Hard Drive Failure and Data Recovery

[RedWombat]

Does anyone here in the forums have any experience with Data Recovery from a failed hard drive?

I have 230gigs I need to recover if possible from an external data drive.

I'm in deep on this one. It failed just prior to my getting it backed up. I did get some of my data backed up, but then kaput! It has many years of client files and personal files I would really hate to loose.

What about software to recover the data - Does anyone have any recommendations with software they've actually used?

Thanks for any advise you might have!

[Soquili]

Red, sorry to hear about the drive crash.

I haven't used may external drives, but I've recovered data from many internal hard drives. I'm not sure if the same technique will work on an external drive.

What I usually do is put the drive into a plastic freezer bag and seal it. Place in a freezer for 24 hours. Remove from freezer and connect to a computer as quickly as possible and read any files you can before it begins to fail. Repeat as many times as necessary to recover as much data as possible.

If the data is very critical to recover, I suggest taking the drive to a company in your area that specialises in data recovery. They can disassemble the drive and place the disks into a special assembly that will allow them to read any data that is still readable.

They charge very high prices, but it is the only way to recover as much as possible all non-destroyed sectors on the drive.

[handrawn]

Red

ouch - sorry to hear this too

Never tried Bill's trick with the freezer, but many years experience in IE leads me to agree with him: - if the data is cruical its a job for an expert.

'ordinary' date recovery programs can do more harm than good.
the top fllight ones are expensive and require expertise to use and disassembling the drive is often the only way.

[Sammo]

You might look into Steve Gibson's Spinrite data recovery, repair, maintenance utility.

http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm

-- Sam

[Soquili]

Thanks for that Link Sam.

I wasn't aware SpinRite was still available.

A quote from their site about Crashed Drives

How possible is it to recover data from a crashed hard drive?http://www.grc.com/image/transpixel.gif
That depends entirely upon "how crashed" the drive is. But SpinRite is often credited with performing "true miracles" of data recovery. Please read some of the true-life SpinRite testimonials we have received to get a sense for what SpinRite has done and can probably do for you if you ever need it. It is obviously possible for a drive to be so totally dead that it is only useful as a door stop. But today's modern drives struggle to stay alive and to die slowly. So if they are given some periodic SpinRite maintenance you should have plenty of warning of impending failure and also the ability to keep the drive alive until it can be replaced.

If the drive will spin up then it is possible to recover data. If there is internal hardware damage or the drive does not power up or spin up then recovery may not be possible.

Using the freezer method I described in my previous post I have been able to recover data from some drives with hardware damage and/or electronic component failure.

[GeoBen]

bummer.... had a similar problem a lil while back... lost 5 months of work.

SPINRITE has a good rep, but, I b'lieve I would take it to a reputable expert in data recovery.

good luck,

geo.

[RedWombat]

Thank you everyone for your replies.

Soquili - What an interesting idea! I had never thought of putting the drive in the freezer. I'll bet you have a reputation for thinking outside the box!

Sammo - Thanks for the info and link, I'm going take a look at SpinRite.

This drive isn't doing anything unusual like making noises etc. And Windows doesn't have an issue seeing the drive. It's external, so when I connect it it slows the computer down a lot and takes a minute or two to find the drive. The Windows Disk Manager can see it as well, but, it doesn't list what file system it has.

I found a piece of software called Stellar Pheonix. I run that application and it searches the drive. When I do that I can see all the folders. I'm wondering if it's table got corrupted.

Anyone heard of this company? There product is $100. Want to check before buying.

Going to check SpinRite now.

Thanks again everyone!

[RedWombat]

I have question on SpinRite if you guys have used it. Does it just repair the drive that is corrupt or does it recover the data to another drive? It looks like it can repair and maintenance a drive, but what if I want get the data off that drive to another one. Does it do that as well? And then, how old is version 6? Is it a new release or was 4 or so years ago when it came out?

Thanks,

[Soquili]

Hi Red,

SpinRite recovers the data so it can be read from a damaged drive. The data would need to be moved to another location to be considered truely safe.

I cannot find a revision history for SpinRite, so I don't know how old version 6 is currently.

I have not used Stellar Phoenix, but it also has a good reputation.

[Germain]

I have some very good experience with Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery Software. It has rescued my some important data which have lost due to software malfunction.
My suggestion is you can go with this data recovery software. It will help you in recovering your data.

Best of Luck.