Thread: What's a good data recovry utility for a dropped ata hard drive?

Anything worthwhile will cost dolla dolla bills.

I think.

Are you willing to spend dolla dolla bills?

Yep. It's one thing to have a corrupted drive because a motherboard controller went bad or because Windows takes a dump. Physical damage is a completely different game.

At that point, all you can do it turn it over to a data recovery specialist. And they generally start at $1500 and go up very quickly.

That's not good

Look into Bad Copy Pro....it might be able to help BadCopy Pro - Floppy Disk, CD and Digital Media Data Recovery Software

I've had lots of success with this program bring things back from the dead.

You could also look into SpinRite from Gibson research.
GRC*|*Hard drive data recovery software**

SpinRite requires a DOS installation though. FreeDOS will work fine

If it's really important, look into a media recovery center. There's sticker shock though (several thousand clams )

Originally Posted by DOMS

Yep. It's one thing to have a corrupted drive because a motherboard controller went bad or because Windows takes a dump. Physical damage is a completely different game.

At that point, all you can do it turn it over to a data recovery specialist. And they generally start at $1500 and go up very quickly.

We paid $2100 to recover ours.

Sucker ReproMan

Download Hiren's Boot CD 9.1 and check out some of the tools on there first, good chance one of them will do the trick.

If that doesn't work, here's what you do, and no I'm not kidding. Your drive is probably not going to be regularly usable, but you can still recover the data most likely. Clear out a portion of your freezer and stick your hard drive in there for a few hours, let it get good and cold. The point of this is the freezing cold will temporarily straighten out the plates, which may allow you to recover your data. Just plug it in after it's good and freezing cold, then get what you need off of it as quickly as possible. After that, junk the drive.

I should run a data recovery company and make dollas

Originally Posted by danzik17

Sucker ReproMan

Download Hiren's Boot CD 9.1 and check out some of the tools on there first, good chance one of them will do the trick.

If that doesn't work, here's what you do, and no I'm not kidding. Your drive is probably not going to be regularly usable, but you can still recover the data most likely. Clear out a portion of your freezer and stick your hard drive in there for a few hours, let it get good and cold. The point of this is the freezing cold will temporarily straighten out the plates, which may allow you to recover your data. Just plug it in after it's good and freezing cold, then get what you need off of it as quickly as possible. After that, junk the drive.

Ours was completely fried. We didn't drop it, it was burn like toast.

What do you mean burnt like toast? Overvoltage and actually burnt it, or some other kind of burnt?

Originally Posted by danzik17

What do you mean burnt like toast? Overvoltage and actually burnt it, or some other kind of burnt?

Not sure what exactly caused it, but it was literally smoking. Our IT guy is a personal friend, worked with it for a while and all he could suggest was sending it out to a data recovery specialist, because all of his "tricks" weren't working.

We had no choice in the matter, we needed that data and fast. 2k was a small price to pay at the time.

Sounds like there is a very good chance of recovering your data if you can read the names, you just need to get those names pointing to the files again...I had to use several different recovery programs when my HD crashed once....try some of the above....

This is one of the ones I remember using:JFileRecovery reviews and free downloads

You should have used carbonite.com

Originally Posted by danzik17

If that doesn't work, here's what you do, and no I'm not kidding. Your drive is probably not going to be regularly usable, but you can still recover the data most likely. Clear out a portion of your freezer and stick your hard drive in there for a few hours, let it get good and cold. The point of this is the freezing cold will temporarily straighten out the plates, which may allow you to recover your data. Just plug it in after it's good and freezing cold, then get what you need off of it as quickly as possible. After that, junk the drive.

that is a last resort trick, but typically that is used for a drive that won't spin.

Yea I know, I was kind of assuming the drive was on when he dropped it, so the plates might have gotten a bit messed alignment wise.

... JFileRecovery ... ... no help. I have hirens boot cd but the drive is installed in an external enclosure. As a last resort I'll toss it into one of the laptops and give that a whirl.

I did get the stuff out of my doc's as soon as I powered it up, and even watched the opening battle scene from an HD download of Gladiator. I killed the vid and went on to try and move everything else but kept getting no data errors. Now I get the same error on Gladiator. I'm gonna do the freeze method and see if I can get the data off before it gets warm.

So now I need a small external that will handle my clumsiness. Suggestions, comments, and criticisms are all welcome.

Originally Posted by danzik17

Yea I know, I was kind of assuming the drive was on when he dropped it, so the plates might have gotten a bit messed alignment wise.

It was on indeed. I like the smallness of the external ata in an enclosure if I can just not drop the things anymore

Originally Posted by BoneCrusher

... JFileRecovery ... ... no help. I have hirens boot cd but the drive is installed in an external enclosure. As a last resort I'll toss it into one of the laptops and give that a whirl.

I did get the stuff out of my doc's as soon as I powered it up, and even watched the opening battle scene from an HD download of Gladiator. I killed the vid and went on to try and move everything else but kept getting no data errors. Now I get the same error on Gladiator. I'm gonna do the freeze method and see if I can get the data off before it gets warm.

So now I need a small external that will handle my clumsiness. Suggestions, comments, and criticisms are all welcome.

I don't think you need to use the freeze method since the drive is spinning, it just sounds like the r/w head crashed into the plates and destroyed some sectors, but not the (allocation table or directory?)where the filename is. What you need to do is get it to try to rebuild the links from where the address is stored to the actual physical address, have you tried disk check or disk scan?

Originally Posted by maniclion

I don't think you need to use the freeze method since the drive is spinning, it just sounds like the r/w head crashed into the plates and destroyed some sectors, but not the (allocation table or directory?)where the filename is. What you need to do is get it to try to rebuild the links from where the address is stored to the actual physical address, have you tried disk check or disk scan?

No I haven't. Is that on JFileRecovery?

1. In My Computer or Windows Explorer, right-click the volume you want to check, and then click Properties.
2. On the Tools tab, click Check Now.
3. Do one of the following:
   • To run Chkdsk in read-only mode, click Start.
   • To run Chkdsk by using the /f parameter, select the Automatically fix file system errors check box and then click Start.
   • To run Chkdsk by using the /r parameter, select the Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors check box and then click Start.

I would check both boxes...

Originally Posted by maniclion

1. In My Computer or Windows Explorer, right-click the volume you want to check, and then click Properties.
2. On the Tools tab, click Check Now.
3. Do one of the following:
   • To run Chkdsk in read-only mode, click Start.
   • To run Chkdsk by using the /f parameter, select the Automatically fix file system errors check box and then click Start.
   • To run Chkdsk by using the /r parameter, select the Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors check box and then click Start.

I would check both boxes...

Now I get 0 bytes of data

Damn, that sucks dude. Yeah I had to recover all of the files off of out work pc when the drive died, and it was a bitch.

Bone, maybe you should try this program file recovery tool - ExhumeIt: Recover Deleted Files - Downloads by PC Magazine
it looks like it may be able to scan a drive and find hidden files, or files that have lost their attachment to the filesystem table...

I managed to get the stuff from my doc's out so the rest is stuff in my downloads folder. I really wanted to save all my MMA stuff, but looks like it's a goner. Now I'm wondering if I reformat that drive will it be able to be used again.

I'll post the results in a few ...

Manic that one didn't read any deleted or lost files either. But thanks for the efforts. I do appreciate it.

Originally Posted by BoneCrusher

I managed to get the stuff from my doc's out so the rest is stuff in my downloads folder. I really wanted to save all my MMA stuff, but looks like it's a goner. Now I'm wondering if I reformat that drive will it be able to be used again.

I'll post the results in a few ...

Manic that one didn't read any deleted or lost files either. But thanks for the efforts. I do appreciate it.

I wouldn't use it again, once the r/w head touches down on the platters things can really start going down hill from there. See when it does that it scraps small pieces off and the can float around in the swarm of spinning disks and end up under the small cushion of air the head is riding on, even a smoke particle could get in there and screw it up, the cushion of air is that microscopic. They have drives with motion sensors that will park the heads if they sense sudden jostlings, these are usually used in laptop drives.....