Dead HDD

[fightingfi]

buddies laptop hdd is dead, he needs pics and docs from it. when i slaved it to my pc it froze locked it up as i figured it would. I was going to run speedfan to check fitness and health but when pc freezes im sure its dead LULZ.

Are there any FREE programs that im missing or dont know of to help me possibly retrieve any info back from the dead ?

its a seagate 320 sata drive its out of warranty to. DOH! win 7

Tankies In Advanced

 

[ninjaturtle]

How dead? Clicking, not spinning up, ect ect?

http://howto.wired.com/wiki/Save_Your_Hard_Drive_by_Freezing_It

If you suspect logical damage to your hard drive, do a sector-by-sector copy of it, then try software tools such as R-Studio. If you suspect physical damage, or if your hard drive won't turn on, don't attempt to put it in an external case, run Spinrite on it, or whatever else. Find a local professional or try one of the big recovery houses like OnTrack or i365.

 

[fightingfi]

DEAD is an DEAD pc freezes wont boot locks up nothing zero nada zilch D E A D

 

[Hagrid]

I dont know if you can change the board on a laptop HD, but I have done that to regular HD's.
You never know, it could just be the board, change it with one that works and see!
Then change it back after, and use the new HD.

 

[KENNYB]

DEAD is an DEAD pc freezes wont boot locks up nothing zero nada zilch D E A D

Sounds dead to me. I've seen the same behavior with either a boot drive (attached to another computer) or a data drive. If it freezes Windows you may have luck with Linux. I doubt it though.

 

[devman]

Sounds dead to me. I've seen the same behavior with either a boot drive (attached to another computer) or a data drive. If it freezes Windows you may have luck with Linux. I doubt it though.

I've seen lots of cases where a drive freezes windows but mounts in linux. Boot with PartedMagic (you can find a distro of PartedMagic on Ultimate Boot CD) and see if you can mount the drive.

 

[KENNYB]

I've seen lots of cases where a drive freezes windows but mounts in linux. Boot with PartedMagic (you can find a distro of PartedMagic on Ultimate Boot CD) and see if you can mount the drive.

During my last failure POST was much longer than usual. I tried hot-swapping in Windows to no avail. It would mount and if Windows didn't pause for long periods, any copy would fail.

I should have tried a Linux live CD to mount the drive. Where you able to mount the drive and save data?

 

[devman]

During my last failure POST was much longer than usual. I tried hot-swapping in Windows to no avail. It would mount and if Windows didn't pause for long periods, any copy would fail.

I should have tried a Linux live CD to mount the drive. Where you able to mount the drive and save data?

If you use PartedMagic you can click the filesystems icon on the desktop and it will show you all drives and let you mount drives that are currently unmounted and browse mounted drives contents. Once you do that you can just put in a USB stick or external Harddrive and copy over.