hard drive recovery
 

my hard drive is dead, or at least not breathing at the moment.

at first, i got the unmountable boot volume error and then after following the instructions to fix that problem, i now get NTLDR not found.

i realize this hard drive is probably not going to be usable again and that's fine, but is there any way that i could access it for like 5 minutes just to transfer some files to another drive? there isn't anything that i can't live without - mostly email lists and a few other things. thanks.

i took it into a computer shop and they made no guarantees but said it would be 2 hours @ $60/hr. my email lists aren't THAT important.

well i have never tried it but heard it works. put the drive in a ziplock bag and put it in a freezer for 30 min, pull it out, and hook it up and hope it works.

The good news is that the error message is just telling you that the bootloader is missing. Of course, some of your actual data could be missing to but not necessarily so. The bootloader is on a special area of the hard drive and that could be messed up but the rest of the drive could be fine. The bootloader is what runs to start the computer up basically.

Take the drive and stick it in another computer or download a "live" Linux DVD to boot from on that computer and examine the contents. You could probably recover any data on the drive.

Don't stick it in the freezer, that's not going to help anything :hillbill:

I don't think his drive is broken though. Sounds like his boot record just got wiped out.

I'll second putting it into a different computer, as the slave or 2nd drive, you may have to change a jumper to do so. Once the computer boots look to see if your drive is recognized then take whatever you want off of it.

IF YOU STILL HAVE IT SEND IT TO ME AND i CAN TRY TO PULL THE DATA. iselloil@comcast.net Dont do anything else with the drive.I can pull the data from a dead drive.

i forgot all about this thread...

i tried the freezer trick and it did nothing. the drive when hooked up shows as an empty 10mb drive.

if you want to send it to me I can pull the data.

hmmm...

you can pull all the data, or specific files that i ask for? i'm sure that there would be files that i have forgotten about that i would like to get which is why i would ideally like to have access to it myself.

I can pull whatever you want.I just move it to a CD. I can pull most data from a dead drive.But I have to have it for about three days.

I dont look at the data. I see what folders are there and transfer whats available.I dont care whats on the drive,or care.Most people want there word,office,pictures,and favorites.The rest thay dont care about.So we pull what is asked for.The rest is skipped unless we can pulll all of it in one spin.

what do you charge? i have a dead maxtor 40gb i need some pics off. it will most likely need to be opened. electronics are dead. do you have a cleanroom?

I can pull it with out opening.$20.00 or so plus shipping.If I can pull it.I can pull 90% of the drives we see.You cant get all of the data some times but I will try.If I cant pull it just shipping.

Search for the specialized cable I posted months ago you can use for DIY recovery.

can't find it

Here you go. I haven't used it, but an IT friend has and swears by it. Good luck:

http://www.amazon.com/USB-Cable-Adap...9684309&sr=8-2

When I first posted this, the cable was only $9. Guess sales took off afterward.

The freezer trick does work, sometimes. I've recovered data off of a few drives that way, but more often than not, it doesn't do anything.

The best software around I've found for recovering data is "GetDataBack" for windows.

hard drive recovery software
 

Very often, the freezing doesn't work. In this situation a powerful hard drive recovery software can do the job. The stellar phoenix windows data recovery software is a wonderful software which does not need any expertise to use it . Its a user friendly product to go with .


I think it can do the job .

All the best

Can you do thaa for me too?? That would be the bomb!