Windows 7: Backup Software

Hi guys, my hard-drive just died today, and I'm planning on buying a new one...my question is, is there a free program available to backup or rescue files from the defective drive to another one? (like HDclone Pro/Enterprise) thanks in advance

Try this it very good:

Recuva - Undelete, Unerase, File and Disk Recovery - Free Download

Welcome

The only one that I know is this, but is primarily used to recover documents from failing hard drives

PC Inspector FILE RECOVERY

Let's say I cannot access to my dead hard drive, is there a bootable tool? =P

Is the HD actually working ? If the heads ground into the platter , you're in trouble.

If you want a bootable tool,You can make one easily.

What o/s is on a working machine you can use?

Do you have a 7 ( or Vista ) 32BIT recovery disc ( or a 7/Vista 32BIT install disc ) ?

Otherwise, you can use Normal Mode> File Transfer Wizard on this bootable app. to transfer off any files you need http://www.paragon-software.com/home/rk-express/

Depends on what exactly "my hard drive died" means. If it is mechanical, and as a last resort, this CAN and HAS worked. Put the HDD in a plastic ziploc bag. Put that into another ziploc bag. Put it in the freezer for 12 hours or so. Put it in the PC and attempt to recover files. If it works, it may only last minutes, and the process can be repeated until you have what you need, or it will no longer work after freezing.

This really does work. I had an "expert" vehemently scold me for suggesting such an "old wives tale" on a forum. Only to have the original poster come back and thank me because he got it to work 3 times and recovered his most valuable data, and even some he was just happy to get. Never did get a reply from the "expert" again though, go figure

A Guy

I was running windows 7 ultimate 32bit on the damaged hard drive, I know it's faulty because the Western Digital Diagnostics Tools (booteable) gives me a 0225 code "too many errors, contact technical support" , If a try to boot normally it would give me a "a read disk error occurred, press ctrl + alt + del to restart" .

I tried already using the windows 7 recovery tools from the original windows 7 disk, but none worked:

Using CHKDSK would result on the message "The Master File Table is damaged, windows will try to recover it from the disk (...) windows cannot recover the master file table...chkdsk aborted"

If a try to run bootrec.exe /fixboot /fix mbr it would say "the task completed succesfully" but the issue is not solved.

If I try to access to C: through the command prompt it would say "The disk structure is damaged or unreadable"

In my experience, the best file/disk recovery tools were from Runtime Software -- generally known as GetDataBack. They have a free trial that you can download to at least see if it can read your drive and find the files. You have to purchase the version that allows you to actually copy the files.

Yes thank you I'm actually running that application under windows xp live cd using BartPE , it's taking quite a while, but I hope it's able to rescue most of the important data , thanks for everything guys and have a nice day =D

Hope you have already recovered your data, but having a problem with deleted files, I purchased after trying the freeware recovery programs, EASUS. It was expensive but I recovered everything I needed and the drive had been wiped of free space and written over after the files were deleted. Amazing. Well worth the cost at the time.
glennc