Dead harddrive-any hope?

[echelonphoto]

I have a WD 260G drive that went bad on me this week. While I have backed up most of the files...there are some in the last two years that slipped by and I would dearly love to recover them. I put the drive into an external enclosure and also tried it in another computer and it will not even spin. I also tried putting it in the freezer and that didn't work.
Is there a reasonable method of recovery?

 

[BlueAcolyte]

There might be labs that can recover it for you, but any solution will be expensive.

 

[nismotigerwvu]

if the freezer didn't work the only thing i can say beyond (expensive) professional data recovery would be to put it in an electrostatic bag and and every once and while just to see if it will spin up. I've had drives that were dead for months randomly come alive (for a short period of time) seemingly at random. I hope you get your files back.

 

[echelonphoto]

OK...I have more info. First of all the HD IS spinning, but the light on the external enclosure does not stay on like it does for fully functioning drives. There is no clicking sound, so thats a good sign. The drive is recognized in Disk Manager, but it will not open it.
The harddrive is a WD 320GB WD3200JB. Maybe the drivers are missing?

 

[echelonphoto]

More info...I ran the western digital diagnostics on it and it check out OK...but I still can't read it ...they say it is a dynamic disc.

 

[dlockert]

I lost a dynamic disk once.
I had to go to: (with XP)

Control Panel
Administrative Tools
Computer Management
Storage
Disk Management

I think the physical drive showed up, and I had to "mount" the dynamic drive. (maybe by right clicking on the drive)
I got the whole drive back.

Give this a try, and see if it helps.

DL

 

[RebateMonger]

Also, if you are moving drives around, remember that XP Home, Vista Home Basic, and Vista Home Premium can't read a Dynamic Disk.