Dell Direct USB Data Recovery / Windows 8 Inspiron 15R 5521 Failing HDD

Question

I have a dell inspiron 15R (5521, late 2012 model) It was recently dropped, and the HD went bad. At first the screen froze, so I restarted, and Windows 8 went through the diagnostics and attempted repairs. I do not think it actually fixed anything, but I figured something bad was gonna happen so I was able to boot to windows after that, and began moving over files, then halfway through the PC would freeze again, and I repeated the steps about 3-4 times until windows just would not boot and I got the 'no boot device found' screen when booting up. I ran windows diagnostics after, and got the 2000-0151 error. Then unplugged the HD, plugged it into another laptop with a USB Sata cable, and it would show up in the device manager AND disk management, but not on My Computer. In disk management, it was uninitialized and everytime I tried to initialize it said it could not due to an I/O error. Next, I tried EaseUS partition manager, and it recognized the drive, but not any partitions on it. So next, again. I tried the seagate SeaTools to diagnose the drive, and almost all of the tests failed BUT, after the first time I even opened the program, the drive showed up through USB in My Computer!! I try to navigate through the folders in the drive now, but when I go to C:/Users/NAME file explorer freezes. Same if I just open C:/ and try to cut/copy & paste any folder. So as a last resort, I remembered I had the Windows 8 (not 8.1) Dell Direct USB Key. I plug the old HD back into my laptop, run the USB, drive fails the startup repair stage in the USB, and I get to the Backup & Recovery stage, it tells me it is going to backup my media, emails, personal files etc. with the option to choose others but I leave it at that. So now, I click next, and it tells me to plug in an external hard drive to backup my data to, I plug in my SeaGate 1TB external drive (NTFS format, about 400gb free, but only need about 150-200 to backup whats on the failing drive) and click next, and it tells me there is not USB plugged in or detected!! So now I am stumped. I would really like to recover my media files without having to pay. My drive spins when it gets plugged in, and windows recognizes that something is being plugged in, so I do not think it is completely dead just yet and would like to see if anyone here has any advice or suggestions. It is really appreciated!!

ejn63 · Answer

The drive is too far gone for home recovery. What you need to realize now is that continued efforts on your part might just render the drive unrecoverable.

You will need to contact a data recovery service if you need the data back - the cost will depend on the difficulty of the recovery -- minimum for a reputable service will run $600-750 or so.

olafburch · Answer

Get the trial version of Windows data recovery software and recovers data lost due to boot sector or File allocation table error, MBR, virus attack, deleted or damaged partitions, etc. The software can also recover data from PEN, ZIP, SATA, USB, IDE, EIDE drives without any hassle. For more information visit http://www.datarepairtools.com

PaulPlatts · Answer

Find a recovery specialist if the data isn't worth that much then you can try recovery yourself but I'd get a bit level copy or image of the drive to maximize success. It is one of the few data recovery programs that actually work, can recover information from disks with bad sectors and deleted files https://www.pandorarecovery.com/hard-drive-data-recovery.html

Locked Topics – Laptops General

Was this post helpful?