Failed HDD: Can this drive be reclaimed??

I need some direction on this one. In the past, if I had cases of failed HDD, if I could get it to spin up at all I typically could use some tools to get the valuable data off before deciding whether to trash the drive or not. In this case I have a failed WD IDE/ATA hard drive that spins up but so far cannot be recognize by anything, almost. BIOS simply reports it as "Unknown", Win7 disk management crashes/hangs [I'd like to know more about that one], Winxp disk management runs but does not id the device. The only flicker of recognition I have at all is a Win7 system event Error: "Drive E: file system corrupt. Run chkdsk". Chkdsk can't deal with it.

I downloaded and ran WD's diags utility. Simply does not see a device there. I've tried mounting the drive via USB adapter and sitting on the IDE bus. No difference in results.

Can someone suggest a utility, a boot disc or some other way to try to access?

many thanks
z

OK. we"ll give it a shot

PartedMagic also has some nice utilities, including TestDisk (which has a step by step instruction page). You can find out more about PartedMagic at the PartedMagic homepage and obtain it by clicking the Downloads link on the left of the page.

Try running ubuntu live CD and see if you can access the disc from there?

after the fail of Partition Wizard I pulled UBCD out of my stack and ran partedmagic [a very impressive package]. it had no problem finding the drive and id'ing it correctly, and amazingly, its SMART status is a Pass! so good news there. the bad news is the
GSmart Control app detailed the issue: NTFS file system inconsistencies, with a reco to run chkdsk /f followed by 2 reboots.

question: how to boot something from optical drive that has chkdsk...., and the thing is, neither win7 nor win xp pro could even identify a drive on the bus! chkdsk is only going to run on a 'drive'.

keep me going here guys... what to try now?

zapp22 said:

after the fail of Partition Wizard I pulled UBCD out of my stack and ran partedmagic [a very impressive package]. it had no problem finding the drive and id'ing it correctly, and amazingly, its SMART status is a Pass! so good news there. the bad news is the
GSmart Control app detailed the issue: NTFS file system inconsistencies, with a reco to run chkdsk /f followed by 2 reboots.

question: how to boot something from optical drive that has chkdsk...., and the thing is, neither win7 nor win xp pro could even identify a drive on the bus! chkdsk is only going to run on a 'drive'.

keep me going here guys... what to try now?

Try running through the TestDisk step by step I provided in my post. If you get stuck, ask questions. I just helped someone with this yesterday, so I have a pretty good grasp of how to proceed with TestDisk.

Edit: You want to get the partition back to a previous NTFS system so Windows will see it. Restoring a deleted NTFS partition will sometimes allow this to happen.

is the HDD beeping when its got power? If so thump it on table that got mine working long enough to get 90% of the Data its a common prob with Samsung 1TB Sata2 drives also in the buffalo USB HHDs

apollodominion said:

is the HDD beeping when its got power? If so thump it on table that got mine working long enough to get 90% of the Data its a common prob with Samsung 1TB Sata2 drives also in the buffalo USB HHDs

Thumping the drive on the table could physically damage it. Recommend this as a last resort.

There is a method that can retrieve your data without having to get your drive back to NTFS for Windows to see it. See Photo Recovery (A photo and file recovery tool that ignores the file system, this way it works even if the file system is severely damaged). Photorec can be found in PartedMagic. :)

Where does PMagic stash Testdisk? Looked at the screenshots, not there, rummaged around the package, can't find...

writhziden said:

apollodominion said:

is the HDD beeping when its got power? If so thump it on table that got mine working long enough to get 90% of the Data its a common prob with Samsung 1TB Sata2 drives also in the buffalo USB HHDs

Thumping the drive on the table could physically damage it. Recommend this as a last resort.

There is a method that can retrieve your data without having to get your drive back to NTFS for Windows to see it. See Photo Recovery (A photo and file recovery tool that ignores the file system, this way it works even if the file system is severely damaged). Photorec can be found in PartedMagic. :)