Emergency harddisk won't read!!!!

[wisdomwarrior23]

My clients harddisk finally took a turn for the worst, they said it had been giving them trouble for a while, which I didn't know before hand because I would have insisted they backup their data. So basically no backup at all, I've read some of the tricks to bringing a harddisk back to life just temporarily to get the data off, such as putting it in the freezer for 30 minutes to a whole day, firmly tapping on the top of the drive etc. Do you guys have any other methods less dangerous than these? Thanks.

 

[bcastner]

First, see if the drive manufacturer's web site has a diagnostic software for download. Some, such as Maxtor, has a non-destructive re-certification routine that may work to let you get the data backed up.

Second, try all of these:

Trial download link of Disk Commander
<

http://www.pillar-solutions.com/html/disk_commander.asp>

Freeware,PC Inspector File Recovery 3.0.1:
<

http://www.webattack.com/download/dlpcinspector.shtml>

<

http://www.webattack.com/Freeware/system/fwdatarecovery.shtml>

 

[wisdomwarrior23]

Good looking out Bcastner, I'll give these a shot. Thanks.

 

[drdebit]

I was looking for something about a particular software product this morning as a result of another tek-tips post and came onto this. It's a page in the middle of the article but it looks like you can go back and forth. Have no idea what all is in there.

http://divxstation.com/article.asp?aId=55&page=3

Also found this, looked like an interesting list, don't know if it's of any use.

http://www.programmersheaven.com/zone16/cat733/

 

[drdebit]

Oh and one other comment-I don't know what a &quot;turn for the worse&quot; is, but if it means that the harddrive is not spinning up at all, a lot of this stuff probably does not work.

 

[bcastner]

drdebit,

If it does not spin at all, yes your are stuffed.

But several utilities can do remarkable things for a drive not recognized by Windows. When one is faced with the problem of no backups, every avenue should be explored. Including utilities that run ex-Windows to retrieve and rebuild MBR, partitions, and files from drives that have become unreadable or invisible to Windows.

Like wisdomwarrior above, I would even put the drive in the freezer. (though it has never come to that).

Best.

 

[drdebit]

bcastner-thanks-this is an area i know nothing about-but my point was-based on other posts i've seen-with no additional detail about &quot;turn for the worst&quot; wisdomwarrior is not enabling you and other knowledgable folks to give advice/provide resources focused directly to the problem.
Does bringing it back to life mean make it spin or make windows (ver?) see it, or what? You guys have a lot of knowledge and with the right info you can give good answers.

 

[bcastner]

drdebit:

If it don't spin it will never work. You were absolutely right in what you said. But if it spins, but Windows does not like it, then possibilities open up. I wanted to make sure you did not discourage people without backups if that was the case.

The threads have been focused on trying to get the thing alive enough, usually outside of Windows, to back the darn thing up.

Your advice was perfectly good. Just do not discourage the desperate someone: as long as it spins, try some Windows and ex-Windows ways to get the data off in one or several last good attempts.

 

[drdebit]

Ok thanks & I appreciate the time you've taken to get me pointed in the right direction

 

[Grenage]

IF you can, somehow, check to see if power is going through the circuit board on the Hard Drive. If it isn't it might be just that which has failed and could be replaced easily enough, but I imagine that is quite unlikely if it has been playing up over time and getting worse.

If the data is really really important and it's not spinning up at all I would consider a proffessional Hard Drive recovery firm (usually quite expensive) over putting one in the freezer.

I think the last clients hard drive that needed recovering came to a cool £650.

 

[wisdomwarrior23]

Sorry fellas for not enough details. Heres the scoop:

The harddrive is recognized in Windows but has an unidentifiable file system, its a 30GB drive split between two partitions. One is about 25Gb the other 5GB. The 5GB partition is readable and I'm able to access it, but the 25GB which is the boot partition with the operating system on it is not accessible.

I can see the drive letter for the harddisk, but when I try to run explorer on the corrupted partition it prompts me to either format the partition or invalid drive specification.

I've used Winternals Adminpak and tried disk commander but it couldn't mount to the drive, I've also used easy recovery pro 6 by ontrack and it was able to atleast read from the partition but the files that it recovered were not of any use. They were crosslinked and not readable.

So the drive had Windows ME installed if that makes any difference, but from what my clients said it gave them problems before, so it was a slow process and it finally went down.

 

[wisdomwarrior23]

Problem resolved, but I'm disgusted I wasn't the one to fix it. My clients wanted a second opinion after I told them I wasn't able to come up with anything. They used another guy, he was able to recover their files and burn them onto a CD. I'm quite sure he used data recovery software to get the files, but I don't know which one. I'm going to find out how he did it though. Live and learn.

 

[bcastner]

wisdomwarrior23,

I have learned that not one program is enough. I own and use Winternals, but have found other things necessary at times as well. I have a small list of things I try before giving up, that unfortunately I do not have handy at the moment. But these are very much worth exploring in your situation:

http://www.restorer2000.com

http://www.runtime.org/hints.htm

Try both, after Winternals Disk Commander provides no joy.

Best.

 

[wisdomwarrior23]

Thanks for the links Bcastner, I'm going to invest in one or possibly both of these data recovery products. I don't ever want to tell my clients I can't fix a problem anymore. Thanks again.

 

[ImagoX]

I've got a similar situation in this thread:

thread751-563952

My drive IS a Maxtor- can THEY perhaps provide some assistance in pulling the data off of the external drive? In my case I accidentally told the WinXP installation routine to delete the volume label for a 120GB USB external drive. I've tried several products, notable EasyRecovery and R-Studio to try to recover the data, but they can't seem to even SCAN the drive and ID files that are possible to recover, let alone actually DO SO. Are any of the applications listed in this thread good at ID-ing flies that are sitting on the drive but are inaccessible because I deleted the volume/FAT data?

 

[wisdomwarrior23]

I'm not familiar with any of the applications listed in this thread but I'm in the process of doing my research I need a GOOD data recovery software product in my arsenal.

 

[ImagoX]

The runtime.org product listed about 3 posts up seems to be scanning the drive... it's going sector by sector and says the process will take about 13 hours (whoa). I'll let you know if it works, but to be honest I'm starting to dispair... =(

 

[wisdomwarrior23]

Good luck ImagoX, its a tough business sometimes trying to get data out of corrupted drives. I was talking to a technician from western digital who referred me to runtime, I guess only time will tell.