Help! My Hard Disk is Damaged: How Can I Recover My Important Data?

[maria12360]

Help me….my hard disk is damaged!

Hi everyone , I am employed as a manager in a firm. I have a problem that I had like to talk about. My system was working fine the other day, but while copying a file by nero….the system hanged and I had to restart it. But I got a disk boot failure error. Then , I tried to run a windows xp installation CD, but that is also showing some error message during installation and the installation fails.I did check the bios settings and the disk fails to show…and had it checked on another system also…but bios cannot detect the hard disk.I think the disk is damaged or something like that.The disk has important data from my company’s point of view…..that I need to recover.
Please let me know if there are any ways to get my data back from this disk!

 

[montoyas7940]

Can you tell if the disks are spinning?

IDE SCSI SATA?

 

[B. Elliott]

Was it a primary boot drive with an OS on it? The first thing i'd try to do is put it in another computer as a secondary or slave and see if you could pull data from it. Like montoyas said, can you hear it spinning at all?

 

[zeitghost]

If the data on the disk is valuable you should take the disk to a data recovery company.

 

[Kurdt]

If it is still spinning I recommend (as I always do) a USB caddy. It worked for me.

 

[B. Elliott]

If the data on the disk is valuable you should take the disk to a data recovery company.

A large corporation that I once worked for had an employee that accidentally deleted critical information from a server hard drive. Just for recovery of deleted information, it was going to cost $2,000 or more. And that's not even dealing with a damaged drive. The company didn't consider the information worth two grand, so they just started over.

 

[zeitghost]

A large corporation that I once worked for had an employee that accidentally deleted critical information from a server hard drive. Just for recovery of deleted information, it was going to cost $2,000 or more. And that's not even dealing with a damaged drive. The company didn't consider the information worth two grand, so they just started over.

YMMV

Depends on how much you value your data.

 

[astrorob]

Assuming it is spinning, i'd just check your connections if you're getting a disk boot failure error. Sometimes they can become loose due to vibrations etc inside the case (I've had to refix my SATA cables back to my hdd and motherboard a couple of times in the past few years!)

Failing that, i'd say the drive has failed.. most likely the disc read head. Normally with HDDs it's very clear cut.

 

[joeseppe]

It sucks to loose data, good luck!

 

[fedaykin]

Whoops, I need to read better before posting. My deepest apologies.

You might check with your tech support guys, but I've heard unsubstantiated rumors that cooling down the hdd might allow a seized head or motor bearing to become temporarily operational. Again, check with someone who definitely knows what they're doing before any attempt.

 

[hot_sauce]

Yes there is, and no it does not costs 2000,$. Its going to cost around 400-600$.

Or another way is to find a hard drive of the same make/exact model and swap the reader circuit.
and another homemade way is to put the hardrive in a ziplock bag and into the freezer for the night, wake up next morning, plug it in, should give you about 20 mins. to copy and paste your data in another place.

This method does not works everytimt though !

 

[B. Elliott]

Yes there is, and no it does not costs 2000,$. Its going to cost around 400-600$.

Or another way is to find a hard drive of the same make/exact model and swap the reader circuit.
and another homemade way is to put the hardrive in a ziplock bag and into the freezer for the night, wake up next morning, plug it in, should give you about 20 mins. to copy and paste your data in another place.

This method does not works everytimt though !

I never said it was going to cost $2000. $2K is what were were quoted for complete recovery of multiple drives in an array. There is also not just one company out there that services everyone and they are definably not all of the same standard.

Due to the information provided by the OP, I would not recommend attempting to swap out the drives circuit board as they may cause more damage than what their dealing with. Leave that up to a someone with experience especially since the data is of value and this is not his personal drive.

 

[bassplayer142]

I have a few things I would try. I had hard drive problems and I needed the data. The hard drive was hanging out of my computer and I actually stood it up and repositions it so it was standing and it worked. This leads me to believe the problem was most likely the motor and rotation part on my hard drive that was whack.

 

[jsg7377]

DON'T USE IT

If the drive is pysically damaged, the more you use it the greater chance you have of making it worse. Turn your computer off, and seek help from a local professional or guru.