What's the best way to recover crashed HD?

A

Astrovel

New Member
Just before I had to re-install Win 7 on my computer, my 500 gig hard drive that I put EVERYTHING on, my pictures, my files, my music etc so that I could leave my smaller 80 gig hard drive for operating system and miscellaneous programs that only wants to run from C: drive.

When trying to move some files around, the computer suddenly decided that it didn't like drive F: which is my big HD. First it wouldn't let me access it, then it didn't even recognize that the drive was there.

So I unhooked the drive and left in the machine, re-installed Win 7 and supposedly that is working correctly except for the issue with I.E. 10 (on another thread). Now....I am faced with trying to figure out the best way to get those files off that HD. Do I hook it back up and see if the new version of Win 7 will recognize and allow access to the HD? or take it out and use the IDE to USB converter to try to pull the files off?

If I could get that drive working again, I really would like to keep it in the machine, bearing in mind that it can't be totally trusted now for important files but it would be convenient for stuff that is not critical. And besides that, my 80 is rapidly getting filled up. I only have about 30 gig left open. I did buy a new external HD but I need the files on the crashed drive to go on that.

In any case, I MUST get those files off that drive. I am dead in the water without access to those files but I don't want to screw up my new Win 7 install either. When I was cruising through Tucows and Cnet I saw a downloadable program that promised to recover corrupted files and there was a review that said they had tried other programs but that this program was the only one that allowed them to recover the files with minimal damage to the files. Would that be the answer?

Thanks for your help guys
V
 
You can do it either way. Hook it up as a second drive and try accessing it or use the usb to hdd adapter. If the drive can't be accessed either way then you will have to send the drive off and spend hundreds of dollars to a professional data recovery center.
 
It really depends on HOW the hard disk drive has crashed.

If it's a physical crash such as a head crash or scratched platter(s) or physical destroyed sectors or damaged/burned circuit/logic board then you are in a VERY BAD POSITION lol.
In this case you CAN TRY to recover the data yourself using specifically designed programs for that OR send it to the professional data recovery centers as Johnb35 has suggested.

OR

If it's a simple non-physical crash then you are in BETTER POSITION lol.
First try to perform the CHKDSK on that drive to fix ALL the errors on it.The command is the following:

chkdsk.exe Z: /F /R /X /V

Where "Z:" is the drive letter of that drive.If it's some other drive letter then write that one instead of "Z:".

After that you can try to access the drive.
If it's still inaccessible you can ALSO try to access it through...let's say Linux Ubuntu.

NOTE: It is possible that your drive does not even have a drive letter.In that case assign the drive letter.If it DOES have a drive letter,maybe some other partitions ALSO use the SAME drive letter as well and that can cause conflicts with your drive.So try changing the drive letter to let's say..."Z:".
Here are detailed steps in how to do that:

Click "Start" and "Control Panel" and then click "Administrative Tools" and double-click "Computer Management" to launch the utility.Click "Disk Management" to display a list of all detected drives in the system.Right-click in the right column of the inaccessible disk and choose "Change Drive Letters and Path."If no letter exists then click "Add" and assign a drive letter from the list of available letters.If a drive letter is listed then click "Change" and select a new letter to eliminate any conflicts with other devices in the system.Check for access after these settings are in place which may require a restart of the system.


If that did not work then it can ALSO be the the SECURITY on the drive is not configured properly.In that case do this:

Open disk management,right click on your drive,go to PROPERTIES then go to SECURITY.Under the SECURITY tab click the ADVANCED button.After that go to OWNER and click EDIT.Put a check mark in the check box REPLACE OWNER ON THE SUBCONTAINERS AND OBJECTS and then click OTHER USERS OR GROUPS.Enter the object name to select and type/select EVERYONE.After that put a check mark to ALL PERMISSIONS.After that save the settings and that's it.


If all this did not work,let us know!




Cheers!
 
2 weeks ago when I lost my data from crashed hard drive I tried Remo Recover software. It gave me fabulous results; you can also give it a try.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top