hi i have an old dell 80gb hdd on device mgr it says not initialized and has the cyclic redundancy check error message chkdsk

Solution
Hi there Collision pending,

You can try using some data recovery tool as DSzymborski suggested: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/282651-32-best-diagnostic-testing-utility
There is not really need to get enclosure or attach it to another computer. As you see it in disk management showing as unintialized, I assume that this is a secondary drive.

In case you can't access the drive with software data recovery tools, you may need to contact a data recovery company.

D_Know_WD

DSzymborski

Curmudgeon Pursuivant
Moderator


That's likely a hard drive that is dying, especially considering how old it is by now. Hard drives have physical platters and given enough time, most will eventually fail.

Your best bet right now is to stop using the hard drive completely, getting an external enclosure for it, and trying to recover from it on another PC with software like Recuva.

Best of luck - whether or not you are successful at recovering your photos, please take this as a lesson on having a responsible plan for backing up your important files. Anything important enough to not want to lose is important enough to protect.
 
Hi there Collision pending,

You can try using some data recovery tool as DSzymborski suggested: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/282651-32-best-diagnostic-testing-utility
There is not really need to get enclosure or attach it to another computer. As you see it in disk management showing as unintialized, I assume that this is a secondary drive.

In case you can't access the drive with software data recovery tools, you may need to contact a data recovery company.

D_Know_WD
 
Solution

DSzymborski

Curmudgeon Pursuivant
Moderator


Oh, it's probably not absolutely necessary, but the less he's running the hard drive now, the better!