The world is over - My HD crashed!!! help? <whimper>

[J0hnny]

My 500GB SATA Samsung drive died - and I've only had it for 5 months. I know I could get the warranty but all I care about is data recovery.

While using my computer, it suddenly froze so I rebooted it. After the reboot - it could no longer load the OS (windows). I tried to reboot it a few more times and shut off it and turned it on again and still not loading.

Luckily I have another computer and tried to load the failed SATA drive as a slave. I check to see if it would detect in Bios and it recognized it. After booting into windows, windows can see the new slave drive but I can't access the drive at all (it has the icon with a question mark).

Can anyone help me. The HD isn't completely dead (since it's still recognized). Is there a disc recovery program for windows somewhere that may help?

I have tried the freezing method in the past for a different HD but that's only a last ditch effort at this moment.

 

[Tobolo]

I've had something like this happen before

I would always load it a slave and it would not read. Then after a reboot it would read normally (reboot would load the drivers at start up. Try that and best of luck.

Also, check the jumper settings although I don't think that would have anything to do with it.

 

[Electric Amish]

What errors are you getting when you try to load the OS. Have you tried an OS recovery?

Is the drive clicking?

 

[George P Burdell]

Originally posted by: Electric Amish
What errors are you getting when you try to load the OS. Have you tried an OS recovery?

Is the drive clicking?

Does the drive sound any different when it spins up/down?

 

[J0hnny]

The drive spins as normal and there are no abnormal clicking sound.

Again, the computer recognizes it, but it can't read off the disc for some reason.

 

[kt]

Originally posted by: J0hnny
The drive spins as normal and there are no abnormal clicking sound.

Again, the computer recognizes it, but it can't read off the disc for some reason.

If the drive is still good, but just have a corrupted file system you may want to give R-Studio a try. You can download the demo version to see if it is possible to run a recovery on the drive. If it is possible you can purchase the product for around $50. Well worth the money if your data is as important to you as you said it is. Good luck.

 

[BurnItDwn]

What KT said, though I'm gonna offer another piece of software to try as well ...
Wouldn't hurt to give GetDataBack a try as well.

 

[Codewiz]

Go grab SpinRite. It will work forever to recover your data......

 

[Narse]

I have had luck with get data back. If that fails there are companies that offer data recovery.

 

[TheKub]

Originally posted by: J0hnny
Luckily I have another computer and tried to load the failed SATA drive as a slave. I check to see if it would detect in Bios and it recognized it. After booting into windows, windows can see the new slave drive but I can't access the drive at all (it has the icon with a question mark).

When you open disk management does it give you the option to import a foreign disk (right click on the area where it says disk0 disk1 etc)?

I may be mixing up requirements for windows server with xp\vista.

 

[Chronoshock]

I've used PC Inspector File Recovery before with some success. One of my storage drives suddenly died, rendering it unreadable (showed up as a ? like in your case I believe). Using PCIFR, I was able to recover most of my data, but something like 10% was corrupted by whatever had killed the drive.

 

[DanTMWTMP]

arg i can't find the software now, but there was this really simple dos utility that would re-mount partitions.
Since your hdd isn't clicking, but it's not recognized, maybe the partition got unmounted.

You can try using loads of shareware software out there that just remounts the patition and boom... you have your hdd back.

There are also companies that offer data recovery. They used to charge into the thousands, but now it's a more manageable $100-$1000 hehe. NFTS is the cheapest service. EXTblah = $$$$

 

[amdhunter]

Originally posted by: Narse
I have had luck with get data back. If that fails there are companies that offer data recovery.

Sometimes a simple CHKDSK will work. If not, I've also had great great great results with Get Data Back. I got lucky and got my job to pay for a license back in the day, it's sorta expensive...but worth it.

 

[Slowlearner]

Having gone through this a month back - Here is what I would suggest:

1. Is the data really worth all that trouble and expense? If it is very valuable and you are willing to spend lots of money - dont mess around - go to Ontrack Data Recovery services or http://www.myharddrivedied.com...recovery_services.html

2. If all you have some pictures and documents that you would like to retrieve, and the drive is NOT mechanically damaged (clicking sounds and such), then follow these steps:

First check if the drive can be read - do all this on a working computer with the bad drive set as a slave (Note you may have to re-configure the master) - does the bios recognize the drive? then use tools like UBCD4Win CD or a Bart PE cd (these have to be prepared so you can't just download them) so even a Knoppix Live can be very handy. You must of course boot of the CD. All these tools will help you copy those files if they can be read? Sometimes just running Chkdsk from UBCD or BartPE fixes the problem.

Second if the bios recognizes it but these tools can't read the drive - get TestDisk free from http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Download - read the TestDisk StepbyStep document - and if it sees the directories and files and see if it will fix the problem.

Third if TestDisk can't fix the problem - download GetDataBack available for DOS or NTFS - if you were using Win XP you were most probably using NTFS - http://www.runtime.org/ - run GetDataBack off the C: drive and see what it can recover - it will not recover everything and have trouble if you have bad sectors on the hard drive - so continue to override - it may take a couple of hours - it took about 90 min to check out a 80GB WD HD with some 45gigs - once its done it will display all the directories and files - you can even review the files - if you see the files you want to keep - sign on to their website and purchase a license 79$ for the NTFS version, enter that it in the software and start copying those files to the main hard drive (after checking free space).

There is another option, that I have not tried, many people have had good experience with Spinrite from http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm, its just 10$ more. I went with GDB based on AT forums feedback and I have read in these forums that sometimes Spinrite can take hours or days<< Spinrite does have many great reviews.

ERD commander, a product no longer available, was known to very good.

 

[J0hnny]

Originally posted by: TheKub

Originally posted by: J0hnny
Luckily I have another computer and tried to load the failed SATA drive as a slave. I check to see if it would detect in Bios and it recognized it. After booting into windows, windows can see the new slave drive but I can't access the drive at all (it has the icon with a question mark).

When you open disk management does it give you the option to import a foreign disk (right click on the area where it says disk0 disk1 etc)?

I may be mixing up requirements for windows server with xp\vista.

I will try this when I get a chance and report back. What happens if I'm allowed to import a foreign disk? Should I say yes?

I'll see what GetDataBack can do.

 

[J0hnny]

Originally posted by: Slowlearner
Having gone through this a month back - Here is what I would suggest:

1. Is the data really worth all that trouble and expense? If it is very valuable and you are willing to spend lots of money - dont mess around - go to Ontrack Data Recovery services or http://www.myharddrivedied.com...recovery_services.html

2. If all you have some pictures and documents that you would like to retrieve, and the drive is NOT mechanically damaged (clicking sounds and such), then follow these steps:

First check if the drive can be read - do all this on a working computer with the bad drive set as a slave (Note you may have to re-configure the master) - does the bios recognize the drive? then use tools like UBCD4Win CD or a Bart PE cd (these have to be prepared so you can't just download them) so even a Knoppix Live can be very handy. You must of course boot of the CD. All these tools will help you copy those files if they can be read? Sometimes just running Chkdsk from UBCD or BartPE fixes the problem.

Second if the bios recognizes it but these tools can't read the drive - get TestDisk free from http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Download - read the TestDisk StepbyStep document - and if it sees the directories and files and see if it will fix the problem.

Third if TestDisk can't fix the problem - download GetDataBack available for DOS or NTFS - if you were using Win XP you were most probably using NTFS - http://www.runtime.org/ - run GetDataBack off the C: drive and see what it can recover - it will not recover everything and have trouble if you have bad sectors on the hard drive - so continue to override - it may take a couple of hours - it took about 90 min to check out a 80GB WD HD with some 45gigs - once its done it will display all the directories and files - you can even review the files - if you see the files you want to keep - sign on to their website and purchase a license 79$ for the NTFS version, enter that it in the software and start copying those files to the main hard drive (after checking free space).

There is another option, that I have not tried, many people have had good experience with Spinrite from http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm, its just 10$ more. I went with GDB based on AT forums feedback and I have read in these forums that sometimes Spinrite can take hours or days<< Spinrite does have many great reviews.

ERD commander, a product no longer available, was known to very good.

OMG, thank you. I will report back when I try some of the options!

 

[TheKub]

Originally posted by: J0hnny
I will try this when I get a chance and report back. What happens if I'm allowed to import a foreign disk? Should I say yes?

If you get that option then yes you want to. Again I know this is required when moving around HDDs in windows server but the same may be true in the desktops too.

If you successfully import the disk and can copy the data make your backup then do a full forced chkdsk and you may be good to go because what you described didn't sound like hardware failure.

 

[zander55]

another option is to boot from a live linux cd. in general linux is much less sensitive to hardware than windows. for data recovery i would recommend knoppix. just download the live cd image off their web site and boot to that.

 

[texascrazy88s]

what worked for me. i borrowed a ibook, hooked up via fire wire external, used disk warrior and recovered in my opinion most of my important stuff from a dead un-responsive drive. do not plug in drive until you have a plan. it might overwrite everything. again, I'm no expert, but worked for me.