Bad Hardrive/Data Recovery

[mMike01]

Hi, a few days a go, my sister in law was using her computer, the screen froze for a while so she eventually hard rebooted. From that point on, upon starting the pc up, it will go to the windows load screen, you will here something rev up and the computer shuts off (before getting to desktop)

She is going to buy a new pc, but she wants her data from the HD. I went there yesterday and put the HD in my pc to get the data. After putting in her HD, check disk wants to scan it, I cancelled it and booted to my desktop normally. Windows finds the new hardware and installs the drivers, I rebooted like it asked.

I see the drive and the HP recovery partition on the drive. When I try and open the drive, I get an error. "Drive inaccessible. Drive may be corrupt or in a different format"

The HP recover partition acually shows 1.38 of 8 gb used and I can open it.

My question is, is this hardrive just done, and how can I get her data off? Is there anything I can do so my pc reads her drive or a program I can run to recover her files?

Thanks in advance.

 

[mwroobel]

If you are looking for a good, free repair utility, use something like testdisk. You can find a number of livecd bootable versions for use on the original computer, or a windows installable version for use on yours.
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

If you are looking for a commercial repair utility, that has support available via telephone, I would use one of the getdataback utilities (fat or ntfs, depending on what format her drive is in.) It has a free download that will show you what it can get back prior to purchase.
http://www.runtime.org/data-recovery-software.htm

If neither of these can help, you have the option of a drive recovers service. I would recommend drivesavers for that, we have used them in the past and they are certified by most drivemakers for warranty repairs.
http://www.drivesaversdatarecovery.com/

 

[cyclone3d]

I would run the Windows disk check on it first.

It could be that the file system just got corrupted when the system froze and she hard rebooted it.

Something revving up sounds to me like either she has a disc in an optical drive or the CPU fan is spinning up because the CPU is either overheating or the system thinks it is overheating.

 

[bAMtan2]

dont do any of what they just said.

there is not really such a thing as repairing a broken disk. either you retrieve the data or you have the disk replaced. you never run "disk repair" programs on a broken disk that you want data from, because it can destroy the disk. you only have a limited time before the broken disk really breaks. so you only run data recovery software like ddrescue, which blindly attempts to copy whatever it can before the source disk self destructs.

the disk repair stuff is what you run on the image of the original broken disk, which is now stored on a working disk. you run that software as the next step in trying to get your data back.

so keep the breaking disk powered off until you do the data recovery. prepare the system and only attach the bad disk at the last minute.

get parted magic, figure out what ddrescue command lines you'll use, document everything you're doing on your bootable usb stick and have a go at it.

 

[drescherjm]

Totally agreed with the above post. You want to run recovery programs only on the image of the original. Running these on a bad disk that is about to die can and will make matters worse or the drive die faster. And Yes only plug the drive in when you are ready to mirror it with ddrescue.

 

[mMike01]

Thanks for all the quick replies everyone, this is good info.,

Looks like I'll have to do a little reading before I start fooling w/ things.

Would it be a good idea for her to just spend the money and have a professional do this?

Thanks again.

 

[mwroobel]

dont do any of what they just said.

there is not really such a thing as repairing a broken disk. either you retrieve the data or you have the disk replaced. you never run "disk repair" programs on a broken disk that you want data from, because it can destroy the disk. you only have a limited time before the broken disk really breaks. so you only run data recovery software like ddrescue, which blindly attempts to copy whatever it can before the source disk self destructs.

the disk repair stuff is what you run on the image of the original broken disk, which is now stored on a working disk. you run that software as the next step in trying to get your data back.

so keep the breaking disk powered off until you do the data recovery. prepare the system and only attach the bad disk at the last minute.

get parted magic, figure out what ddrescue command lines you'll use, document everything you're doing on your bootable usb stick and have a go at it.

From the info page on getdataback:
GetDataBack is read-only, meaning the program will never attempt to write to the drive you are about to recover.

Depending on how damaged the drive is, I usually find that using getdataback gives you enough time to get the data you really want, as opposed to the thrashing that dd will do to make a full image.

 

[bAMtan2]

^^^what you're saying is that you'd rather fix the disk then read data from it. I'm saying you should read data from it to back it up, then fix the backup. the difference between our methods isnt the thrashing, its that if the disk dies before everything is done, I am more likely to have some data recovered

this isn't something I just made up, this is what every data recovery place does. they image the disk. step #1.

 

[bAMtan2]

Would it be a good idea for her to just spend the money and have a professional do this?

yes, I do advise spending the $500 to have a professional data recovery company do it. they will do a better job than you or me.

 

[drescherjm]

what you're saying is that you'd rather fix the disk then read data from it. I'm saying you should read data from it to back it up, then fix the backup. the difference between our methods isnt the thrashing, its that if the disk dies before everything is done, I am more likely to have some data recovered

This is why I now ddrescue as the first step keeping the drive powered off until I am absolutely ready. I do this because I have had a failure in the past (while trying to recover a friends homework) where I tried to recover the entire disk and wasted too much time setting up the recovery process (clearing up a disk to be the destination) that by the time I started the recovery the disk totally died and I ended up with absolutely nothing recovered. The new way has worked every time I have done this at work..

 

[MarkL]

Thanks for all the quick replies everyone, this is good info.,

Looks like I'll have to do a little reading before I start fooling w/ things.

Would it be a good idea for her to just spend the money and have a professional do this?

Thanks again.

IMO you already fooled with it by putting it into your PC and booting off it. You should have put it in a PC as a secondary drive so you didn't write anything to it or make any changes.

Anyway - If the drive itself is responding ok then you should be fine using recovery software. I have used GetDataBack multiple times in the past, all with success. You just need to make sure you run it on a PC where the drive you are rescuing is a secondary drive, and you have enough space on the main drive (or external storage, etc) that you can restore all the files to once they have been found.

I wouldn't say you need to fork out big money to get it done just yet.. Try out GDB and see how you get on.

 

[bAMtan2]

This is why I now ddrescue as the first step keeping the drive powered off until I am absolutely ready. I do this because I have had a failure in the past (while trying to recover a friends homework) where I tried to recover the entire disk and wasted too much time setting up the recovery process (clearing up a disk to be the destination) that by the time I started the recovery the disk totally died and I ended up with absolutely nothing recovered. The new way has worked every time I have done this at work..

exactly. you get an ice cream sandwich

 

[Johnhalt]

Try a good recovery software to recover data from your hard drive and then fix the problem of your hard drive. Remo software provides deleted file recovery software for both Windows and Mac OS. Download and run the free trial version and recover your data in few clicks.

 

[odditory]

This is why I now ddrescue as the first step keeping the drive powered off until I am absolutely ready. I do this because I have had a failure in the past (while trying to recover a friends homework) where I tried to recover the entire disk and wasted too much time setting up the recovery process (clearing up a disk to be the destination) that by the time I started the recovery the disk totally died and I ended up with absolutely nothing recovered. The new way has worked every time I have done this at work..

This would assume the filesystem has become corrupted/unreadable, because if all that actually needs to be recovered is a few gigs of pictures and documents but the filesystem is still readable, and let's say the drive is on its way out mechanically, then imaging the entire drive is wasting precious time on parts of the drive you probably don't need. First step for me in the scenario of the OP would've been telling the owner to keep the system unplugged and the battery pulled out, asking the owner to recall what they were working on or what happened right before it crashed, whether they remembered hearing any noises like clicking, and what's the most important data on it that they'd need recovered assuming they don't already have a backup.

Next key determiner is trying assess the value of the data, because let's say the data is worth thousands or more and its the only copy then you really have no business experimenting with the drive as you're potentially causing more damage. Just send it straight to Drivesavers for an estimate. Then the owner can decide if they want to pay for the recovery or not.

Then, if professional recovery is out of the question, too expensive, only then would I begin experimenting with plugging it into a drive dock and listening for any obvious mechanical noises, seeing if the filesystem was still readable, etc. I've been through this scenario too many times at too many companies and with too many end users that I've learned to resist the urge to "just hook it up real quick and see" since it can lead to further damage and on occasion more damage than even a pro in a cleanroom could recover.