Dropped (laptop) HDD.

bigtimecharlie

I let my laptop fall of the coffee table last week and the new 8 month old 320gHDD inside won't power up (windows 7 installed).

Removed HDD and re-installed original 80gHDD and re-installed Vista home basic ( Laptop 5 years old).

Crashed HDD is now in a cradle connected to the laptop and I can see files on it but getting them off is proving troublesome.

Am I fighting a loosing battle or is there a program out there that will get stuff off the crashed drive?

Surely all sectors can't be damaged?

ricman

see here http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/how-to/tips/4294038
or try free program recuva, or see www.pcinspector.de free data recovery program.
see http://www.google.ie/webhp?aq=0#hl=en&q=data+recovery+from+hard+drive&oq=data+recovery+from+hard+drive&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_sm=s&gs_upl=0l0l2l253l0l0l0l0l0l0l0l0ll0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=1a2f3720581c445c&biw=1024&bih=707


or http://twit.tv/ttg788 podcast has some info on hard drive data recovery .

PapaSierra

If you know the very basics of Linux I recommend Safecopy. You can download it free, make a bootable cd or pendrive and recover most of your data using 3 simple command. I used it a lot of times and it works great. You will also need another empty hdd of same size or bigger than your damaged drive.

And remember that:
"Speed is an essential factor when rescuing data from a bad hard drive. Accesses to bad areas or even just time running can further damage the drive and make formerly readable areas unreadable, be it due to temperature rise, damaged heads scratching still good parts of the surface, bearings degrading due to vibration, etc. Its advisable to shut the system down and remove the hard drive from the computer as soon as errors occur and as fast as possible without causing further damage."