Hard Drive Recovery - Comments Page 3

Are you aware of the hard drive recovery software from Steve Gibson?

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

When my external Maxtor II failed, I used Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery. I was able to retrieve all of the files that I needed.
You can try it and see if you can get the files. If not, nothing lost but time. If you can see the files, then you buy the software.
I found it well worth the money.

A drive that won't boot may be recoverable (data, anyway) by installing as a slave drive on another system. I've successfuly recovered the data from 2/3 of the 'dead' drives people have brought me, using this method. If it will spin up, this usually works. Some files may not be available due to corrupted sectors, but in most cases you'll get 90% or better.

If the failing drive had Norton GoBack on it, you have to install GoBack on the system being used as the master, before you can access the data. Took me days to figure that out the first time...

Some viruses will make you think the drive is bad when it's not. Using the slave method increases the chance of infecting the host system, so run a thorough scan of everything you salvage before actually opening any of the files.

I have an external Maxtor hard drive. It has 15 years of work on it! It was the back up for my computer. My computer went down and now my hard drive won't open up. Whatever it takes.....