Hard drive recovery

[SpeedCrazy]

As anyone in the southeast right now could tell you, we are having some rather severe(for this area) weather. And unfortunately its latest casualty appears to be my desktop hdd.

I do have my most important files backed up but if possible i would like to try and get the others off.

So to that end, what would y'all recommend? I have an identical drive i can copy the files to if i can access them, but i have never done this before so the accessing part is where i need help.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Speed

 

BTW, i do know google could help, but i am kinda busy cleaning up the mess from this storm and have already lost power several times so i hope to have an idea of where to start when i get a chance to work on it rather than starting from scratch.

[ir_cow]

what kind of damage, unless the data was been "erased" like corrupted data and the drive still works, you will have to send it off to a data recovery place that works in a clean room. Its not cheap either, my friend had to pay $1500 for 5gb.

[Andrewr05]

Don't use the drive. AT ALL. Remove it from your computer entirely.

 

Install an undelete/recovery program on another computer, plug in your drive and scan it.

 

I use R-Studio, it was expensive but it has saved a lot of stuff.

Edited February 13, 2014 by Andrewr05

[SpeedCrazy]

what kind of damage, unless the data was been "erased" like corrupted data and the drive still works, you will have to send it off to a data recovery place that works in a clean room. Its not cheap either, my friend had to pay $1500 for 5gb.

Not real sure, i went to boot it up this morning and it told me to insert a boot drive. So i turned it off and left it in case i was at risk of doing more damage. 1500 for 5gb? I'm am screwd, thats a 500gb hdd.....

 

Don't use the drive. AT ALL. Remove it from your computer entirely.

 

Install an undelete/recovery program on another computer, plug in your drive and scan it.

 

I use R-Studio, it was expensive but it has saved a lot of stuff.

Ok i can re-install on another drive, are there any free utilities that i could get some off with or do i need to spring for something expensive?

[IVIYTH0S]

Recuva has been good to me, I think I used R-Studio and it was decent too. Luckily I'm a backup freak so I never really have the real need for recovery programs anymore

[paulktreg]

If you have an identical drive I would try swapping the printed circuit boards.

[IVIYTH0S]

If you have an identical drive I would try swapping the printed circuit boards.

Oooooh, nice! I remember this saved an old WD of mine! Man that takes me back though.

[SpeedCrazy]

Recuva has been good to me, I think I used R-Studio and it was decent too. Luckily I'm a backup freak so I never really have the real need for recovery programs anymore

I'll try it then. Like i said i don't have a huge amount i'd lose, but i don't always remember to save stuff to the right location. So if possible I'd rather be safe than sorry. 

 

If you have an identical drive I would try swapping the printed circuit boards.

Unfortunately they are identical in size only. One is a WD Caviar Blue, and the other is a Caviar Black.

 

 

 

Interesting development, i loaded linux mint on a live cd and cleaned the good drive off prior to installation, and whilst i was there i decided what the heck lets test the other disk. It returned no errors... so i restarted and switched boot order. Windows loaded in safe mode...  i think what happened is that i lost power during windows update configuration as after half an hour in repair mode i am running again. Whatever it may be i am running my back up RIGHT now.

 

Is there any software y'all would recommend to deep test the drive to make sure?

[IVIYTH0S]

 

Recuva has been good to me, I think I used R-Studio and it was decent too. Luckily I'm a backup freak so I never really have the real need for recovery programs anymore

I'll try it then. Like i said i don't have a huge amount i'd lose, but i don't always remember to save stuff to the right location. So if possible I'd rather be safe than sorry. 

 

If you have an identical drive I would try swapping the printed circuit boards.

Unfortunately they are identical in size only. One is a WD Caviar Blue, and the other is a Caviar Black.

 

 

 

Interesting development, i loaded linux mint on a live cd and cleaned the good drive off prior to installation, and whilst i was there i decided what the heck lets test the other disk. It returned no errors... so i restarted and switched boot order. Windows loaded in safe mode...  i think what happened is that i lost power during windows update configuration as after half an hour in repair mode i am running again. Whatever it may be i am running my back up RIGHT now.

 

Is there any software y'all would recommend to deep test the drive to make sure?

 

If any WD diagnostics tell you it's clean, I'd be happy with that since they're probably what you need to fail for warranty to kick in

[SpeedCrazy]

 

 

Recuva has been good to me, I think I used R-Studio and it was decent too. Luckily I'm a backup freak so I never really have the real need for recovery programs anymore

I'll try it then. Like i said i don't have a huge amount i'd lose, but i don't always remember to save stuff to the right location. So if possible I'd rather be safe than sorry. 

 

If you have an identical drive I would try swapping the printed circuit boards.

Unfortunately they are identical in size only. One is a WD Caviar Blue, and the other is a Caviar Black.

 

 

 

Interesting development, i loaded linux mint on a live cd and cleaned the good drive off prior to installation, and whilst i was there i decided what the heck lets test the other disk. It returned no errors... so i restarted and switched boot order. Windows loaded in safe mode...  i think what happened is that i lost power during windows update configuration as after half an hour in repair mode i am running again. Whatever it may be i am running my back up RIGHT now.

 

Is there any software y'all would recommend to deep test the drive to make sure?

 

If any WD diagnostics tell you it's clean, I'd be happy with that since they're probably what you need to fail for warranty to kick in

 

Warranty... what is this thing you speak of? I've never had a drive die within warranty.

I'll run  the wd diagnostics in the am.

[ir_cow]

if it boots up than it's probably just corrupted data. which is WAAAY cheaper because you can do it yourself. if it's making weird noises, than it's busted and expensive repair.

[Psywar]

As Andrew said above remove it for sure and run it as a secondary drive. If not every time you turn it on it is possible it is re-writing over stuff that is deleted or lost.

As the others have mentioned Recuva is great. I used this a few months ago for a friend and I got most of her files back.

Undelete Plus works really well too. If you are good with command prompt try PhotoRec it is a safer alternative to deep disk recoveries and quite powerful as well.