I think my hard drive is dead, is a recovery possible?

[zylander]

I think my slave drive is now dead. when ever I try to boot up the computer with it plugged in, I get a blue screen with a disk error. the blue screen comes on during the windows loading screen. when I unplug the drive, the computer boots up just fine.

Is there any chance I can get my files off the drive? It would probably have to be done in DOS, is this possible?

 

[Kaiser__Sose]

put it in an antistatic bag and put it in the freezer for an hour or so.
then quckly take it out and plug it back in and try to recover the data before the drive warms up.
this is known as the "freezer trick" and it has been known to work .. i have tried it successfully with a couple dying HDDS

 

[ironique]

Download BartPE, burn it on a CD, boot with it and recover your files. It's a miniture version of windows that runs off the CD, so you can access your slave hdd without booting into the OS installation on your primary hdd.

 

[zylander]

thanks ironique, thats exactly the kind of thing I was looking for.

Kaiser, I have heard about the "freezer trick" and will try it, but only as a last resort. thanks.

 

[birdpup]

Data Recovery Programs
1) R-Studio
2) Runtime's GetDataBack
3) Ontrack's Easy Recovery Pro
4) Quetek
5) File Scavenger
6) HDD Regenerator
7) TestDisk

Rescue Disks
UBCD4Win
BartPE
Knoppix

Hard Drive Related Products
Norton Ghost
Acronis
Future Systems Solutions

Hard Drive Manufacturer Diagnostic Utilities
Seagate
Western Digital
Maxtor
Fujitsu
Hitachi

Google
Unix 'dd' command
Linux 'dd' command
Partition Recovery
Data Recovery
drive partition strategy
drive partition primary extended
drive partition
drive partition partitions partitioning

Hard Drive Freezer Technique
This technique is useful due to thermal contraction of mechanical parts
1) Place drive in an anti-static bag
2) Put drive in freezer for at least one hour
3) Remove drive from freezer
4) Quickly install in system
5) Attempt data recovery

If bios does not recognize hard drive, then reboot and try again until that one time the drive is recognized. If this does not work, put drive in another system and hope the bios of the other system detects the drive.

Memory Tests
memtest86
memtest86+

 

[zylander]

woah, thanks a lot birdup. hopefully one of these will work for me.

 

[Underclocked]

add UBCD4Win (which is based upon BartPE but adds some nice touches).

 

[zylander]

I used BartPE and got everything off that drive with no problems. I will not forget about the program, it worked so well. Ill look into UBCD4win for furutre use, thanks.

 

[Kaiser__Sose]

good to hear.

 

[ironique]

Originally posted by: zylander
I used BartPE and got everything off that drive with no problems. I will not forget about the program, it worked so well. Ill look into UBCD4win for furutre use, thanks.

:thumbsup: