Dead Hard Drive,Need Data

raunak

Honorable
Jun 8, 2013
3
0
10,510
Hi ,
I have an all in one desktop, it was running windows xp sp2.

The other day we had a power cut and the computer went off.

Once power was back we tried to reboot,the computer is refusing to boot.

I believed that the hdd is dead, and so it is.

The drive is a Seagate 2.5 " Sata ,250 GB .ST925031 5AS
What I mean by dead here:

1. HDD spins and powers up.
2. It detects in BIOS.
3. I used an external adaptor of 2 types and connected it to another PC via USB, it shows in device manager under Disk drives.
4. It shows in windows disk management as Disk 1, unallocated 232 GB.
5. I tried to connect to a bootable Ubuntu pen drive, does not detect(the drive was connected via the same 2 usb interfaces)
5. Tried running a couple of Data Recovery and Partition Recovery softwares but in vain. need urgent assistance as the data on the drive is critical for us .
 
Solution
Hi

A dead drive, a corrupted drive and a dying hard disk are different problems with different methods of repair and recovery

yours is clearly not dead

to rule out physical damage you need Seagate's hard disk diagnostics utility preferably the bootable cd image (ISO) version, or possibly the Windows version.

Put the disk back in a PC for the tests

If it passes the diagnostic tests you have corruption possibly to the master boot sector or partition information

If it fails the diagnostic tests further action needs expert advice

before trying any recovery procedure make a image of the hard disk using software which reads all the sectors of the hard disk not just the partitions or files in partitions. (dd or equivalent)

TestDisk...
Hi

A dead drive, a corrupted drive and a dying hard disk are different problems with different methods of repair and recovery

yours is clearly not dead

to rule out physical damage you need Seagate's hard disk diagnostics utility preferably the bootable cd image (ISO) version, or possibly the Windows version.

Put the disk back in a PC for the tests

If it passes the diagnostic tests you have corruption possibly to the master boot sector or partition information

If it fails the diagnostic tests further action needs expert advice

before trying any recovery procedure make a image of the hard disk using software which reads all the sectors of the hard disk not just the partitions or files in partitions. (dd or equivalent)

TestDisk /PhotoRec
from http://www.cgsecurity.org/ (windows, dos, linux versions available)
this program suite is also found on Parted Magic linux CD

It can recover corrupted partition information which will let Windows see the partition again

there are several other options available, some free some cost money, some are trial which require activation & payment to carry out the repairs


I have re-read your message
"as the data on the drive is critical for us "
You should consider going to an expert in the data recovery field,
some are pay on results

best of luck

Mike Barnes
 
Solution

raunak

Honorable
Jun 8, 2013
3
0
10,510
Hi Mike,

Thanks for the prompt reply.

I want to ask you with what program or software may I clone the HDD.

Also The seagate seatools It passes the Short Generic test, the long one takes too long I tried it once but I believe the program freezes.

At the moment im running getdata RecoverMyfiles and its on the Partition Recovery Mode.