Games Disappeared

So my brother-in-law decided to play but was surprised that all of the games have disappeared. This is the third time it happened. Anyway, I've been looking for a way to restore the games. I've read that this salvage tool can actually repair it and so I tried. I also read that repairing using APA is the safest and recommended way of doing it but whenever I try that option I get 9win_error (local) and server reported a read error. If I use HDL I get the list of the games that disappeared local and network. What are my options now? Is there a way to still run the repair through APA or HDL is my only option now?

did you tried with WinHIIP 1.7.6 ?

Yes. It didn't read the HDD. Tried scanning it but an error appeared. Anyway, I went to use the salvage tool using HDL instead of APA and I got the games back but I lost the OPL partition where the VMCs and ART are stored. I am now trying to copy the games to my PC, format the HDD, and install the games back. Is that a good idea?

yeah sounds good .

The games were backed up successfully except for Shaolin Monks and Tekken 5. They can be played though. I wonder why they can't be backed up.

Again I lost my games. Is it OPL (never got this issue with HD Loader) or is the HDD just failing?

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Originally Posted by jsnepo

The games were backed up successfully except for Shaolin Monks and Tekken 5. They can be played though. I wonder why they can't be backed up.

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Quite likely there is HDD sector damage involving some game ISO sectors required to make a complete ISO file, but not really used by those games when playing, at least not in the parts of the game you were using in those tests.

Quite frequently game ISOs even have dummy files on them, just to position the useful files in a part of the disc that gives physically quicker access. Such dummy files are never accessed by the games, but the ISO can not be extracted if the sectors of the dummy files give read errors due to HDD corruption.

For successful extraction all allocated sectors in the game's disc image must be readable from the HDD, even if the game never uses them.

Best regards: dlanor

I see. Kind of like parts of the games that aren't needed are damaged? I guess it's safe to assume that those that I extracted successfully weren't broken. Hopefully I'll be able to extract the remaining games. I'm thinking of replacing the HDD. I've got an extra one here. Thanks guys.