HELP! Save my hard drive!!! - Striper Talk Striped Bass Fishing, Surfcasting, Boating

Young Salt · 09-25-2005, 11:02 AM

I get home on 9/15 and turn on the computer. connect to the internet, and about 5 minutes later i get this blue error screen. Have to shut the computer off with the power button. I try-with almost no success to reboot the computer about 200 times over the next couple days.
I find this DOS based diagnostic that tells me i have a problem with the IDE drive.
I take it to a computer store, they tell me i need a new hard drive....will charge an extra $80 to pull my info from old drive to new....no problem - i figure, well worth it to get the info back and the computer running again. When i go to pick it up, the say they had trouble and couldn't get the info from the old hard drive.
he says stuff like - it runs, but i had trouble when i tried to copy - the info is still in there - sometimes it'll work and sometimes it won't - on a rainy day, maybe you can get the data from it - you can take it to a systems recovery specialist....for about $500!!! I get the feeling they didn't try TOO hard, they called around 11:00 and i picked it up at 4:00. they didn't charge me the $80.
Now i am S.O.L. i bring the computer back home, and find that i have to reinstall all my programs. All the shop did was put in the hard drive and reinstall windows XP. So i spend the next day or to reinstall programs, just yesterday was able to get internet working.
I have a lot of stuff that i didn't backup....i know i should've but, but hindsight is 20/20 and it's one of those things you don't think will happen to you. is there anyone (or anyone who knows someone) on this site that can help get the data back?

Young Salt · 09-25-2005, 11:03 AM

at least i still have my avatar

likwid · 09-25-2005, 06:23 PM

put the old drive in the machine as a slave drive and see if you can read all the old data.

EricW · 09-26-2005, 08:48 PM

HI,

Setting it up as a slave drive is a good suggestion. Another way you can do that is with a usb external drive enclosure. Compusa has good one for 39.00 store brand. When you are done seeing if you can get any data off of your drive, you can use the usb drive as a backup. All you have to do is buy a new HD when they are on sale. I just picked up a 120 gig for 39. after rebates. THere are a ton of easy backup programs out there or just do a simple file copy yourself every month or so. Anyway, If when you plug the drive in and it spins up, if you can hear it spin up and make some light tick tick tick tick tick tick you may be in good shape. If when it spins up you hear some clanky, or louder not rythmic clicks or clacks, you have a head problem and the only safe way to get data off of the drive is to send it to a recovery place. That will be anywhere from 500 to 1000.
Since you got the blue screen of death they way you described, in my experiences there may be some hope of hooking it up to another pc or usb. Some files that windows needed may have gotten corrupted.
There are a couple of last ditch and I mean last ditch methods. One is to put the drive in the freezer for a while and try to spin it up. Don't know why this works, but I have heard it can. Another one is to hold it firmly in one hand and smack it down on a table. CAUTION: do not try those unless you are ready to throw the drive away. They haven't worked for me, but you never know.

Good luck,

Eric

EricW · 09-26-2005, 09:13 PM

This page has 200 tips on hd revival. Good reference stuff.

http://techrepublic.com.com/5100-1035_11-5029761.html#

bassmaster · 09-29-2005, 10:08 AM

run raid 1

Young Salt · 09-29-2005, 08:57 PM

Eric welcome to s-b, and thx for the advice.
A guy i work with said the same thing......went to the comUstore and got the enclosure. and was able to get some data off the old drive, but some on some of the bigger folders, listed alphabetically i lost eveything after the letter d. the files just dont appear.
i pretty much coped everything that i could....thinking about trying the freezer method soon.

BM what exactly are raid disks? i read up on it a bit, from what *little* i understood the are a special type of hard drive (or backup discs) usually used on servers...and it still seemed you would need a specialist to recover the info anyway.

bassmaster · 10-02-2005, 07:49 AM

sorry bout your hd, that happend to me and i lost major pics of family and awsome fish pics.
`````````````````````````````````
raid is basicly running two hard drives
You can run raid in raid o that what i run on my gaming pc, easy way to say it is it wrights half the program to 1 drive and half to the other
Raid 1 is mirrored so if 1 drive goes down all you do is pop another in and it will automaticly right to the new drive
safe way to go you loose nothing.
im going to get another 250 gig for my 3.4 pc and run it in o
if you hace a good mobo You can run raid 0+1 and sutch.
if Yiu run raid u will need to reformat and windows will ask You if you want to run raid.....

Young Salt · 10-02-2005, 09:41 AM

My pics (what was MOST important) i backed up to disc in april, last time my computer was acting up. from there i was able to save about half of my new pictures from the old hard drive. I've lost nearly all of my music files, saved email, 2 1/2 years of fishing logs, my address book and the info in my calender.

When i get the new HD i will want to run the raid 1. Does it take alot of speed from your system?

bassmaster · 10-02-2005, 09:57 AM

nope not that i know of
what i do know is in raid o its faster
im running hd's that spin at 10,000 rpm though

EricW · 10-04-2005, 05:49 PM

If you still want to play with it, you could try putting it in the system as a slave drive (let me know if you need instructions on doing that). The system controller may have a better time dealing with the messed up FAT than the USB drivers do. One other tip that may help if you get any further is to restart the system again after you have copied some stuff. I have seen more stuff show up/ and disappear on subsequent boot ups.

Eric