Hard drive

[jazzct55]

Hello,
I recently spilled beer into my laptop, pretty much ruining it. I removed the hard drive, which seemed dry, and after purchasing a new laptop and an external sata drive reader, plugged the hard drive into the reader to try to salvage the files. The HD is spinning, but the laptop is telling me I have to format the discbefore using it. Is there a way to bypass this so I can reteive my files? It is recognizing the drive, saying "systemreserved", but when I open it the folder is empty.

 

[Hawkeye22]

You might want to try some partition recovery software or data recovery software.

http://www.partition-tool.com/personal.htm

http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizard/free-data-recovery-software.htm

 

[WyomingKnott]

The most common solution is to download some kind of software that can scan the drive sector-by-sector and recover whatever data is readable. The software's skill lies in reconstructing the damaged partition and directory information. One example that is mentioned frequently is Clonezilla.

If the drive did get beer inside, attempting to do this will spin the drive and cause more damage. This will make professional recovery, which is expensive even at this point, more lengthy and expensive.

I strongly suggest that you buy an external hard drive for your new machine and keep backups of any files that you might want if another disaster occurs. I once got coffee in a hard drive. It was a total loss, but I surprised my boss by pulling out last week's backup and getting back to work in four hours.

 

[fzabkar]

If you can see some kind of file system on the drive, then I suspect you may be encountering a security issue. Can you provide any more information about the original laptop?

 

[jazzct55]

You might want to try some partition recovery software or data recovery software.

http://www.partition-tool.com/personal.htm

http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizard/free-data-recovery-software.htm

Thanks for providing these links, I'll give them a try and let you know the results.

 

[jazzct55]

The most common solution is to download some kind of software that can scan the drive sector-by-sector and recover whatever data is readable. The software's skill lies in reconstructing the damaged partition and directory information. One example that is mentioned frequently is Clonezilla.

If the drive did get beer inside, attempting to do this will spin the drive and cause more damage. This will make professional recovery, which is expensive even at this point, more lengthy and expensive.

I strongly suggest that you buy an external hard drive for your new machine and keep backups of any files that you might want if another disaster occurs. I once got coffee in a hard drive. It was a total loss, but I surprised my boss by pulling out last week's backup and getting back to work in four hours.

I actually do have an external hard drive, and have a good percentage of data backed up and already restored on my new machine. BUT, like a real dummy, its been 6 months since I did a back up, and have a least a thousand pics on the damaged drive NOT backed up. Another member provided a link for data recovery software that I'm going to try.

 

[jazzct55]

If you can see some kind of file system on the drive, then I suspect you may be encountering a security issue. Can you provide any more information about the original laptop?

It's a Gateway 17.3inch laptop, AMD processor, 500 gb HD, 4 gb memory, about 2 years old. Just a basic machine,running windows 7, using Norton security software provided by Comcast.

 

[fzabkar]

As suggested by WyomingKnott, I would image your "problem" drive onto another drive, and then work on the clone. If the imaging completes without error, then this would confirm that there is no physical problem with the drive. Instead it would point to a "logical" issue, possibly related to security, or file system corruption.