500GB WD HDD with Bad Sectors. How to recover data?

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Golgatha

Golgatha

Lifer
Jul 18, 2003
12,402
1,078
126
My sister and brother-in-law have a bunch of pictures on their computer that they didn't backup. Any help is appreciated, as the first 4-5 months of my niece's life-in-pictures were on this hard drive. PSA - Backup your important data on a regular basis kids!


The Problem and My Troubleshooting:

I have attached their drive to one my computer's SATA channels and it shows up in the BIOS screen at boot time. Western Digital's (their drive is a WD, 500GB, AAJS model) tools detect all drives hooked up to my system, but don't allow me to do much except write zeros or overwrite the MBR. When I try to use Acronis to image the drive, it will detect the drive, but about 70% into the detection it reports bad sectors and refuses to do much of anything. When I try to boot my computer with their drive attached, it takes approximately 30min to get to my desktop, and the drive letter for their drive doesn't show up. It also doesn't show up in the Disk Management window at all.

Anything else I should try or haven't thought of; or is this drive toast and will become a hard lesson to learn for my extended family?
 
Golgatha

Golgatha

Lifer
Jul 18, 2003
12,402
1,078
126
Originally posted by: CalvinHobbes
As long as it's seen by the BIOS, something like GetDataBack should work just fine.
Click to expand...

I forgot something in my original post. Sorry.

When I finally do get into the OS with their drive attached, then reboot the computer, the drive doesn't show up in the BIOS anymore (I'm using an external power supply to power their drive). If I cut the system power and power to their HDD, reconnect the power, then boot the system; their HDD shows up again. It's like Windows is trying to detect their drive for 30min, can't, and then their drive just gets shut down so the OS can quite trying in vain to detect it.

This is one of the oddest drives I've ever had to diagnose because it shows up in the BIOS, will boot and detect or attempt detection reporting bad sectors under DOS based utilities (WD Tools for DOS, Acronis boot disc specifically), but it won't allow the OS to boot when it's installed (or just shuts down after like 30min of the OS trying to detect it). I'd suspect physical damage except for the facts that I don't hear bad mechanical noises and because it shows up in the BIOS just fine and also shows up under DOS utilities.
 
Modelworks

Modelworks

Lifer
Feb 22, 2007
16,240
7
76
This is what I have always used.
All that matter is that the bios can see the drive.
http://www.winhex.com/winhex/

Go to tools, open disk.
Pick the physical media, not the partition.
You should be able to scroll down and see the data if the drive is readable. It is going to look like garbage.
Go to tools. disk tools, clone disk and copy the drives raw data to another drive. - The reason for this step is you do not want to keep accessing a failing drive more than you have to. Get a copy of it, then use that data to search and recover from.
After you do that open the image file with file / open
Go to tools , disk tools , recover file by type, or scan for lost partitions.

It is good software but it can be a bit complex to use. I have never not been able to recover something with it as long as the drive was physically working.



 
VirtualLarry

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,587
10,225
126
Norton Ghost 2003 for DOS will allow you to image partitions, and skip bad sectors when cloning. I think the switch is either -fro or -fso or -f (something) o.

I used it to recover 98% of my HD when my Maxtor 60GB FDB drive crapped out six months into it's life.
 
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