Hard drive failure...What to do now??

[js415]

Well, I did a lot of searching, and can not find an answer to this question:

What/How is the cheapest way to recover files from a failed hard disk?

I came home from the Thanksgiving Holidays, turned my trusty Dell on, and guess what? NOTHING!!!

Windows is unable to boot, unable to boot from an XP disc, and when I get into the BIOS, it shows no hard drive installed. Same thing when I tried to reload windows, just to see what would happen. XP disc found no hard drive to install itself on.

Bought a new drive, clean install, and got the Dell up and running.

Thought about trying to install the old drive as a slave, and see if I could recover the files, but have not yet because I do not want to mess them up any further.,

Contacted a recovery team in Atlanta, where I live, and it would be +/- $600 to retrieve the files!!!!!!!!!!

Anybody have any experience with this, or any sort of ideas about what to try?

Thanks,

Jerry

[jasondearyou]

thats what they are there for. There are special readers for the disks in your HD and special machines are need to read them. But trying to reinstall it as a slave may give some help. Check the pins in the back of the HD. I don't think installing it as a slave will mess it up. Give it a try.

0X

[Darius Wey]

Contacted a recovery team in Atlanta, where I live, and it would be +/- $600 to retrieve the files!!!!!!!!!!

This isn't a Dell recovery team, is it? If not, have you considered calling Dell support?

[Roosterman]

I would suggest installing it as a slave. I have done this and was able to transfer what I needed to the new hard drive.

[KimVette]

You pretty much have three options:

1. Try mounting the drive as read-only from Linux and see if you can copy the data off
2. go to http://www.r-tt.com/ and download the r-studio trial, see if i tcan recover files <64K. If it can, buy the full version and it will rescue all of your data

3. AVOID STELLAR INFO AT ALL COSTS. That company is a bunch of lying rat bastards. They claim to support NTFS 5.1 but support only NTFS 1.0 features. If you have symbolic links, ANY compressed files, or ANY encrypted files, their software will not rescue a single darn thing. Hint: system volume information and windows update patch archives are always compressed by default on NTFS.


If it's a physical problem, PM me and I can hook you up with the folks who invented data recovery technology and have been at it the longest. I just sent them a UFS-formatted drive and they're getting every file back. :)

[js415]

Well, I put the drive back in as a slave, booted up, and it found the drive.

The bad part is, it can not read any of the data, and if I try and look at the properties of the drive, it does nothing but tell me the drive is not formatted.

I finally broke down and told it to format the drive, just to see if I could get the darn thing to do anything.

Next thing I know, it can not be fomatted!! Surprise, Surprise!!!

I'm thinking now that I might just take it out back, run a couple rounds of a good 9mm through it, just to make sure it never gets recovered by evil forces, and throw it in the garbage!!

Jerry

[Ploobers]

I've got a similar problem. I've got an external hard drive (Archos Multimedia Jukebox 20) which I've used as a hard drive for some time now, but now the device itself won't recognize the hard drive when it boots up and Windows won't load it as a drive either. All the data recover software I've seen requires that Windows recognize it as a local drive. What can I do to fix it? I've got hundreds of irreplaceable photos on there.

[js415]

Same problem here. Mine is a "hardware" problem, so it will have to be sent off to a company that can fix the broken pieces. Fortunately, all my pictures were also on my laptop, so I am not going to lose those. However, all the really good "JUNK" that I have saved up for the last several years is gone. Sort of like all the stuff I haved stored in my garage, that is too good to throw away, that I really do not need, but do not want to get rid of!!

Jerry

[Janak Parekh]

However, all the really good "JUNK" that I have saved up for the last several years is gone.
Yeah, I know what you mean. All my important work is backed up, but things like downloaded programs, etc., aren't. Not life-critical, but a huge hassle.

Anyway, magnetic media all die eventually. :(

--janak