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HD Wont Boot. Can I salvage data?

M

Madhattan

Member
I have a 250GB Maxtor drive that I have been using for a few months now. It is the only drive in my computer and it houses all of my data. I stupidly do not have a back up.
I went to turn on my computer and it said "Hard drive failure. Insert Sytem Disk."

What I have done is the following:
I got out an old 40 gig from the closet and installed windows on it. Im now using the 40gb drive. I have an external HD enclosure.
When I place the 250GB in the enclosure, the computer sees it as a mass storage device, and even knows its a 250gb maxtor, but the computer wont assign it a drive letter.

The same happens when I plug it in as a slave. It is seen in Sandra Lite 2007, but not by the computer.

Is there any way that I can save this data???

I also downloaded tweak ui and made sure that all of the drive letters were enabled, no help.
 
The partition table information probably got corrupt. The best way to get your data back is to use software like GetDataBack which reads the drive for the data and doesnt just check the Master File Table. Does the drive make any loud noise or get warm quickly?
 
Naw. The drive physically is fine.
Thanks for the help. If it just went bad after a few months, I will be very sceptical about the scene of DIY computing.
Ive had nothing but trouble with the last few mobos, and HDs that I have purchased. Its almost like you need to send at least 1 or 2 DOA items back before you get something useful, and this is with companies like maxtor and asus.
Is it just me, or is the physical quality of computer components just gone to crap lately?

Thanks for the advice and I will try it now.
 
Thanks so much. GetDataBack was able to save every single thing on the drive. I used an external enclosure and windows xp, could not see the drive at all, but getdataback did and it saved my butt.

thanks again John
 
hmmm. I guess now that I have all my stuff back, is there a way that I can format the drive and try to use it again?
It still has no drive letter and all formating tools that I have come across require a drive letter.
Anyone know of a tool?
 
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