Harddrive Fail

[<Prince Jamez>]

hi,
i think i have a broken harddrive, i dont know how it broke, but lastnight i tried to boot it up it asked for a boot option, it doesnt read the sata harddrive, i have tried using the xp disc but when i put that in it blue screens, so im going to buy a new hdd but i was wondering if there was a way to get the files/data back off the buggerd one. when i try to boot the hdd sounds as if it cnt get started it trys to spin up n stops, i thought maybe theres not enough power going to it, but that wernt the case, so i dont know but again does anyone now if i could get the data back.

thanks

[[GPO]Solitaire]

there are loads of programs (some free)

search the forum for "data recovery" there is a few posts like this over the past few years and to be honest all that changes is the price ;)

But my personal choice is "GetDataBack" you can get it in FAT and NTFS flavours
www.runtime.org

Most will give you a demo that will see how much they can recover before you buy.

[nicky munchkin]

Solitaire;428474']there are loads of programs (some free)

search the forum for "data recovery" there is a few posts like this over the past few years and to be honest all that changes is the price ;)

But my personal choice is "GetDataBack" you can get it in FAT and NTFS flavours
www.runtime.org (http://www.runtime.org)

Most will give you a demo that will see how much they can recover before you buy.
No

Q. While running GetDataBack I receive a disk error. What does this mean?
A. GetDataBack is a solution for software related problems, it cannot help you with failed hardware.
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[LSG501]

This is a long shot more than anything - does the hard drive show up in the bios. If yes then the issue could be the mbr is damaged/corrupted/overwritten.

I can't vouch for this program but it's meant to fix mbr issues
linky (http://bootmaster.filerecovery.biz/index.html?gclid=CKSYlo_zxpACFQuKMAodQFf-Pw)

Now if it isn't that issue the only real way to get the data is fairly costly. If the data isn't critical it may be worth a shot even if it just manages to get the data off the drive.

Also a linux live disk (nothing installed) might be worth a shot too.

[Fireblade]

If you've got one... stick the dodgy HDD in an external [SATA] enclosure, and see if it shows in My Computer or in Disk Management?
On the off-chance it does show... you could try a few different data recovery programs (Google 'Hard Drive Data Recovery Software'), to see if they reckon any data is recoverable.

But I have to say.. I'm not very hopeful. The drive sounds like it's completely had it, unfortunately :(

If the data is valuable (in which case, you should've had it backed up!), it's gonna be quite a costly affair to send it off to HDD recovery experts (Google 'Hard Drive Data Recovery'), to have them get what they can off it for you.

[<Prince Jamez>]

There was nothing that important on there just music and games,which i will have to download and install again :(