Hard Drive Recovery - Comments Page 2

i have been told my hard drive had gone bad by a repair man, but i wonder if i need another opinion. my computer wouldn't boot kept going to safe screen mode showing windows logo and back to safe screen. after hearing my hard drive was bad and i needed another hard drive i told the repairman i did't care about anything on the computer except for photos of my 18 yr/old daughter who died last yr leaving behing a 4 wk baby who i am now taking care of. the pictures of my daughter are all i have to give to her daughter. he said he would try to retrieve the photos. wk later he said it would need to be sent out-$500-$1600 to recover, but maybe he could try one more thing. find a identical harddrive to mine and try to recover the photos. I told him i needed to think about it. i was told by someone else i probably had the boot virus and the hard drive was fine and that you can't tell if the harddrive is bad by running a few tests in someones home. what should i do he still has my hard drive and i wonder if i should get someone else to confirm i have a bad harddrive.

EDITOR'S NOTE: You could try putting the drive in another machine. If the drive is NOT bad, the files will be accessible.

Windows/dos data recovery. I find that booting from a Knoppix cd(or any live linux cd) usually works for a trashed windows/dos system. Just use knoppix to find the files and then burn thm to a CD/DVD or an external USB device.
My Data recovery PC takes the target HD in an internal disk caddy, and then my dual boot XP/SuSe10.2 can grab any file to the DVD burner or my 250 Gig usb2 Buffallo external HD.

What about linux users or even ext2 &or ext3. I have a clicking 40gb wd400ve drive in a dell latitude cp. It was running damn small linux. I found out how to get xubuntu on but just to make sure i tested xubuntu on a 3 gb that came with the computer. i got it to install but when i whent to get data off the 40gb the bios wouldn.t detect it my windows computer with neccicary driver install couldn.t detect it. my ubunutu box couldn.t detect it the freezer helped me hear clicks. I NEED HELP.

EDITOR'S NOTE: That drive sounds dead to me...

I once had a crash on my hdd, probably caused by a bad source and i had to pay almost $100 to a company to get the info from it. The best way is to backup as much as possible the important data. It's easy and cheaper to prevent than repair after.

My external failed a few weeks back, had 250Gb of data on it I wanted back in a hurry, couldn't afford the £900 for a data recovery firm (the data wasn't THAT important). Basically used a tweaked version of the tried and tested freezer trick, have posted explanation and pictures here: http://www.moneywhatmoney.co.uk/index.php/Bens-Articles/Seagate-from-the-Ashes.html

My laptop screen had a short in it. Well I was told that. I took my laptop to a guy that fixes computers to retrieve my information off of my hard drive. He said when he hooked it up to whatever he hooked it up to he could not even hear the hard drive start up. He said my information is lost and the hard drive must of been damaged by the short in the laptop. Does anyone know what I can do to get my pictures off of my hard drive or are they lost forever. Believe me I know now to back up everything.

EDITOR'S NOTE: You could try removing the hard drive from the laptop, and putting it in a USB enclosure. These kits are inexpensive and easy to use.

I am a FIRM believer in the "FREEZER METHOD". You can search the net for a lot of postings. I am not sure which brands/types of drives that is works on, but when it works, it works like a CHARM. You must follow the steps and MOVE QUICKLY, but I have got drives up to the point that files can be copies of or a GHOST image taken.

ok, my hard drive crashed and i put a new one and am up and running again. best buy wanted way to much to try and recovery the data on the old hard drive. Where can i get a cable to hook the old hard drive to my computer and try and recover the data myself. what kind of a cable do i need?

EDITOR'S NOTE: Ed, I recommend an external enclosure kit, then you can hook up the drive via standard USB cable.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned SPIN-RITE. This wonderful product can be found at www.grc.com. It will fix most HD problems and is a fraction of the cost of a recovery service.

I 2nd the post by bzman. I've recovered over half a dozen HDD's over the past 3 yrs using GRC's "SpinRite." It's a fantastic tool!