My custom-built WinXP Desktop's boot drive is a WD Raptor SATA. My PC began having lock-up issues and strange behavior. One day after noticing it frozen on WinXP screensaver, I powered down hard. Upon restart, the system would hang on the WinXP logo screen and eventually auto restart. I tried Safe Mode and it would stop on dontgo.sys. After several attempts at figuring out the cause... I eventually determined it is a failing/bad HDD.
I have both a external HDD enclosure and a set of cables/adapters to hookup internal drives thru USB. Using both of these, I was able to access the drive via my laptop only ONCE after freezing the drive overnight for about 1.5hrs before it stopped being recognized. I was able to obtain about 60 to 70% of my Docs, financials, .etc. Now, when attempting to access the drive, Disk Mgmt does see the drive (two partitions) as healthy and active, but when attempting to 'Open' or 'Explore' either partiion, I get the message "You need to format the disk in drive G: before you can use it." Once, before receiving this message, I did receive the message on one of the two partitions as "Data error cyclic redundancy Check". But, this error no longer appears. Only the format error. I have attempted multiple freezes and attempts to access the drive to no avail now.
Yes, I know ... backups. My backup drive faild about 7 months ago and hasn't been replaced. My backups on DVD in safe deposit box are 2yrs old. I failed to get a new backup drive in time. Now I may pay the price.
I have many experiences with attempting to retrieve data off of failing hard drives for clients. Howevever, whenever I've gotten to this point, I was out of options unless my client chose to send off the drive to a professional data recovery company and spend a pretty piece of $$.
Does anyone have any suggestions?
I have both a external HDD enclosure and a set of cables/adapters to hookup internal drives thru USB. Using both of these, I was able to access the drive via my laptop only ONCE after freezing the drive overnight for about 1.5hrs before it stopped being recognized. I was able to obtain about 60 to 70% of my Docs, financials, .etc. Now, when attempting to access the drive, Disk Mgmt does see the drive (two partitions) as healthy and active, but when attempting to 'Open' or 'Explore' either partiion, I get the message "You need to format the disk in drive G: before you can use it." Once, before receiving this message, I did receive the message on one of the two partitions as "Data error cyclic redundancy Check". But, this error no longer appears. Only the format error. I have attempted multiple freezes and attempts to access the drive to no avail now.
Yes, I know ... backups. My backup drive faild about 7 months ago and hasn't been replaced. My backups on DVD in safe deposit box are 2yrs old. I failed to get a new backup drive in time. Now I may pay the price.
I have many experiences with attempting to retrieve data off of failing hard drives for clients. Howevever, whenever I've gotten to this point, I was out of options unless my client chose to send off the drive to a professional data recovery company and spend a pretty piece of $$.
Does anyone have any suggestions?