Help me get data from failing hard drive

[leif]

I just came back from a trip and my laptop suddenly took ten minutes to boot and then starting acting very very slow. I fear I may have dropped laptop and damaged harddrive. I also found that the all data partition part of my 640 GB hard drive became inaccessible to me. Explorer would freeze up and crash when I tried to access my data partition. My Data partition has 500 GB of data I want to retrieve. I tried putting the 640 WD scorpio blue drive in a hard drive enclosure but the 500 GB partition partition says location is not accessible the peramiter is incorrect. A microsoft windows popped up saying I need to format the drive before I can use it. I clicked ok but then quickly thought better of it and turned off computer afraid it would erase my partition. I turned my PC back on and opened disk management from manage my computer and I see my data partition listed as healthy 500 GB logical volume but it's file system says RAW instead of ntfs. Is this right? Disk properties would not do error check; it said windows can't access the disk. I also tried reinstalling windows on the primary non data partition of the 640 GB drive but each screen was taking ten minutes to load and the install wouldn't take.

Anyone know warranty options on this drive? I bought this WD 640 GB drive used from ebay about 6 months ago.

 

[richc46]

Welcome
This may save your documents
Most warranties do not cover dropped computers, unless you purchased the special warranty that covers accidents.
PC Inspector FILE RECOVERY

There is no way of telling how software will react on a damaged hard drive etc.
Use hard drive as little as possible until recovery
As a last resort when the hard drive is dead and you did not get your doucments.
Take a baggie, put drive in baggie. Put baggie in freezer over night then try to get the documents.

 

[leif]

Will PC inspector work on my data partition since my PC tells me it's a raw file system? Serious about the freezer?

 

[richc46]

I am serious about the freezer, I would not fool around when at the Forum.
The freezer is your last step, when all hope is gone.

Your asking questions about a HD that is ready to fail. I do not know if it will work or will not work. Anything could happen, I cannot even guarantee that it will not make it worse. I do not know how bad the HD is.

 

[richc46]

Failed Hard Drive Data Recovery by Freezing the Drive

The meerkat tells only the truth
Failed Hard Drive Data Recovery by Freezing the Drive