Author Topic: Hard Drive Help... (Read 1378 times)

BurntIce · « **on:** January 06, 2006, 10:41:51 PM »

So long story short, I am rebuilding my computer, and drop my secondary IDE harddrive. I have a 13 gig that keeps all my windows files, two SATA drives RAID-ed that keep all my big, share files like movies and stuff, and a 160 gig IDE drive that held all my programs, games and important documents (thats the one I dropped). Anyhow, it shows up in device manager, says there are no problems. It does not show up under "My Computer." Also, it shows up under the "Administrative Tools>Disk Management" list, but says that the whole thing is Unallocated space, but it is active/online... So... is there any way to get back what I lost, I really, really, really, really, really don't want to have to reformat this thing and lose everything I had. Any help would be extremely appreciated... free Bawls? (I have two cases at my house) So... thanks in advance as I will be out hiking this weekend.

-Sam (BurntIce)

Pride · « **Reply #1 on:** January 06, 2006, 11:40:25 PM »

Google Hirens Boot Disk
Download it
Burn the ISO to CD
Boot from the CD and use the Hard Drive diagnostic and recovery tools on the CD

That will get you started

sully! · « **Reply #2 on:** January 07, 2006, 01:46:24 PM »

.....unless his drive was formatted in NTFS. A lot of the hard drive recovery stuff on Hiren's Boot Disk hasn't been updated to work with NTFS formatted drives.

SpinRite 6 would be my first step in full data recovery. If SpinRite isn't completely successful, there are a couple things on the Hiren's disk that will let you access files from a DOS shell (NTFS or not) and then you can copy them over to another drive or burn them to a CD.

BurntIce · « **Reply #3 on:** January 08, 2006, 10:43:31 AM »

So I tried the SpinRite option first, as one program seemed easier than sorting through Hirens, but anyhow... I booted into it, started it with level 2 access, and it sat at the "detecting hard disk" or something like that screen for almost 45 minutes. It was also flashing "Working..." at the bottom. I was just wondering if this is a normal amount of time to let the program work, or if something else is wrong.

-Sam

BurntIce · « **Reply #4 on:** January 08, 2006, 05:17:50 PM »

WOOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Well, I tried a few more things, like Knoppix and Norton Ghost, no luck. Then I tried Acronis True Image 8 (on the Hirens disk) which actually worked. It was suprisingly easy to do, just checked the disk (one bad sector, from the fall I'm guessing) and then restored the partition which took < 1 second. So now I have all my data back. Thanks for the help guys, I had no idea this was ever possible.

-Sam

The Shoctor · « **Reply #5 on:** January 09, 2006, 08:38:47 AM »

I would get all your data off of it and RMA it. Reason. A drop should not cause a bad sector. New drive should take quite a few Gs of force since the heads autopark. Just find a place you can copy the data to for a while and send it back and get a new one. So It costs ~15 for shipping... But then you have a new drive with another 3 years on it.