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Getting past system reserved portion while accessing old hard drive.

Tags:
  • Windows Explorer
  • Disk Management
  • Storage
  • Hard Drives
Last response: in Storage
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May 17, 2014 9:03:13 PM

Here's the story: my old HDD failed on me (not being detected, making clicking sounds etc), so I bought a new one. I did backup most of my important files, but theres quite a lot of non-backed up, non-essential stuff that that I would like to recover.

I borrowed a hard drive enclosure from a friend and plugged it in to see if it would detect, and it does get detected in windows explorer. However, it only shows as 'system reserved', about 100MB. Being the old C-drive, I get why it's there, but I want to access the content on the rest of the drive.

I googled around and found some solutions involving deleting the partition through disk management, but disk management freezes trying to detect the hard drive, and doesnt respond until I unplug the old drive.

I wanted to get some advice before messing something up. I also dont want to leave the hard drive running unnecessarily given the clicking sound.

So, can I access this data, and if so, how would I go about it?

More about : past system reserved portion accessing hard drive

Best solution

a c 360 G Storage
May 18, 2014 12:12:25 AM

If the drive is clicking it has already failed, the clicking noise means the read/write heads are jammed up against the data platters, so trying to read/copy data from it is simply not possible in the usual way. Moreover, the platters will have been damaged by coming into contact with the heads, so some data will also have suffered the same fate.

Only a data recovery specialist can recover any undamaged data from it, but the cost is eye-watering.

You could so easily have avoided that by backing up your data to another drive.
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May 18, 2014 1:21:50 AM

Well, the clicking is actually only at certain intervals, and usually only when the drive starts spinning. After about 10 seconds or so, it gets quiet again, but may start up at random times.
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June 5, 2014 12:36:57 PM

My story is similar, except that my old HD doesn't make any unusual noise. I bought a new (used) PCB for my drive, and I even swapped over the 8 pin SO part (I read that this may be a memory chip that must follow the original HD). Either way, with the new PCB, it acts exactly the same. The drive spins up (quietly), but Windows reports it as "system reserved" with no content. Any ideas? Thanks.
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