it says it requires NT 5.0 to function. 🙁

I searched for data recovery at oldversion.com and managed to locate GetDataBack Data Recovery. At first it seemed like it wasn't going to let me scan the LS-120 drive but after expanding some somewhat obscure menus I actually found Drive A: as an option and it has been performing a scan on the drive and listing file records found for about 25 minutes now. It ran into some bad sectors and it let me bypass them individually or bypass all future errors, so I did that. It has found several errors, which again, isn't surprising for a 24+ year old LS-120 disk that hasn't been reformatted since 1999. So, hopefully when it finally finishes I will have something I can use.

If I manage to recover some data but it looks like there might be more I may try running GetDataBack again with one of the brand new LS-120 drives I bought 5-6 years ago (sold as SCSI, but they were just IDE drives on adapters). Or I may try running a live CD with PartedMagic to see if I can image the drive and then attempt other backups from that. This thing is way faster than a normal floppy, but it's still SLOW. 🥱

Well, after going through the recovery scan on one of my disks with GetDataBack... sadly, absolutely nothing that was marked as deleted has any usable data in it. To me that seems strange. I have run recovery software in the past and found usable data most of the time. It still feels like there is some mismatch between the file names and the data being pulled from the drive. Even if there was something wrong with the file table it seems like the deleted files would eventually still contain at least one readable english word, but every single thing I've opened hasn't worked (.exe, .zip, .jpg, .txt) and when viewed as text I get absolute gibberish from the beginning of the file to the end.

It seems GetDataBack also supports the creation of full disk images and is allowing me to do this with my LS-120 disks (while bypassing the bad sector errors as well), so at the very least I'll have images to tinker with and won't have to listen to that horrendous drive reading noise again, unless I decide to try reading the disks with a new drive.

So, it may all be hopeless, but I'll tinker with it before I give up entirely. It isn't a huge loss... more just an experiment to see if it's possible to recover something I lost over 20 years ago.

If anyone knows why I might be seeing gibberish data on 100% of deleted files recovered, please let me know. To me that sounds like it isn't being recovered properly.

EDIT: Welp... I copied the .img file that GetDataBack created over to my Windows 10 PC and I can't find anything that will open it properly. Strangely, if I open it in 7zip it shows a bunch of files that are totally usable that seem to have come from either a directory or a zip file on the disk. There is nothing else there using 7zip. If I open the 120MB file in Notepad++ it starts out with hundreds of lines of characters, one per line, all different and in alphabetical order. At random places within the text are whole plain-text documents that I know are on the drive. Not sure what I could use to "mount" this image though. The built in Win10 Mount feature isn't working and nothing else I have tried will open it as a proper .img disk image.

You need a tool which will work on raw disk images - even if you booted Linux and used dd or dd_rescue to make a copy of all the readable sectors on the disk (and skip any that were unreadable) it won't automatically pull back files for you.

There should be plenty of tools on Windows which will scan a raw disk image such as the one you've created and attempt to extract files for you. Since these are 'deleted' folders and files, you probably need some data forensics tools that will identify files by contiguous cluster chains and not just list the contents by FAT/directory entries.

You can use Testdisk with disk images.

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2023-03-05, 23:08:

If anyone knows why I might be seeing gibberish data on 100% of deleted files recovered, please let me know. To me that sounds like it isn't being recovered properly.

If the known existing files are correct (therefore excluding with nonperfect but very good probability interface/compatibility problems)... maybe it was just cleaned with a "randomize free space" program back then?

An interesting experiment would be to open them in "file" (a program for Linux et al that tries to identify contents based on a comprehensive database), but I suspect you'll get the negative answer "data"...

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2023-03-05, 23:08:

Strangely, if I open it in 7zip it shows a bunch of files that are totally usable that seem to have come from either a directory or a zip file on the disk. There is nothing else there using 7zip.
[...]
Not sure what I could use to "mount" this image though

I recommend OSFMount 😀

(I don't know much about Zip and competitors - are they LBA only, being ATAPI and therefore SCSI, or was a CHS to LBA mapping error introduced? Probably not if you can open various folders...)

As for the zip theory, it's possible - Zip can have arbitrary content before and after (and JPEG after: the classic 4chan attachment trick) and most archivers will automatically find the relevant part; but that suggests that 7zip hasn't found a valid FAT, as it also supports this kind of "archive"?

lolo799 wrote on 2023-03-06, 14:15:

You can use Testdisk with disk images.

Ah, you know I figured it could but I didn't see any options to have it use an image. I just tried dragging and dropping the .img file onto testdisk_win.exe and that actually works. I did the same with photorec and to my amazement it actually recovered a word document (with formatting) that otherwise wasn't available as well as a single zip file containing a Voodoo 3 tweaking program (that should put the age of this stuff into context!).

So that was really cool to see. I'm honestly astonished that it recovered a .zip file without corruption. Sadly, the couple of files (zip and exe) that seemed like they could be related to what I'm looking for just don't seem to be recoverable, but... it was worth a try anyway!

Also worth mentioning... it turns out my backup LS-120 drive (apparently I only had one) was actually bad and does not read any floppy or LS-120 disks no matter what I do. So, there's no chance of recovering more with a different drive at this time. It's interesting to think that I actually just did all this work and imaged the disk using almost the exact same setup that the disks originally came with and were formatted on. Same Gateway PC, original motherboard, CPU, PSU, hard drive, sound\video, LS-120 drive, everything. Only real difference is 98SE rather than 98 first edition, and maybe more RAM.

Anyway, if anyone has to do something like this in the future, here is a summary of my findings:

*Create a disk image somehow. I found GetDataBack to work well in Windows 98SE and it worked okay with LS-120 disks.

*Running testdisk on another (faster) system using the disk image yielded no usable files but it did show real file names with the right settings where GDB always had them slightly cut off.

*Running Photorec (included with testdisk) did actually yield some usable files, but the results changed a lot depending on the settings I chose. For some reason, the zip that was recovered would only open in 7zip and would not open in File Explorer.

Also... as a side note, using one method I did end up with a zip file that was ~75MB and when I opened it with 7zip it had a single small file in it (an NES game ROM of all things). I was curious about what else was contained in the file so I looked around a bit and actually found a simple zip file recovery program that worked! It appears that the data in the zip was just a conglomeration of data from elsewhere on the disk (75MB is basically the entire contents of the disk), but it did still contain that NES ROM which was not accessible anywhere else. So, if you're dealing with a zip or self extracting exe that won't open, give Zip2Fix a try. I was surprised that it did anything. When I tried to fix the two files (zip and exe) that I was hoping would work, the one had zero files recovered and the other was basically just filled with files on the drive. So in that way, Zip2Fix really helped me to be 100% sure the data was gone by saying "see, this is what is actually inside this zip file even if you can recover it."

Since it's tiny, I have attached Zip2Fix to this post, just in case it ever disappears from the internet.