How to back up data on failing drive?

[armysgt1]

My drive is showing up in device manager and saying it's running normally, yet in "my computer" the drive isnt showing up. I know its failing because i tested it with seagate tools and it failed short dst and long dst. I also ran hd sentinel, it is saying problems occured during the spin up of the disk and it is recommended to back up any important data immediately. Just how can I access the data on the disk?

 

[deanj20]

Are you ever able to access the drive through Windows? If not, I've read many places that you can try putting it in the freezer (in a ziploc baggie) for 24 hours. Then put the drive back in the computer and try to copy your data to another drive or some other media as fast as possible.

I know that you probably don't want to hear it, but as a rule of thumb you should always have three copies of any data that you consider important or irreplaceable. I use an external HDD, CD-Rs, a USB drive and my GMail account to store things I can't get back in the event of a drive failure.

I'm very interested to know if the freezer trick works - I've never tried it. If you decide to go that route, please post back and tell us the results!

 

[armysgt1]

well, it has shown up in "my computer" a few times, but when I click on the drive it asks to format before use. I'm scanning the drive right now with stellar phoenix windows data recovery right now, its going to take overnight but yeah I will try that freezer trick after this. I'll keep you posted. Thanks

 

[alexcarlson]

Hi,
If your hard disc drive has shown the final warning signs of failure and will not allow your computer to boot you have very few options.

1 If possible, backup your most important data immediately.
2 Disregard your program files and other software as it can be reinstalled from your original discs.
3 Save the data that cannot be replaced first.

Thanks

 

[armysgt1]

No, it's not my operating system hard drive, it's an external harddrive that i took the case off now I'm using a sata to usb converter cable. I'm trying to find a program that will scan the drive for recoverable data. I think I found one though, it's stellar phoenix. I'll give that a try and see what happens.