Windows no longer boots, secondary HDD is unaccessible

[jaclaz]

Provided that the hard disk is actually around 640 GB in size (or to be more exact it had a single partition of around 640 GB), DMDE actually found *something*.

The 975 MB or around 1.02 GB in size image is too small to be meaningful (on any NTFS filesystem bigger than 5 or 6 GB the $MFT is placed on cluster 786432, which equates to roughly 3 GB).

You can try "going on", selecting "$Noname 01" and then clicking on "Open Volume" but since no $MFT is available, your only option would be "file based" recovery (which is only good for files that were "contiguous").

A functional 640 GB or so hard disk should take (ddrescue is AFAICR an "average" speedwiseprogram) a few hours to be imaged, approximately between 2 and 4.

So if you got 1 GB in 1/2 hour, imaging the whole disk would probably take more than 300 hours , which while not entirely unheard of:

https://www.forensicfocus.com/Forums/viewtopic/t=11313/

 poses a SERIOUS problem on the integrity of the disk.

You need to make sure, d@mn sure, that the disk does not overheat, usually a fan (or more than one) are used to keep the disk "cool" when doing this kind of imaging that results in so many errors.

But maybe it is the case of attempting to use a (if not better) more tweakable tool, that would be dd_rescue (and dd_rhelp):

http://www.garloff.de/kurt/linux/ddrescue/

or ddrescue (and ddrutility):

https://www.gnu.org/software/ddrescue/ddrescue.html

(Linux only)

Still, there remains a risk that by these attempts the situation worsens, so - once again - I have to ask you to consider whether your data/photos are worth (or are not worth) the possible cost of a professional data recovery service, if you continue there is a concrete possibility that if you later change your mind, the data/disk would be further degraded and thus made unrecoverable (the professiona that will make this later attempt, no matter what was the real cause will anywyay blame your attempts for the unrecoverability of the data).

jaclaz