Hard Drive Error Question

[JohnM]

If you determine that it might be mechanical after swapping cables and trying drive recovery software here is a technique that has worked for me. Place your drive in the freezer overnight. Take it out the next day, let it get back up to temperature. Then try it. Sometimes this allows parts to realign, etc.

JohnM

[Nightposter]

If you do get it working, get the info off the drive and trash it!
If it failed once, it will fail again!

[Blizzard]

Is it clicking ? Or making any odd noises ? Does BIOS recognise it ?

[bellystabs]

That happened to my hard drive last year. I had a ton of movies along with business and personal files which I hadn't burned to cd yet. I took it to a PC shop where they promise to maintain the confidentiality of client software, and they transfered everything to a new hard-drive. I was still nervous about doing it that way, but I had over $1000 of movies and other files and programs, so I took a calculated risk. It's been a year, and nobody has come calling. Maybe they are just hoping I will come back so they can update their collection.

[bellystabs]

Somehow they were able to recover all the files from the bad hard drive and somehow they were able to copy or ghost them over to a brand new one.

I know the content isn't illegal, but I don't like my fantasies to undergo public scrutiny. I also work at a government facility like Dennis used to... prejudice and repulsion aren't my favorite things to encounter when it comes to making a living in this economy. However, if I win the lottery (another fantasy of mine!) I will be contacting you for a ton of customs!

[Bluestone]

Hi Paul,

I have a computer guru who I had to go to when the same thing happened to me. He saved all of the information and ghosted it to a new hard drive, but he warned me not to try to take a damaged drive to places like the Geek Squad at Best Buy and smaller shops manned by hackers. You need an experienced computer specialist to do this sort of recovery, not a guy who'll take the easy way out and tell you they wiped out the drive while trying to recover the data.

Blue

[Warlord]

Hi
I am assuming you have a Windows PC

Try booting your machine with Ubuntu or Linux Puppy* and then try to access the disc. You might be able to copy the files to a stick etc. Another way is to try in "Safe mode". I had this happen a couple of weeks ago, and was able to use the above two methods.

* You'll need to create an image disk which certain versions of Nero can do for you. Visit the respective sites for Ubuntu or Puppy Linux and take it from there.
Good luck.