fried hard drive...........

[stevo]

Well, thanks to an inept 14 year old clicking on every 'OK' button in sight,
my pc fried its hard drive the other day... :eek:

so, I now have to use Vista on a new pc.

I managed to completely lose all my LR manuals and parts manual, oh, and some wedding photos too :(

the only message the drive gives is 'disc read error'

any tips on slaving the drive to another xp cd and recovering the data much appreciated...

[Patriot]

What message do you get when booting to this disc?

Has he formatted the drive?

Have you tried connecting it into another pc?

Do you know the file system? (eg. fat32, ntfs etc.)

I would disconnect the cd drive in another pc and connect the drive to see whats there. But if it asks you anything say no esp. for formatting.

[Satancom]

Yes I would install it as a slave drive in another machine. Depending on the file system even if it has had stuff wiped off it, you can still get it back sometimes. Depends if the disk has 'Physically crashed' in which case its over to the pros to get the datea restored!

[stevo]

What message do you get when booting to this disc?

Has he formatted the drive?

Have you tried connecting it into another pc?

Do you know the file system? (eg. fat32, ntfs etc.)

I would disconnect the cd drive in another pc and connect the drive to see whats there. But if it asks you anything say no esp. for formatting.

Oh, good one! I didn't think of attaching it using the cd drive bay/connectors... will have a look to see if its possible. I should at least be able to use the power supply from the cd.

all I get is 'disk read error' 'press crt alt dlt to continue'

I'm not over keen to start altering the jumpers on the drive, but hey ho, it doesn't work at the moment, so nothing to lose!

cheers for the help, both of you....

[sneakypete]

There are companies out ther that will recover your information for you - never a 100% guaruntee and very expensive. If your not too sure what to do, do you have any pals that work in the IT game - IT Support, Desktop Support, PC Engineer etc ... it will be a small challenge to one of these types to either recover or fix the drive. I know, I'm one of these types!!!

[stevo]

I do know folk that work in the IT game, but too far away...

Anyhoo. I can't slave the drive because the only pc I have to use is old, and ha an IDE drive, whereas the broken one is a SATA. grrr.

I daren't open the new vista pc yet, as I will void the warranty, and the fried disk has XP home.....

double grrr.....

[Patriot]

Have you an old hard drive?

If yes then put it in the faulty pc and install a bare xp system onto it then mount you failed drive and see what is visible.

If not then download a linux live cd distro making sure it has ntfs access and see whats left.

Just a thought have a funny issue with my pc where if I leave a memory card in the reader it won't boot. Just saying because you might try unplugging your usb devices and trying again.

Or did you change any of the bois settings before it went wrong?

[stevo]

Have you an old hard drive?

If yes then put it in the faulty pc and install a bare xp system onto it then mount you failed drive and see what is visible.

If not then download a linux live cd distro making sure it has ntfs access and see whats left.

Just a thought have a funny issue with my pc where if I leave a memory card in the reader it won't boot. Just saying because you might try unplugging your usb devices and trying again.

Or did you change any of the bois settings before it went wrong?

cheers for the suggestions...

none are possible, apart from the linux one, so might give that a go and boot from cd.

But my Linux skills stop just before the ability to pronounce it :)

[Patriot]

But my Linux skills stop just before the ability to pronounce it :)



If you get a good distro you'll be amazed how easy it is. ;)

[stevo]

If you get a good distro you'll be amazed how easy it is. ;)

I managed to get MiniKnoppix - dead easy! Once I'd figured how to burn the .iso files correctly....

Anyhow, loving the penguin, but it looks like my hard drive is dead, not just sleeping, as its not detected at all....

All connections are good, but no joy

Still, it was interesting using Linux :)

[Satancom]

Well there i always another option.. Works in my office as company pc's are the same. It is possible the hard drive controler has packed in rather than the drive. If you have another drive exactly the same its possible to swap the controllers (PCB).

Maybe nosing around on e-bay? Depends how important the ifo is to you :)
There is always the option of data recovery by a specialist company, I have used a company to recover data of a smashed mobile phone (ex employee trying to hide stuff.. muppet). It cost me £100 to do this, can get their details if you want, they are good!

[stevo]

Well there i always another option.. Works in my office as company pc's are the same. It is possible the hard drive controler has packed in rather than the drive. If you have another drive exactly the same its possible to swap the controllers (PCB).



I are mostly out of my depth now tho :) nothing new....

The bios recognises the drive, but I have to assume that the bios isn't dynamic in listing the hardware....

Linux is recognising other drives, but not the hard drive.

ho hum, 25 quid on ebay for a new 80g sata drive, so not much lost if it doesn't work!!

[lawzer]

may sound like a strange one but stick the busted drive in your freezer for a day or so.
believe it or not this MAY bring it back to life.

however if your bios does not recognize the drive at the lowest level I reckon it's had it.

As suggested it may be (but in my opinion very unlikely) the ide controller or even ide cable.
One last thing - what type of drive is it?
If it's a western digital try removing the small jumper from the drive.

Be warned though, it's best to have a barebone system with your dodgy drive as slave so that if you are lucky to get it back (and it may just be the once you get it) you can at least copy it across to the healthy drive.


Good luck!

[Median]

Sounds like a good candidate for freezing, if the BIOS recognises it then the electronics may be ok still.

SWMBO lost her drive the other day. Tried freezing as the electronics seem ok but sadly it didn't work this time.

If you do freeze it, be sure and put it in an air-tight bag and suck all the air out before sealing it.

If that fails, then it's either forget it or a rather expensive data recovery operation as someone pointed out.

Good luck

Cheers

[stevo]

cheers for all the replies - all useful. Not bad for a bunch of people that fix their vehicles with either duct tape or hammers :D

Any way, I will attempt to freeze, but I mostly have no hope......


Luckily, I bought a new camera last year, with a 1gb card, and that was holding nearly 300 photos still :) including our wedding, so I still have my testicles attached to me.... :eek:

[Median]

Not bad for a bunch of people that fix their vehicles with either duct tape or hammers :D

Huh

I resemble that remark!!!


:D :D :D