HELP! File recovery from bad Hard Drive!?!?!

Question

Hello.  I have an Inspiron 9300 w/ a 80gb Toshiba hard drive running XP.  A few days ago it froze while is was using it.  Upon restart, I got the Windows blue screen.    - I went into set-up and tried booting from Safe Mode.  Had the same blue screen result.   - I booted from my Dell Diagnostics CD ran some tests.  My hard drive failed one of the tests saying it has an uncorrectable error.   - I pulled the hard drive out and hooked it up to a IDE/USB interface cable and tried to access it from another computer.  It appeared as being connected as a removable drive, however I could not open it.  The hard drive was spinning, but it did not seem to have any read activity sounds.   - I even tried booting from a XPE Windows Pre-Installation Environment.  Again, I could not access the hard drive.   From what I know and have read, my it seems as though my HD is toasted and needs replacement.  But I REALLY need to get the files off of it if possible!!   Does anyone have ANY ideas of how I can recover any of my data without physically opening the HD case?  I have heard of programs that can recover files... will they work in my situation?   PLEASE HELP!! Message Edited by kezzerone on 09-27-2007 07:24 PM

Ilovelucy22 · Answer

Sounds like bad news to me.  Some exorbitantly expensive companies can get the info off if the platters are intact.  The value of the data has to justify the cost.   http://www.ontrackdatarecovery.com/

ejn63 · Answer

If the system still recognized that there was a hard drive, it may be possible to recover. If the drive wasn't recognized at all, see the post above - a data recovery service and a couple of thousand dollars are what you'll need to get your data back.

kezzerone · Answer

WOW... a few grand eh?  I think I will just strike it up as lost before I would spend that much money!   You did mention that there is still a chance if it is recognizing that there is a hard drive..... which it does.  Any tips in addition to what I have already tried?

ejn63 · Answer

Mount the drive in an external case and attach it by USB to a working system to see what you can recover.

kezzerone · Answer

I tried this already...  The drive is recognized as new hardware, however I am unable to open it.  That is where I need the help... to see if there is any other way to get into my files.  I even went as far as going into Disk Management to access it.  No luck...   Any other suggestions?

jmranchman · Answer

I had the same problem a few weeks ago with a hdd and I tried the sata to USB route as well and had the same situation. It found the drive but couldnt be opened. After research I found where some people have had luck in putting there HDD's in a ziploc bag and freezing it for a couple of hours and then plugging it back in. IT WORKED!!! Now it didnt work for very long but it gave me about 15 minutes to get my stuff off of it and then it pretty much died again. You can try it and see. I didnt believe it at first but it did work.

kezzerone · Answer

Really!?!?  Well at this point I really don't have much more to lose!  Dell has already sent me a replacement drive, but I would still like to get my files.  I will give this a try tomorrow and let you know the results.   Thanks for the input!

Storage, Drives & Media

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