Hard Drive go Boom Boom

[Frosty]

My old 15Gb Fujitsu Hd died so ive ordered a new 160Gb Maxtor one but i was wondering what was the way to get data bk off the old disk (utilities/tools or techniques.)

The Fujitsu drive was my main drive, computer booted off it, it attempts to load up windows with the bar thing but then a blue screen comes up saying "Unmountable Drive Partition" or some such.I know how to format it if i wish but i would like to get as much data off it as possible. I don't think anything has broken off inside or some such so will i be able to get any data off it won't i?

Any help is as always appreciated.

Adam

[Kumagoro]

OK it all depends what is wrong with it... if the board with all the electronics went kaput you can swap over a working one with another same model board.

Unfortunatly you have a fujitsu drive which i get the feeling is probably an MPG3xxx
which are defective drives. Look on the back and if you see a cirrus logic chip, if the 4 number bit is less then 0105 then you have a defective drive. The data is lost for good probably. A new board wont work on those as the data is encrypted and is dependent on the board it came with.

You can try one of those £500 data recovery places probably your only chance.. probably not worth it though.

[Frosty]

lol the data isn't that important just means i have alot of ripping to do again ah well tah 4 help

[unrealrocks]

Don't try and load it - try putting it as the slave drive and copying the information off it.

This might sound a little daft but it does work ... try bagging it up and sticking it in your fridge for a few hours, while its still cold - plug it in as a slave drive and see if you can retrieve the information off it.

As a last resort you could try a little percussive maintanance, give it knocks on the edge of the drive and see if you can get anymore data off the drive.

Those last two could well **** the drive - but if its knackered allready you've not got anything to lose.

[oldnewbie]

Maxblast3.win (with the retail Maxtor disk or, if oem, from the Maxtor web site) is a utility that will pull all system and data files from one disk and put them onto another, which it then makes bootable. This will, of course, only work if you can boot up with your original disk (fridge/percussion?).

[Frosty]

Funnily enough i already have that proggie since i just bought a maxtor harddrive to replace it , might give that a shot after i put it as slave when the new one finally gets delivered (Thur or Fri i hope) I'll keep you lot updated.