URGENT - DEAD HDD ? ?

[130tdi]

I have a 160GB HDD on which I have got lots of data including pictures / videos of my kids, 'backed up' dvd's, personal stuff (cv's etc), together with several documents relating to me and the family potentially emigrating.

Last night I was working on my CV, when I tried to save a box popped up - file path corrupt and inaccessible.

I tried to reboot the machine, and now D: doesn't appear under windows explorer.

It appears in the BIOS and in the system - hardware tab under control panel.

The OS on C: is Win 2000 PRO - Seperate 60GB HDD

I've taken the drive to work (where I'm on XP Pro) and the same thing happens. The BIOS recognises the drive, and so does system - hardware.

The drive can be felt to spin up under booting but can't be seen. I can only hope that the data is still intact. ?

If anyone can assist with ideas or can help me recover the data to another drive please either post here or mail me via sales @ nova-design.co.uk or call me on 01384 400044 and I'll call you straight back.

Any ideas much appreciated.

Simon.

[puggit]

Simon, whatever you do - don't format/write over what is there. Even with a serious problem almost all of data will be recoverable.

First of all I'm assuming there's no backup?

There are data recovery firms but they aren't cheap. Vogon (www.vogon.co.uk) and Ontrack (www.ontrack.co.uk) are 2 that I have heard of, working in the backup/recovery business.

I'll leave the techie answers to the more hardware minded

[130tdi]

Thanks Puggit.

I do have some of the data backed up but not all of it.

I've just run the Maxtor Powermax program for disk program diagnostics and the drive has passed all tests with flying colours !

I still can't see it under windows though.

Anyone got any ideas ?

Simon.

[bengie]

I was reading Toms Hardware Guide yesterday - and they reviewed this:

Knoppix

Go have a read about it - it looks like it might be useful for you...

HTH

[130tdi]

FecK

Looking under Admin Tools - Computer Management

I can now see 2 HDD's.

My original one and the secondary (problem) drive.

The trouble is that the secondary one is showing as having 152GB of free space.

Is this saying that the entire drive has been wiped of data and needs formatting / partitioning for use under windows ? How can 100+ GB of data just vanish ?

[puggit]

Data won't have vanished - it could be the file allocation table or something like that. The only thing that could damage all the data is a magnet or similar.

As before - do not write to/format the drive, or you will overwrite the data!!

[doug phillips]

STOP.

If the data is important to you then send it to Ontrack. I will cost you £50 to tell you what data can be recovered from the disk, then X amount to recover the data. You may lose the lot if you play about with it.

[meeja]

It won't have vanished, but don't be tempted to format the drive.

Like has been said earlier, the data will be recoverable.... but at a cost.

I am no expert with failing HD's, but have successfully recovered data from a dying one by following (what appeared at the time) simple instructions given to me by a techie in the office.

Sorry I can't be more help, but I'm sure that the PH techies will appear.....

[keppy]

Sounds like the drive is fine - if it appears in the BIOS, it is most likely physically OK.

If Windows can't see it, what is likely is that something has overwritten or damaged the first sector of the disk that describes the logical makeup of the media - the partition tables. This has happened recently to 2 friends of mine and it took just 10 minutes to rebuild the partition data giving full access to all of the data on the drive.

This simply happens when a program (which includes viruses) accidentally writes to the wrong part of the disk. I would suspect this is the most likely reason for your problem.

Keith

[130tdi]

keppy said:

Sounds like the drive is fine - if it appears in the BIOS, it is most likely physically OK. If Windows can't see it, what is likely is that something has overwritten or damaged the first sector of the disk that describes the logical makeup of the media - the partition tables. This has happened recently to 2 friends of mine and it took just 10 minutes to rebuild the partition data giving full access to all of the data on the drive. This simply happens when a program (which includes viruses) accidentally writes to the wrong part of the disk. I would suspect this is the most likely reason for your problem. Keith

That has literally just been suggested to me via an IT contact.

He hasn't got a clue of how to rebuild the partition though.

Can you let me know the software or tricks required to rebuild the partition data.

I can see me owing some serious to PHers if this comes off.

Simon

[size13]

www.newfreeware.com/utils/1867/

edited to add: I've never used it though - I just did a search on google for "rebuild partition table"

also...
www.diydatarecovery.nl/~tkuurstra/index.htm

>> Edited by size13 on Friday 5th March 15:52

[puggit]

Looks like good software - have you tried an AV sweep yet?

[130TDI]

puggit said:

Looks like good software - have you tried an AV sweep yet?

Can't try the AV as I still can't see the drive.

It's currently running the diy . nl program from size13.

Fingers are crossed.

Simon