Recover data from corrupt hard drive?

bigears

My Laptop is refusing to boot up even after reinstalling Win XP from CD. It seems as though the disk is corrupt. I have even run setup with the option of reformatting the NTFS partition (Quick Format).

Is there any software that will boot from CD that would allow me to recover files from the drive?

vir7ual

Do you know if the drive is knocking or anything. If its not knocking its only a master boot problem. easy enough to get around but not easy to talk you through it. As proposed in another thread, an external caddy, fit your harddrive and retrieve your stuff.

bigears

It doesn't seem to be knocking - any chance you could point me to the thread? No idea what a caddy is...

edit: or is there anyone who provides this as a service? I'm in Dublin 3 but anywhere in Dublin considered...

irlrobins

If you're reformatted the drive and reinstalled XP you're unlikely to get much back.

(you do know what a format does right?)

vir7ual

well as pointed out above if you have reformatted then it will be hard to get your stuff back. Not sure about dublin, but if you want to post the drive to cork i can have a look at it. if you did a quick format you should be able to get something back, if you did a full format it will be more difficult

workaccount

bigears wrote:

My Laptop is refusing to boot up even after reinstalling Win XP from CD. It seems as though the disk is corrupt. I have even run setup with the option of reformatting the NTFS partition (Quick Format).

Is there any software that will boot from CD that would allow me to recover files from the drive?

Does it give an error when booting?

vibe666

bigears wrote:

It doesn't seem to be knocking - any chance you could point me to the thread? No idea what a caddy is...

if you were able to re-install windows and reformat the drive then it's unlikely to be a problem with the drive itself.

then again, the act of re-formatting (even a quick format) will delete the data for good (without the use of recovery tools) that is there, and if you then overwrite the drive with a new copy of windows you then make the problem worse.

the best solution (would have been, and probably still is) to get a USB adapter for the drive like THIS or a USB caddy/enclosure like THIS and remove the drive so you could connect it (using one of the above) to a working PC so see if any data was recoverable.

TBH it would probably be better to use a 2.5" to 3.5" IDE adapter like THIS (depending on the drive type) to make it easier to use low level recovery tools, although a lot of the bootable 'all in one' disks you will find online now come with USB drivers on them anyway. If your laptop is fairly new, it's possible that it has an SATA connection, rather than the older mini IDE type found on older laptops. if this is the case, the SATA connection is the same on 2.5" laptop & 3.5" desktop drives so if you have a newish desktop PC with SATA ports on it, you could plug the drive straight into it and go from there, although I'd say you might have more trouble with SATA drivers with recovery software than you would with IDE.

after a reformat though, you will need some kind of data recovery software to get anything at all back from the drive as you re-formatted and re-installed windows over the top of what was already there, and the chances are (unless you plan on spending lots of money on the software) it will be limited to any data that was not overwritten by the re-installation of windows after the re-format.

someone in my company looked at a specialist data recovery company for a specific job a year or so ago but the cost was in the region of €1000 with no guarantees, so I doubt you'd be willing to go that far, unless you have the last copy of the colonels secret KFC recipe on there or something.

it's something i think everyone here has done at some point or another, and the majority of the time it's a case of just sucking it up and accepting that there isn't really that much you can do that will get it ALL, unless you get lucky somewhere along the line. this of course is assuming it is just a few emails and internet favourites that you've lost, and not something drastically important that must be recovered at any cost, obviously.

if it is something you REALLY want to get back, then unless anyone else wants to take a look at it for you, I could have a crack at it for you and see what is recoverable.

if it does turn out to be a fault with the drive rather than a fault of some other kind on the laptop, I have a spare 20gb and 80gb laptop drive at home that we could use to get you back up and running again in the short term whilst I take a look at it for you.

I have aquired just about every recovery tool going over the years as well as USB and IDE adapters for the drive along with quite a bit of software based data recovery experience through my varous jobs over the years and I'm pretty confident that if anything is there to recover we will be able to get at least some fo it back.

EDIT: BTW I work in blanch and live in Navan if either of those are of any use to you for a meet, if need be.