Hard drive failure-please help

zver · Oct 24, 2006

Ok here is the story,drive was ok-or thats what i thought-its a samsung 80 gb ata ide and it was connected on my pc just for a data-no windows installation on that drive.Suddenly i couldnt see that drive in explorer,but when i go to computer management i can see it there but i cannot initialize it?
I can make new partion it just i got a lots of data-music there..
So what i should do??
I wanna try to save data so i dont wanna format that drive or whatever...
I tryed some proggy called file scavencer http://www.quetek.com/prod02.htm and drive showed but when i got my files on some drive which i copyed to,all files when they play got decoding error..
So which is the best software to get data back couse all files were good when puted them there,maybe some software can take the files better then this scavenger thing?

LTR12101B · Oct 25, 2006

http://www.snapfiles.com/Freeware/system/fwdatarecovery.html
Maybe a few worth trying there, skip the ones that just mention deleted files.

PC Inspector File Recovery and Disk Investigator sound like the ones with most potential.

If the cluster connections of fragmented files are lost, the result may be an unrecoverable mess - main problem in any recovery attempt is to avoid doing any additional damage.

weboneando · Oct 25, 2006

zver said:
...
I tryed some proggy called file scavencer http://www.quetek.com/prod02.htm and drive showed but when i got my files on some drive which i copyed to,all files when they play got decoding error..

Did you bought the program or are just using the demo version? File scavenger can recover your files but if you´re using the demo version all recovered files that are larger than 64kb will be corrupted or non functional, if the demo version shows all the data that you want to recover then it´s 99% probably that the registered version would do the job fine.

ipdave · Oct 25, 2006

Have you tried the basics first, like running chkdsk <driveletter:> /X /R ?

Duracell · Oct 26, 2006

my favorite: GetDataBack

Greetings from
Duracell

zver · Oct 27, 2006

Thanks for all replys guys-btw thats a nice page with lots of tools LTR12101B

I was using a full version of file scavenger btw..
Im trying now the app which Duracell adviced-it takes a bit long to scan a hd-like 15 hours or so

Will pot the final result when is finished

bionic · Nov 2, 2006

I tend to use a combination of Free Undelete, Restoration, recover4all pro and active@undelete.
Usually recover4all suffices.

Duracell · Nov 4, 2006

And the result?

zver · Nov 7, 2006

Sorry guys,without pc for a week.
Same thing,failure with getdataback too

I get the files but they are corrypted..
I will try that recovery thing which bionic said
Its all my speed metal folder,i feel like im naked now..
I came to ottawa here to get my backup from my sister,but i will still loose some good albums

VIPER_1069 · Nov 7, 2006

zver said:
Sorry guys,without pc for a week.
Same thing,failure with getdataback too
I get the files but they are corrypted..
I will try that recovery thing which bionic said
Its all my speed metal folder,i feel like im naked now..
I came to ottawa here to get my backup from my sister,but i will still loose some good albums

one word BACKUP ... i have most of my stuff in dedicated folders and when they reach dvd size ie 4.5 gb i dump them to dvd

learned that lesson a long time ago now

Duracell · Nov 7, 2006

zver said:
... I get the files but they are corrypted..

hmm, i think the data clusters themself are overwriten, at least partially;
however try Bionic's suggestion, it won't harm anymore;

scarecrow · Nov 11, 2006

I also have a dead 200GB ATA HD, and I cannot even perform a recovery on it: it doesn't even spin at all... so you see it can be even worse than your case.