What is your HDD recovery process?

[HiddenTalent]

Hi all,

A few times a year friends ask me to help them get their information from a drive that is having issues booting. A current example is a device that is struggling to transfer data reliably. Some sectors are bad.

I'm hesitant to format the drive and try again. I'd rather my friend spend $60 for a new drive and do a fresh install of windows.

My first step is usually to pull the drive and get the personal information off before I format the drive. I use one of a few different external enclosures. I don't have a dock yet. I'm looking for one if you have any suggestions.

If I can't browse the drive I use a utility like ****** recovery to pull what I can. Problem is it takes forever, sometimes days.

I'm interested in what everyone else does. I'm not a professional but I am hobbyist.

 

[S.T.A.R.S.]

Here is what I use to hook up the drive to USB:

Once that is done,I use Pareto Logic Data Recovery software to recover all data as much as possible and then store recovered data in a single folder and give it to the customer (the owner of his/her data of course).





Cheers!

 

[claptonman]

^^ That, or a regular toaster works fine.

For recovery, I use photorec at my work.

 

[salvage-this]

I use a linux live CD. Works well for me.