Community Newsletter: Q&A: Ways to recover data from a corrupt hard drive?
- 10/10/08 3:51 PM
Ubuntu Live CD
by yu_buffon - 10/19/08 11:53 PM In reply to: Corrupt Hard Drive by ZouchI have tried Ubuntu Live CD. I have recovered most of the pictures. but i have encountered some problem in transferring mp3 files. I think you can give it a try. And it wont cost you anything!
Corrupted drive duing update to XP SP3
by WazmoNariz - 10/20/08 6:16 PM In reply to: Corrupt Hard Drive by ZouchThe most virulent "virus" I've ever encounted is Windows Update. The Automatic Update feature tried to load XP SP3 and corrupted the C: drive on reboot. I was able successfully to use CHKDSK in Recovery Console that first time.
Windows rebooted and downloaded SP3 again. After making sure I had everything COMPLETELY backed up, I rebooted and the C: drive corrupted again. This time it was so thorough CHKDSK couldn't fix it.
Finally, though, I loaded XP onto a second drive (Windows will allow a second installation but it expires in 30 days) from which I ran CHKDSK from this "stronger" installation. Everything was completely recovered (plus some stuff that was deleted months ago).
Long story short -- there may be a resaonablly simple way to correct a hard drive that Windows reports as corrupt without any loss of data and no expense. Back up before upgrading to XP SP3!
Hard Drive Recovery
by Man with many hats - 10/4/08 5:14 PM In reply to: Ways to recover data from a corrupt hard drive? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I've had good luck with a program called SpinRite v6.0(www.grc.com)
As long as the drive is still working Mechanically. This program has made several unbootable drives boot and recovered data at under a $100 dollars. It will not run on a Mac, but there may be a way to stick a mac drive into a pc and run spinrite on it (Never tried).
Of course you wouldn't be able to read the data recovered on that pc you'd have to use a mac. Good Luck
Additional tips
by publeo - 10/4/08 5:46 PM In reply to: Ways to recover data from a corrupt hard drive? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I forgot to tell you in the earlier post that i runned chkdsk.exe before doing anything else. It helped me understood that the defect I encountered is logical in nature in addition to virus damage.
You might want to do same, just in case press F8 on reboot, wait for the menu, highlight drive where you want to boot, press Enter followed by F8 again, better choose "Command Prompt", on the command prompt type CHKDSK [Drive] where "Drive" is the defective drive. This procedure will tell you exactly the condition of your defective hard drive. The rest is yours to determine. (Suggestion only, the responsibility and liability is yours).
Good luck....
Re Recovering Data from College student HD
by RosilynO - 10/4/08 6:12 PM In reply to: Ways to recover data from a corrupt hard drive? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I feel your pain. I have 4 girls who've gone through College. Only one HD Crash! Turns out the recovery by some of the data recovery companies is not that expensive if there isn't damage. Usually it should cost about one and a half times the cost of a blank new HD. Struggling with it yourself is usually not much good and could worsen the problem by flipping bits or actually writing errant data as the program tries to make sense of the problem. My suggestion is call and check the prices at a couple of these data recovery places, AND without much fanfare, let the child know that she is lucky that it is a college HD and not a business HD or her Grad Thesis. (naturally, The Grad Thesis was the ONLY HD that failed for any of my kids... and she had put everything on CDs weekly. She only lost half a section).
As I told my kids, there are two types of people... those who have had a HD failure and those who haven't YET.
Good luck.
DIY hard drive recovery
by neslousa - 10/4/08 6:21 PM In reply to: Ways to recover data from a corrupt hard drive? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
This is not free, but I've been SUCCESSFULLY able to recover hard drives that have died, been dropped, thrown out windows and against walls with a product called GetDataBack, from http://www.runtime.org/
This stuff works, the best bundle deal is the disk explorer & GetDataback for NTFS, but if you have the whole bundle (which I have had for 5+ years, free updated forever) you can do amazing things and probable help more than a few friends...
Mark
RE: IsThere a Way to Recover Data from a Corrupt Hard Drive?
by rich34 - 10/4/08 6:55 PM In reply to: Ways to recover data from a corrupt hard drive? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I successfully recovered all the data of importance (particularly photo files) from what had been the C drive on my wife's computer. As I recall the problem was that the computer, running Win98SE, would not even begin to boot up. When mounted as a second drive on another computer it couldn't be accessed
To access the drive I mounted it in a USB enclosure and plugged this into a computer running Windows XP. The software I used was EasyRecovery Lite from Ontrack. This is their lowest priced software, downloaded for $89, usable on up to five drives. Because it is intended for individuals, not pros, it will only download 25 files per session, then you have to close it out, re-start the program, and recover 25 more files. You repeat this cycle as many times as you need. Their more expensive programs don't have this limitation. For an extra $6 I received a CD with software also, but used what I had downloaded. Don't know if this software will work on Vista, but is supposed to be usable for four more drives and I still have my XP computer.
Hard drive not working
by northnet - 10/4/08 8:05 PM In reply to: Ways to recover data from a corrupt hard drive? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
The first thing to do is buy a copy of SpinRight and run it. Select option 2 first and if that doesn't work try option 4. It may take days to complete its job so just because you don't see a lot of action don't assume the job is done. The program can be stopped and restarted if the computer needs to be used for something else.
SpinRight is an absolute must to keep hard drives healthy. Should be run once a year.
Terry
The old freezer trick
by dknapp - 10/4/08 8:10 PM In reply to: Ways to recover data from a corrupt hard drive? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Put the drive in a waterproof plastic bag, then put it in the freezer for several hours so that it gets good and frozen. Then, take it out, uncover just the cable connectors, plug it in and give it a try. Our PC support guys have done this a few times and, wonder of wonders, sometimes it works. Other times, no luck. My attitude when using a PC is that it can fail at any time, so if something is really important, back it up every which way. Good luck.
Damage Hard Drive
by saab2002 - 10/4/08 8:47 PM In reply to: Ways to recover data from a corrupt hard drive? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I recently had a problem with a hard drive that wouldn't respond. Windows just reported a cryptic message saying the drive was unreadable. I tried using a program I purchased over the internet to extract files from a unreadable drive but to no avail. I thought of buying a new drive to replace it and ditching the damaged drive when I thought of something as a last resort so I clicked on "Run" and typed chkdsk g: /f (g being the damaged drive) and to my amazement, chkdsk repaired the drive and all my files on that drive were completely readable as if nothing untoward had happened. Just to be safe, I ran chkdsk a second and third time, each time repairing a little more and upon the fourth run, no more errors appeared. Perhaps this sounds too simplistic but try it anyway. It just might be the answer to your problem.
Old school hard drive remedy
by davis200 - 10/4/08 11:25 PM In reply to: Ways to recover data from a corrupt hard drive? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
The first thing I'd try is run a low-level scan on the drive to check for errors, but I assume you've already done this. My suggestion is to put the drive into a ziplock bag with a paper towel or something else to absorb moisture. Then put the drive into your freezer for a few hours or overnight. When you take it out be sure there is no condensation on the drive that might cause an electrical short, and hook it up again. I don't recall the theory behind this but it has worked for me in the past, giving me a brief window in which to recover data from the drive. Be quick since this will likely only last for a few minutes and once the drive warms up again it may fail completely. If not, you can try to repeat this to recover more data.
The drive probably has corrupted or damaged sectors or possibly a problem with the platter itself and this isn't something most people can service on their own.
Whether you recover the data or not, I'd suggest you back up regularly onto a second drive or a networked drive, removable media like CD or DVD or even look into online data storage. I assume she has a laptop so I'd get an external SATA or USB2.0 drive, you can find one for under $80 for a 750G drive if you search online stores.
Re:Help
by BlackWolf116 - 10/4/08 11:25 PM In reply to: Ways to recover data from a corrupt hard drive? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I use System Mechanic Professional 8: Search and Recover, although it may not work, since the other software didn't, but its worth a try.
RW117
data
by shailjaraj - 10/5/08 3:21 AM In reply to: Ways to recover data from a corrupt hard drive? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Dear Mr. Chunk
You can try Getback DAta Software version 2.31 NTFS
Ok
Ontrack Easy Recovery recovered my data
by Pete C - 10/5/08 4:22 AM In reply to: Ways to recover data from a corrupt hard drive? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Had similar problem 2 yrs ago. Purchased Ontrack Easy Recovery from ontrack.com. It will recover your data. It will identify the file type (doc, jpg, xls etc) and give each file a generic name (document1.doc). I think the cost was <$200. Highly recommend it. Pete C
Preventative medicine
by echollis - 10/5/08 5:22 AM In reply to: Ways to recover data from a corrupt hard drive? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
The best way to recover data from a corrupted hard drive is to downoad it from your backup. It's too late for you but it's not too late for others who read this. There are several net based backup services that will store gigabytes of information for what a college student can afford. (Less than a 6 pack). I use IDrive where up to 2 GB is free which should cover backup of lots of term papers. More than that costs $4.95/month ($49.50/year) for 150GB.
| Forum legend: | |
 |
Locked thread |
 |
Moderator |
 |
CNET staff |
 |
Samsung staff |
 |
Norton Authorized Support team |
 |
AVG staff |
 |
Windows Outreach team |
 |
Dell staff |
 |
Intel staff |
