Saving My Hard Drive

[Arcuivie]

Three or four days ago my 2ish year old WD 500GB HDD disappeared from My Computer and the Device Manager after coming back from a suspended state. I scanned for hardware changes and it popped back up (although it asked me to assign a new letter to the drive). I didn't think much of it, and failed to pull off the 7+ years of data and just went on my business as usual. After about an hour or so it disappeared again, and failed to pull up in either Device Manager and My Computer.

Following a shut down, I went into the BIOS to verify it was still there, then back into Windows. It still didn't show in either MC or the DM, so I scanned for hardware changes again and it showed up, but whenever I went into My Computer, explorer froze, and it does this every time I try to view it after getting it back into DM (I have to manually scan every time I restart for it to show). I tried changing SATA ports/cables, also tried another SATA power cable.

The drive isn't making any sort of weird noise, and it always shows in the Device Manager and the BIOS but always freezes explorer when I try to view it, whether its in My Computer or Disk Management.

Is there anything I can do to save the data on the drive?

I'm running Vista 64bit. If you need any more information let me know.

Help!

 

[oynaz]

Sounds like the fault is with Windows, and not with the drive. Boot an Ultimate Boot CD, and use it to copy the drive. I cannot remember which utilities are on the CD, but you should be able to work it out.

www.ultimatebootcd.com

 

[Intexity]

Get Data Back can be a lifesaver. Not free but worth every penny.

 

[globalrevolt]

I'm recovering parts of my failed HDD (it actually failed about 2 yrs ago) as I type this post right now...oh the irony...

What I did was use a little program called "ddrescue" (not to be confused with "dd_rescue" which is another program...). With ddrescue you can make a quick bit-to-bit copy of the failing harddrive onto a working one of the same size or larger. I booted into Knoppix (linux live cd) via a USB keychain and downloaded/extracted ddrescue onto another usb keychain (some live cds may already come w/ ddrescue).

After running ddrescue to copy the failing drive, I then used a 3rd drive (w/ a fresh or existing copy of windows) to try and recover data off the 2nd drive (the one with the copy of the failed drive). Ideally you want to use a recovery program that doesn't "write" to the drive your trying to recover from. GetDataBack for NTFS is supposed to be good.

Let me know if you need help using ddrescue...it can be confusing...

/gr

 

[Slowlearner]

1. Is the data really worth all that trouble and expense? If it is very valuable and you are prepared to spend lots of money - dont mess around - go to any of the following who have clean rooms and other specialized facilities:

Ontrack http://www.ontrackdatarecovery.com/ or
Seagate http://services.seagate.com/consumer_solutions.aspx or
ESS Data Recovery http://www.essdatarecovery.com/ or
CBL Data Recovery http://www.cbltech.ca/ (US & Canada)
Forenic Strategy http://www.myharddrivedied.com/
http://www.drivesavers.com/

Specializes in Logical Data Recovery:
Dave Mason http://www.davemason.com/drdavesdatarecovery.html

2. If all you have some pictures and documents that you would like to retrieve, and the drive is NOT mechanically damaged (clicking/scratching sounds and such), then follow these steps:

First check if the drive can be read - do all this on a working computer with the bad drive set as a slave (Note you may have to re-configure the master) - does the bios recognize the drive? Then use tools like UBCD4Win CD or a Bart PE cd (these have to be prepared before hand : you can't just download them) so even a Knoppix Live CD can be quite handy. You must of course boot off the CD. All these tools will help you copy those files if they can be read? Sometimes just running Chkdsk from UBCD or BartPE fixes the problem.

Second, if the bios recognizes it but these tools can't read the drive - get TestDisk free from http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Download - read the TestDisk StepbyStep document first - and if it sees the directories and files: see if it will fix the problem.

Third, if TestDisk can't fix the problem - download GetDataBack available for DOS or NTFS - if you were using Win XP you were most probably using NTFS - http://www.runtime.org/ - read their instructions carefully, consider the image option if the drive seems to be failing. Run GetDataBack off the C: drive and see what it can recover - it will not recover everything and have trouble if you have bad sectors on the hard drive - so you will have to manually override some files - it may take a couple of hours - it took about 90 min to check out a 80GB WD HD with some 45gigs - once it is done it will display all the directories and files - you can even review the files - if you see the files you want to keep - sign on to their website and purchase a license 79$ for the NTFS version, enter that it in the software and start copying those files to the main hard drive (after checking for free space).

There is a similar programs called Recover My Files available from http://www.getdata.com/ - similar in scope and pricing.