HDD Failure - HELP!

[MSTRKRFT]

First time poster in need of some help!

OK, I just updated my rig, making the change from AMD to Intel.

Anyway, I also bought my first Sata HDD in the upgrade but planned to use my 2 old IDE ones too.

I finished my build, turned on, and it powered up, which in itself is a first for me!! Anyway, the PC never picked up the IDE HDD's at all. I installed Windows on the Sata and had a play aroud with diff configs and found that plugging just one IDE in would work but to my horror windows says its not formatted and needs to be to work. I then tried the HDDs on another PC in the house, and AMD one, and they said the same, Partician Magic lists them as "Bad".

Theres lots of stuff on the drives I need and need to know how to recover the data. I will format them once I have the data but I need to get it off them and don't know how, any help?

Thanks in advance.

[cotswoldcs]

Don't panic - there's a good chance your data will still be OK.

First, check the jumpers on the PATA drive and all connections.
Check that the BIOS recognises the drive
Next, find out the make and run a test using the manufacturer's diagnostic boot disk (SeaTools, DFT etc)
See if the drive is recognised by a PC in Windows and try accessing the drive. If Windows recognises the drive but you can't access anything then it's probably a corrupt partition or MBR (Master Boot Record)

I've used Acronis Disk Director and VirtualLab to recover damaged partitions. The later is excellent but expensive for large amounts of data.

Best of luck.

[MSTRKRFT]

Thanks man and yes, it was a partition!

Using testdisk to copy the files I want to another HDD before formatting them and putting the files back.

Have a feeling it's my fault, I set up new partitions ready for the new system but after the last bit was done I turned the PC off and started the build instead of restarting just to let all changes take effect etc etc.

Again, thanks!

[threepe]

Recuva is a free data recovery tool. Its AMAZINGLY fast, but does not get everything, especially on damaged partitions.

Easy Recovery Professional is also good. This can recover data by scanning the drive, or trying to recover from the partition tables.

Another one is GetDateBack for NTFS.

If those tools have not helped you, it will cost you a lot to get your data back.

GOLDEN RULE : DONT DO ANYTHING THAT WRITES TO THOSE DRIVES. only use tools that read from them, and save the data to a new drive. DONT scandisk etc, that will only make it worse imo.