Data Recovery

[LayZeh]

I wondered if anyone knew who i'd speak to in regards to data recovery. I was working on my machine today, decided to listen to an mp3 on my data drive (200GB) on accessing the drive my machine froze. I've since been able to access the drive but everytime i attempt to open a file on it the machine will freeze, i've tried a different main drive to rule out the OS being the cause, i've tried it on a different IDE controller also but no cigar... my friend currently has it and i've asked him to try and recover data on his machine to rule out that other parts of my machine are failing (psu, mobo)... when trying to copy data from the drive to another i receive something to the tone of "cannot read from source disk"...

If my friend isn't successful there's data on there i need to recover, who could i speak to who would be willing to recover the data without any questions being asked?

[Mike Fishcake]

If my friend isn't successful there's data on there i need to recover, who could i speak to who would be willing to recover the data without any questions being asked?

Seriously though, it depends how serious your data is.

the 5 steps of data recovery where I work:

1. Ultimate Windows Boot CD and USB hard drive.
2. "Roadkil's unstoppable copier" - freeware program which copies all the files it can and just ignores the ones it can't, rather than spitting errors out and stopping like windows normally does.
3. use OnTrack EasyRecovery (not sure how much it cost, depends how much your data is worth to you though, unless you can find somebody with the software)
4. The freezer trick (shove the HD in a couple of antistatic bags and put it in the freezer for a couple of hours)
5. External Data retrieval company. F***ing expensive. a four figure sum isn't unusual.

[rajagra]

Companies like Ontrack and Vogon do data recovery. It isn't cheap, though.

Rather than trying to use Explorer to view the drive, have you tried doing a DIR from a command prompt?

You might even try something like
xcopy d:\ c:\recovery\ /r/i/c/h/d/y/k/e

if you have enough room on the C: drive.
One of those switches (/c) tries to continue even if errors occur.

[LayZeh]

check disk verifying files in read-only mode fails, all file records return unreadable.

[StormPC]

Sounds like the drive is hammered.

[Atomic]

5. External Data retrieval company. F***ing expensive. a four figure sum isn't unusual.

Was £157 incVAT for 3.34GB when a guy at work had it done, that was with OnTrack.

They'll charge you about £50 just for looking at the drive, then whatever else ontop for recovering the data.

Dread to think how much it would cost for 200GB!

[Mike Fishcake]

Was £157 incVAT for 3.34GB when a guy at work had it done, that was with OnTrack.

Really? That little? That sounds ludicrously cheap!

[nightic]

If the drive is still in warranty the first thing I would try is an 'advanced RMA' whereby the drive manufacturer will send you a replacement drive prior to sending your own back.
They'll need your credit card details beforehand as security to ensure they do eventually (they have a 30 day limit typically) receive the faulty drive.

Once you have the replacement drive, temporily swap the control board (the external circuit board) onto the failing drive and see if that allows your to retrieve your data.
This isn't foolproof and can fail due to differences in PCB revision and drive firmware however it has worked for me several times in the past.
(The fact that your drive is spinning up leads me to think it's the elctronics rather than anything mechanical that is failing.)

Failing that I'd send the drive off to Duncan Clarke at www.retrodata.co.uk who is well known over in the uk.adverts.computer newsgroup for being reliable as well as significantly more economical than the more well-known firms.

[PS: I have no connection with retrodata myself although I can vouch for Duncan, having traded with him in the past].

[LayZeh]

thank you for the switches rajagra, after running chkdsk again, for some reason it was successful, only 304kb of bad sectors, so i ran what you suggested and wallah, i think i got everything back... ps. are you aware the last three switches spell dyke.

... cheers.