"Lost" data/harddrive - Recovery Possible?

[Signal2Noise]

I stopped at "Well".

Hint: Paragraphs, man. Paragraphs.

Glad to hear the cat is okay, tho':thumbsup:

[Invader Zim]

Go on www.cnet.com and do a search for unformat/undelete utilities. Pick one that has the highest rating. Try it.

Good luck, hope you recuperate all of your stuff.

BTW - Your text was long...

[Abominable]

Please like S to N said....PARAGRAPHS!, man that hurts the eyes.

Anyway, I want to know what kind of drive you are running that went for hell on ya. I have had pretty much the same thing happen to me 3 times. Finally a replacement drive is on the way much to thier chagrin. Data recovery is crazy expensive...and get this....the place I looked at charges 20$ for every CDR they burn for you with your files! After some research and almost tears I was able to get my own files back and do a low level format.

Did you fix your problem yet?

[ZrO-1]

It sounds like you lost either the MBR (master boot record) on that particular disk, or the partition table (says where partitions/directories/files begin and end). You definetly lost the info about the formatting since it was comming up as "RAW" which means the OS doesn't see any formatting it recognizes.

The disk recovery or "un-delete" utilities work well and should be able to recover most if not all of your data. The File Scavanger 2 utility is a good one.

You can definetly move the files you recover to a good disk then re-format/re-partition the bad drive and move the files back. No problemo.

[PiledotNET]

Hi guys.

I think I've got the same problem with my hard drive last week.

At bios, the HD is detected (Slave - Maxtor - 30gb). No problems.

But at windows, it does not show up. Like there's nothing pluged in. No HD, no nothing.

I don't understand, why BIOS detected the HD and Windows didn't?

It's a master boot record problem?

[Abominable]

Ya sounds like exaclty the same things I went through recently, don't worry, you should be able to get all your info back. BIOS would see my drive, but in XP it wouldn't even show up. It would say that it was connected, but it would have almost 80 Gigs available, couldn't read it, Norton Disk Doctor wouldn't run on it etc, etc, blah, blah...everything that has been mentioned above pretty much. I tried eveything that I could think of in XP and could find on newsgroups, disk management, ran the Maxtor utilities etc. to no avail.

What I ended up doing was using a program called R-Studio and it was heaven for me, got me back into my drive no prob so I could back it up and re-format it. One of my tech friends told me to use a program called Easy Recovery Pro that he uses but I never got around to that. The price difference is huge though. I think Easy Recovery may have a lite version as well.

By no means am I a super tech wizard when it comes to computers so my problem may sound basic to some of you guys, but R-Studio saved my ass.

R-Studio (http://www.r-tt.com/RStudio.shtml)
Easy Recovery (http://www.ontrack.com/easyrecoveryprofessional/)

[Sieb]

Look for a program called "Get Data Back", there's one for FAT and one for NTFS. We use it at our office, works great, even finds data after a format. We recovered an entire 80gig drive once. Data isn't gone until its been overwritten, and even then it can sometimes be recovered.

[Cod]

A friend of mine told me to inform you that you can try to scan the drive with Norton Disk Doctor from a different computer, to see if you can repair the partitions.

Good luck bro!

[Medwyyn]

Er, right. Wow. Sorry about that, people. Paragraphs are a good thing, as many years of Honors English should have told me. Working 3rd shift with a busted knee and no sleep will do that to you.
Thanks for all the replies. I think I am going to go with File Scavenger 2, buy a new harddrive, and start again from there. I've run with Maxtor and Seagate drives, and haven't had problems with them up to this point. I think it was a nasty shutdown that fried either the MFT or the MBR of both. Kinda glad I chose NTFS over Fat32. Again, thanks.
M

[PiledotNET]

What's the name of the table that apears after the BIOS check up? Like a DOS post bios screen with a lot of the information about your computer...

I realized that the HD is not listed there, just INSIDE Bios.

The only place that tells me the HD is pluged is inside Bios. Not listed post bios screen and windows.

It shouldn't be listed there even if the windows couldn't?

I'm asking this again because I did think that post bios screen lists the same things that bios does. But it doesn't.

Abominable, have you noticed the same thing (post bios screen) with your HD problem?

Tnks.

[Abominable]

PiledotNET...Tell you the truth I never noticed that. Showed in BIOS when I went into it, but never noticed the post screen, sorry. I was too busy wondering how the hell I was going to fix it. :-)

[PiledotNET]

Hehe, tnks anyway :)

If the program doesn't help, I will buy a new HD (same model), and switch the board under the HD.

Been very carfuly isn't there any problems right?

[Abominable]

Not sure what problems your trying to describe there and about switching the board.....(If you buy a new drive just use it..??)

Physically there should be nothing wrong with the drive itself. Just run (program of choice, I used the R-Studio) and it should give you the chance to retrieve and back up all your info with no prob. Then just give your drive a nice long format and it should be fresh once again.

[GregHess]

I'm just going to throw together a troubleshooting guide here real quick. Hopefully it will help with your drive problems...

Step 1: Identify the Problem

Is the drive spinning up?

If not, check the power connectors. Remove any splitters and plug directly into the rear of the drive. Try a different power plug. Try a different Power supply. Check the drive's jumpers for autospinup settings (some scsi drives have this)

Does the Computer's Bios detect the Harddrive?

If not....check the IDE cables. Try a different cable, check for tightness (that its fully in the drive). Try a different IDE port. Try a IDE controller card. Try a different Computer. Try adjusting the jumpers and position of the drive from slave, master, single, and cable selection. Try a Ultra33 cable, instead of the newer U66 ones.

Can Windows Read the Drive?

If not, try the BIOS troubleshooting. Also try running the drive off the STANDARD IDE ports instead of a controller card. This eliminates the possibility of driver issues.

Does the drive show up in windows temporarily then disappear while copying?

Try the above troubleshooting methods...If they don't solve the disappearing drive problem....try accessing it in DOS via a boot disk.



IF you can get the drive to read in DOS...

Download and run the drive utilities posted by the manufacterer. All major HD companies have their own specific toolsets to deal with various drive issues. Ranging from bad sectors, to full blown failures.
The tools only work however...if your computer can see the drvive.

Download and run a freely available drive repair/diagnosis program.

Spend a crapload of money and purchase spinrite. (use google, I'm too lazy to post the url).

If you can get the drive to read in Windows but your Data is gone....

Download and try file restorer 2000 pro. (Use google). If the program can SEE your destroyed/deleted/damaged/lost data...then BUY the program and get your data back.

I had more solutions and url's, but then I accidently closed IE while in the middle of the post.

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