How to retreive data from a dead HDD?

[lemmeredeur]

I purchased 3 weeks ago, a new computer, PC and installed Windows XP pro. I used the HDD from my old PC (20 gig, Windows millenium) as a slave and everything was working fine. Last week I had to reinstall windows XP and something terrible happend. The PC doesn't recognise the slave hard drive. It show the drive in the hardware and says it is working fine but not in my computer. I went to a computer store with the HDD and they told me that I errased the operating system on the drive and therefor the drive is good for garbage. I have a lot of family pictures (7 years) and I need to retrieve the file with those pictures. Can it be done and how?

Thank you in advance for your help.

 

[TomCologne]

So erasing ME on the slave HDD turns it into garbage?????

You hopefully did not buy your new PC there!



Quite a few data recovery tools are included in

Hiren's BootCD 8.6, a free collection of misc utilities,

http://mymalaysia.wordpress.com/2006/11/10/hirens-bootcd-86/

Eg. GetDataBack-FAT can be run from within Windows, other programs are available when you boot from the CD.


Take this incident as an opportunity to think about a solid backup strategy!!!


Good luck,


TomCologne

 

[vacunita]

I hope its the last time you go to that computer store. Removing an operating system from a drive does not automatically make it garbage.

As tom said, try a data recovery app. Getdataback is a little pricey, but its particularly good at recovering things.

And think about a backup strategy.



----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

 

[cdogg]

Like the others said, the drive is probably fine.

Double-check the jumper settings on your hard drives (I'm assuming they're on the same IDE channel) making sure that one is master and the other slave. Sometimes you have to fiddle around with their position making sure the master is at the end and the slave connected in the middle.

If that doesn't work, detach any devices you have on the secondary channel and hook it up there. Unless the drive has failed "mechanically", Windows should be able to see it in the Disk Management tool (right-click My Computer and select "manage" to get there). You might have to assign it a different drive letter as well.

~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
[tab][navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884