HDD Failure - recovery help needed

Hagar

With the moderators' indulgance, I've posted this already this evening in the Laptop forum but I'm really stuck for help with this one. Many thanks.

Hagar wrote:

Here's my tale of woe...

Hardware Packard Bell H5 Notebook running XP SP2 with a 60 gb HDD.

My HDD has died and due to a house move my last backup is almost 6 weeks old. I know, I know, the lecture won't help me now. Constructive help only. Smart arse comments will be welcomed and swallowed down when the data is safe. Until then thinking caps on lads.

I have put a new 80gb drive and reinstalled basic XP SP2.
I have installed my old drive into an external usb HDD caddy.
The drive is not seen.

Any help would be appreciated, it involves business files and emails that I don't want to loose.

AlmightyCushion

Just to let everyone know, he's tried the old freezer trick. Did it do anything?

Capt'n Midnight

use a live linux cd and try the drive back in a computer
it's less likely to be recognised on the USB

is the drive making noises ?

with the live CD
if the drive is then recognised but gives data errors then you could try ddrescue to photocopy the drive to a very large file and then later run testdisk on the recovered file


if the drive is not recognised then you are into black magic and you need another drive of the same make and model as a suitable sacrifice

there is no use swapping the board on the drive unless you have another of the same model and size and hopefully firmware version
one trick I've heard of years ago was to put one drive in the machine to get it recognised and they swap the bad one in - while the power was on (scary monsters) but again it could only work if the new drive was the same make and model


The worst case is the HDD goes on a trip to Belfast
http://www.easyrecovery.co.uk/Hard_Drive_Recovery.htm

All Hard Drive Recovery is one price whatever the manufacturer, model or operating system £249.99+vat. We are currently the cheapest in the UK. We can successfully recovery 99% of data and, in many cases, return it within 24 hours! If we cannot recover your hard drive we will charge you nothing - No Fix - No Fee.

DjDangerousDave

Try this: http://www.diskinternals.com/partition-recovery/

DjDangerousDave

When you say:

Hagar wrote: »

The drive is not seen.

You mean it is not showing up in My Computer. But is the drive showing up in device manager?

Hagar

Update.

I have tried the suggestions offered, including the freezer and the suggestions Pmed, but with no success.
I decided to go back to my 6 week old backup on my 500gb Iomega External.
Guess what? That drive is clicking like a death watch beetle. Who would have believed it?

I'm beaten, I give up. Thanks again to those who took the time to read or reply.

DonkeyStyle \o/

Being an avid listener to twit podcasts and security now, I feel somehow brainwashed into telling you about spinrite... it recieves high praise from the testimonials they read out every episode... $80USD (I think)
I've never used it myself, but it sounds like it could be worth a shot.

Hagar

Spinrite is one of my old reliables and unfortunately it can't see the drive either. Thanks all the same.

Capt'n Midnight

if spinrite don't see it

turn on smart reporting in the bios if that is an option
then try hdtune to see if it gets any info from the controller.

Khannie

Hmmmm. I was going to suggest the external caddy. Worked well for me before. No harm in trying a different one. The linux livecd is worth a shot as well. Linux has some superb data recovery tools (I've retrieved a lot of files back from a drive that windows stuck its nose up at).

Was the borked drive showing up in the laptops bios when you swapped it out?