Partition Table Damage, Showing Blank Hard Drive

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TeamBills

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I finally learned my lesson about backing stuff up from your computer. I've said it before but this time I really have.

Anyways, I was going through old hard drives and I stumbled on 1 that I felt had important information on it that I wanted to copy over. I didn't use the hard drive for years, and I didn't remember there being any problems with it, but I guess there were. When I boot from the hard drive I get this message:


Stop: C00002e3 Security Accounts Manager initialization failed because of the following error: A device attached to the system is not functioning.

Error Status: 0xc0000001


That isn't the main problem though or part of the question I have, I only mention it to explain that I can't boot from the hard drive. The problem I'm having is with the partition table. For some reason when I hook the hard drive up as a secondary hard drive (as a slave) it tells me that it is a blank hard drive and that there isn't anything on it, and its not even given a drive number as there is nothing on it (formatted). That's the part I don't understand as I'm positive this is the drive that had my old stuff on it. The only cause of this I can think of it it is a partition table failure.

My question is will partition table recovery software work if it is showing me a blank drive (even though I know there is data on it)?

Thanks a million I really appreciate the help and sorry for the length of the message.

 
Solution
D_Know_WD
Sorry for the late reply.

I can't really comment on specific prices or price ranges. You can open up a thread on that. (something like data recovery company options or price ranges)
Most of the HDD manufacturers offer their own data recovery services or have trusted partners. You can check that out. Also, many companies have the practice of charging on whats recovered. (not taking your money for nothing)

Cheers,
D_Know_WD :)
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TeamBills

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Thanks for responding.

No, the weird part is that nothing is showing up on the drive. It is blank and needs to be partitioned to be used. There is nothing on it, but if I partitioned it it would have the full 500GB. I had stuff on it, that is what I don't understand.

The question I have is if I can recover the data while having this problem. I can't see how, but I wanted to ask some experts (the guys on here) first.
 
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D_Know_WD

D_Know_WD

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Ah, then you need to just run some partition recovery tool and hope that the data would be recoverable.

Once you do that, it would be nice to test the drive with a brand specific tool. The results should show the overall health status of the drive.

Cheers,
D_Know_WD :)
 
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TeamBills

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Are there any partition recovery tools that you would recommend? Also, I don't have a desktop computer and my laptop only has 1 spot for a hard drive and when ever I try to boot from the hard drive I get the message I wrote about earlier, the

Stop: C00002e3 Security Accounts Manager initialization failed because of the following error: A device attached to the system is not functioning.

Error Status: 0xc0000001

error, so I can't boot from it. Is there a way to hook it up to a labtop computer as a second drive with like some USB cord or something? Or would I have to find a desktop computer?

Thanks for the free help :) I'm so crushed I allowed this to happen. I had a document on there that had ideas for a video game that were just absolute genius. It was like 250,000 words too lol. I can't remember hardly any of it anymore. Like I said I learned my lesson and my stuff is backed up now.

I got it attached as a secondary drive on a computer shop's computer before but they said they wouldn't allow me to do that again without charging me.

 
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D_Know_WD

D_Know_WD

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Well, if the data stored on the drive is crucial, you may want to contact a data recovery company.

If you don't want to go with that option, you can just grab a SATA to USB adapter and attach the HDD to another laptop. See if the HDD is recognized at all. If it is recognized by Disk Management, try to run some data recovery tools on it. I can't really recommend you a specific one as I am a rep.

D_Know_WD :)
 
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TeamBills

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I'm a college student and not working and I don't have money to throw around. Those data recovery companies are super expensive aren't they and they don't guarantee that they will find anything and give you the money back? If they guarantee you the money back I would do that once I have a job, but I can't find any that do.

It comes up in disk management, it did when I took it to the computer shop, but there is no drive letter, and it looks like how a drive would if you bought a hard drive and didn't put anything on it yet or format it yet, but all of the GBs are still there.

If I select a solution to a thread does that stop people from being able to respond to the thread? I would select you as the best option, but I'm curious first if anyone has used any data recovery services that are cheap and only charge you if they find the data.
 
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D_Know_WD

D_Know_WD

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Jul 30, 2014
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Sorry for the late reply.

I can't really comment on specific prices or price ranges. You can open up a thread on that. (something like data recovery company options or price ranges)
Most of the HDD manufacturers offer their own data recovery services or have trusted partners. You can check that out. Also, many companies have the practice of charging on whats recovered. (not taking your money for nothing)

Cheers,
D_Know_WD :)
 
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