Important data recovery from broken hard drive

Forum Storage : Hard Drives Important data recovery from broken hard drive

A nightmare just happenned to me, i lost my most important data and i absolutly need to recorver it.

Here is my situation :

I have a western digital caviar black 1tb i am using for my important data. I'm backing everything each month on an external hdd (iomega 1tb (thats a seagate drive))

So today, my WD Caviar Black broke ONCE AGAIN (it's the third time i RMA it, what a ******* piece of ***, i never have problem with cheap drives but Caviar Black keeps failing on me, i paid more to have something better but WESTERN DIGITAL IS JUNK)

The Caviar Black drives spin up and is recognized by BIOS, but it wont appear on my computer. I tryed external and internal....

So well i said no problem, i have a backup anyway.... I turned on my external drive (iomega 1tb (seagate drive)) but it is totally broken !!! Not spinning and not recognized by BIOS.

I am really angry and desperate, i have over 20TB of data but this 1TB is my most important data i REALLY need to recorver it

So, what should i try to recorver my data ? is there some kind of applications that could help me ? should i contact Western Digital, will they help me or they will just ask me to RMA their piece of junk once again ???

And if everything fails, how much would it cost me to recorver my data ? Could anyone suggest me a company that would do it for cheap ??

Message quoted 1 times

Reply to ungovernable

Are you able to pull the external drive housing apart and check the connections? Try installing the drive (removed from the external housing) into a PC.

Reply to Traildriver

If you are able to see the drive in the BIOS, I would attempt to boot outside of a Windows environment and run some diagnostics on the drive to see if it is more a Windows or drive issue. There is a great distribution available called Ultimate Boot CD. It contains multiple tools for HDD and other system tests in a self contained environment. You can find more information on the software here: http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

If needed, I recommend HDD Regenerator 2011 for recovering the data. More info here http://www.dposoft.net/#b_hddhid

Message edited by Puff3r on 10-30-2011 at 05:53:06 AM

Reply to Puff3r

Quote :

Are you able to pull the external drive housing apart and check the connections? Try installing the drive (removed from the external housing) into a PC.

Already tryed that, i'm not a computer newbie

Quote :

There is a great distribution available called Ultimate Boot CD. It contains multiple tools for HDD and other system tests in a self contained environment. You can find more information on the software here: http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

Thanks, i'll try that

Reply to ungovernable

If your drive is neither spinning nor detecting in BIOS then first check the connecting cable, may be it is not connected properly. Still if same problem then you need to visit your hardware vendor or a data recovery expert who recovers data manually.

Reply to JameshKoler

Im in a very similar situation, with the hd been in motion, showing in bios, but not the pc. Has anyone ever tryed taking the platter of the bad housing, and installing in a good housing.? would this actually work? my understanding this that this is what the pros do, take the platters out and clean it in a solution*unsure what kind), and than recover the data with another housing. Or is there a firmware deal associated with the drive that must be transferred as well?

Reply to mmike99

I heard over the forums that western digital support guys would ask you to do some self data recovery if the disk is broken.

I guess there is still hope that you can still bring your data back.

http://www.icare-recovery.com/data-recovery-free.html

Why don't you try free stuff like this free hard disk recovery software

It is free of charge and a friend of mine recommended this tool to me. And this link is not public on their website from their users.

Good luck.

Reply to Techeasy

hi tech, i have tryed that, but the bad sectors got in the way............

Reply to mmike99

It sounds like everyone is having HDD issues now that prices have skyrocketed...must be some kind of conspiracy. Here's a good link that's helped me in the past...I believe your issue is "Symptom 1" if I read everything right. Keep me updated cuz I plan on messing around with repairing HDDs at a later date (apparently there's lots of money in data recovery!) I shouldn't joke since I'm in limbo with a bunch of possible lost important docs myself.

http://www.capsicumgroup.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=23

Message edited by skytanker2003 on 11-17-2011 at 05:19:48 AM

Reply to skytanker2003