Hard drive failure, any way to recover data?

[tom3]

Hi there, a friend of mine recently had her hard drive die on her. It's now not even detected in the BIOS, though it does spin up with bad noises. Is there any way to recover the data on the drive? The data are extremely important..

I know i know.. she's been informed about backing up regularly in the future... but what are her options at this point to retrieve data from the failed drive?

thanks!

 

[prosaic]

There are two steps to take to recover that data:

1. First of all, get it the heck out of the computer and stop diddling with it. Every time that sucker is restarted you risk doing further damage to whatever data is still intact on the platters.

2. Second, get in touch with someone like this. I've never had to use them, but I've referred lots of other people to them. I've never heard a bad report on them. But they will cost your friend some bucks.

You said the data was important. If it's really important, then this is the way to go. If it's not really all that important then you can screw around with stuff like freezing the drive, disassembling it and replacing the controller, and other such stuff which isn't likely to prove fruitful.

If the data is truly important do NOT decide to try this other original amateur hour stuff before sending the drive to a data recovery service in the hopes of saving money. You will only make it less likely that the recovery service can get the data back.

- prosaic

 

[Zepper]

Yes, Ontrack is an excellent data recovery service for those times when the drive is electronically or mechanicaly damaged. You might also want to do a Google search on- data recovery service -to find others that might be less expensive and equally reliable. Be sure to read and understand the contract completely and demand a scrupulous privacy policy such that any confidential data on the drive is protected from getting into anyone elses hands. Be aware that service fees of many hundreds of dollars are typical.
. Also contact the drive mfr's RMA dept. and explain the situation. They may have a service that they recommend and, if your drive is still in warranty, you may be able to have a new drive installed and ready for the recovered data when it (we hope) is returned to you. Good luck!
. For times when the drive is still operating, but data is lost, try the data recovery software from here: R-Tools . I and many other ATers swear by it.
.bh.
<sympathy>

 

[tennesota]

Originally posted by: Zepper

. For times when the drive is still operating, but data is lost, try the data recovery software from here: R-Tools . I and many other ATers swear by it.
.bh.
<sympathy>

Can you tell us more about your experience using R-Tools?

It would be nice to have a tool or set of tools that would give us a chance to recover .pst files from failed hard drives.

 

[Zepper]

tenne et al.,
. When I first heard about R-Studio from R-Tools, I downloaded their demo software. Then I set up a test drive with the same partitions as my work drive and copied my entire software collection onto it. I then ran a destructive disk testing utility that does random reads and H-T-S (disregarding any partition or format boundaries) writes on the test drive - then I repartitioned the test drive twice, setting up a different layout each time - then I did unconditional formats on the final set of partitions. The demo report showed it was able to recover ~85% of the original data. I went ahead and sent 'em some money. Luckily I haven't had the need to use it in a real-life situation yet, but I'm glad it's in my kit.
. Others in this section have reported using R-S to recover data from fragged RAID-0 arrays... Some of the threads might still be in the archive.
.bh.


BTW, anyone still using IE or outlook/outlook express with all their security holes has my sympathy too.bh.

 

[JimmyPie]

Sometimes, you can put the drive into a freezer for awhile (coved up of course) and that will give you enough time to get the data off