Failing HDD - any tips for data recovery?

[mikeymikec]

I know of a few ways to recover data from a failing HDD, but normally my rule of thumb is that I won't stand a chance of recovering data if my computer can't detect the HDD (plugged in to an external HDD dock and connected via USB3).

I've got a customer's laptop at the moment, and its HDD failure falls into a bit of a grey area - the drive spins up (no unhealthy noises, a couple of 'seek' sounds, and the background sound of a platter spinning normally), and if I wait a few minutes (during which time the dock access light is not flashing), the computer acknowledges the connection of the dock (USB Mass Storage Device), and Windows Disk Management surprisingly acknowledges another disk being connected but it wants to write a signature to the disk (no indication of the disk's capacity though). I know that's a bad idea so I've cancelled that every time I've tried this disk. My data recovery software (GetDataBack for NTFS) can't see the disk at all.

Whenever I encounter a disk that I can't recover data from I always mention the existence of proper data recovery companies to my customers but also point out the usual costs that those companies charge.

 

[razel]

With the exception of portable external USBs where the PCB is USB, I always connect direct via SATA and do the short SMART test. Let us know what happens next.

 

[Shmee]

Yes, use a direct SATA connection if possible. I would recommend then booting a linux like parted magic and trying data recovery from there.

 

[RecoveryForce]

you should not attempt running recovery software against the original drive if you don't want to risk making things worse. I recommend getting a full sector by sector clone of the drive and running the recovery software against the clone. If you have any issues getting the drive cloned, don't fight with it an seek professional data recovery assistance.