# recovering data from a failed hdd



## ste2425 (Aug 25, 2013)

The hdd in my sisters laptop has failed. Or at least i think it has. It no longer shows up in the laptops BIOS. I can hear it spinning up However. When i get it home im going to hook it up to my desktop and see if we have any luck but is there any advice from you guys of anything i can do to try and recover any data of it. Its full of photo's of my nephew from 1 month upto a year and stupidly we didnt back any of them up. So if the hdd is completally dead there all lost.

I hope you guys can come up with some form of help. 

Thanks all.


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## AsRock (Aug 25, 2013)

If you cannot get it show in the laptops bios you could check the connection just in case and try it in another system if\when possible and if still no show the only other way is pay to get the data off then it's a case of how much the data is worth to her.


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## ste2425 (Aug 25, 2013)

AsRock said:


> If you cannot get it show in the laptops bios you could check the connection just in case and try it in another system if\when possible and if still no show the only other way is pay to get the data off then it's a case of how much the data is worth to her.



I was worried paying someone would be the only option if it doesn't how in my BIOS


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## Deleted member 24505 (Aug 25, 2013)

ste2425 said:


> I was worried paying someone would be the only option if it doesn't how in my BIOS



It's not very cheap either unfortunately.


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## Jack1n (Aug 25, 2013)

Maybe it would be cheaper to buy anuther exact drive,take both apart and swap the platters?


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## de.das.dude (Aug 25, 2013)

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

you can recover data, almost all of it. but do go through the instructions on their site. this is a very professional and very complicated software.


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## ste2425 (Aug 25, 2013)

Thanks all for the help. She was very distraught when I told her its probably all lost. 

De.das, I've only been able to glance at that link on phone. Ill give it a proper go over when I get home but will it help even if the drive is not detected in BIOS?


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## de.das.dude (Aug 25, 2013)

ste2425 said:


> Thanks all for the help. She was very distraught when I told her its probably all lost.
> 
> De.das, I've only been able to glance at that link on phone. Ill give it a proper go over when I get home but will it help even if the drive is not detected in BIOS?



i dont know, but its worth a shot.
i got a deleted partition back completely after deleting and formatting it!


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## Aquinus (Aug 26, 2013)

ste2425 said:


> Ill give it a proper go over when I get home but will it help even if the drive is not detected in BIOS?



If it's not detected in the BIOS, there is a really good bet that nothing will detect it. Every drive that has done this to me has failed catastrophically with the only method of getting data back is swapping the platters or paying someone to do it for you.

I said "uh oh" the moment you said that it wasn't detected in the BIOS. 

Like other have said, check all the cables. If the drive still spins up and doesn't make any weird noises, I would try the drive in a different machine. I was able to recover many files off a failing laptop hard drive from my Dell Studio 1735, but it was still detected by the BIOS, but I couldn't get everything back. Some blocks were just too far gone. Even DD (not DDD  ) would get stuck on certain blocks.


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## Jetster (Aug 26, 2013)

Laptops break much easier. Your not even sure its the HD Hook it up to another PC and see. Why dont people keep backups?


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## Strontium_dog (Aug 26, 2013)

I've had some good results using http://www.lsoft.net/bootdisk.aspx for data recovery give it a try before you think about paying for recovery

As pxgolfer85 says you could try using linux by downloading Ubuntu disc from here http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop and booting from it and choosing to run OS from disc to see if your HDD is picked up


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## techbuzz (Aug 26, 2013)

I have had success with r-studio. Even with drives that aren't being detected by the BIOS.

http://www.data-recovery-software.net/

Another trick is connecting the drive to a linux or mac computer. A lot of times connecting the failing drive to a different operating system allows any weirdness to get bypassed.


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## AsRock (Aug 26, 2013)

Any chance she sent any of those pics to people like though Yahoo and never cleans out the sent folder ?..

As some one else said buy a second hand one of the same drives and see if you can make a working one..  Although it is a hit and miss as you need the same model and version and swap the circuit board.


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## itsakjt (Aug 26, 2013)

First of all, try it out on your desktop. Also if it is spinning but does not show up in BIOS, you are in luck. Manage to get hold of a same model HDD(exactly same). Put the PCB of the working HDD to the non-working one and connect it.


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## techlogi50 (Aug 26, 2013)

*Re:*



ste2425 said:


> The hdd in my sisters laptop has failed. Or at least i think it has. It no longer shows up in the laptops BIOS. I can hear it spinning up However. When i get it home im going to hook it up to my desktop and see if we have any luck but is there any advice from you guys of anything i can do to try and recover any data of it. Its full of photo's of my nephew from 1 month upto a year and stupidly we didnt back any of them up. So if the hdd is completally dead there all lost.
> 
> I hope you guys can come up with some form of help.
> 
> Thanks all.



If the drive is spinning then try to check it in BIOS then I would like to recommend Kernel for Windows Data Recovery Software to recover your any type of data from your hard drive.


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## ste2425 (Aug 26, 2013)

Thanks again everyone for the replies. I'm still at my parents, hour and half drive from home. So can't hook it upto to my rig and check. (Unexpected family illness keeping me here). 

Sadly no emails and no back ups, no matter how many times I tell her 

It does spin up and thankfully no strange noises so swapping the board is a possibility. 

Again thanks for all the replies and advice, sorry i can't follow it as quickly as I'd have liked but ill post up the results when I do.


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## ste2425 (Aug 29, 2013)

Right well sadly its not good news i think.

I hooked it upto my rig yesterday night, didn't have time to try any of the above mentioned programmes. It didn't show up at all in the BIOS and caused my POST to take much longer. The system as a whole runs extremely slow with the HDD connected. 

Worst of all you can hear it spinning up then stopping, similar to when a DVD drive doesn't recognise a disc. It doesn't do it repeatedly. First when it was posting then occasionally when the system has booted. 

Will this cause complications for possibly swapping out the circuit board, or sending it off for data recovery?


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## de.das.dude (Aug 29, 2013)

nope. you can swap the ckt bard yourself


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## RCoon (Aug 29, 2013)

Put the HDD in the freezer overnight. Then boot up a Parted Magic Live disk and check the disk health, and see if you can access the partition from there.


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## ste2425 (Aug 29, 2013)

RCoon said:


> Put the HDD in the freezer overnight. Then boot up a Parted Magic Live disk and check the disk health, and see if you can access the partition from there.



Really? Ive read about that and it seems like an old wives tale. But on the other hand so does gpu baking and that worked for me.


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## RCoon (Aug 29, 2013)

ste2425 said:


> Really? Ive read about that and it seems like an old wives tale. But on the other hand so does gpu baking and that worked for me.



hdd freezing has recovered files from 17 hdd's at work in the last year alone. We do it regularly along with gpu baking, which tends to work best with the old geforce x000 series


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## Jetster (Aug 29, 2013)

The only thing that will work in this case is to replace the pcb board


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## ste2425 (Aug 29, 2013)

Jetster said:


> The only thing that will work in this case is to replace the pcb board



Even though it isn't spinning up properly? Itl start to spin then stop and repeat randomly.


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## Aquinus (Aug 29, 2013)

ste2425 said:


> Even though it isn't spinning up properly? Itl start to spin then stop and repeat randomly.



In other words, the motor is failing. This is a great time to throw it in the freezer tbh. It may only have trouble spinning it up, not to keeping it spinning. You might get lucky.


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## Joseph Martin (Sep 10, 2013)

I understand your problem. 1 week ago I also lost all my data from hard drive which was crashed. Then one of my friend suggested me to use Remo Recover tool and seriously it worked for me as a miracle. Now I have all my data. Have a look on it. I hope you will like its features.


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## Frick (Sep 10, 2013)

So why does putting it in a freezer work? How?


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## kiddagoat (Sep 10, 2013)

Hey there I seen your post and thought to give my own opinion.

I just so happen to do this stuff for a living and see many types of drive failure on a daily basis.

Unfortunately in your case if the drive is not seen by the laptop at all and upon hooking it up to your own system, the POST and whole functioning of the system is extremely slow then you most likely have a hardware fault in the drive.  NO SOFTWARE will fix a hardware fault be it the motor, the controller board, the heads, etc..

If you use one of the software mentioned aren't successful and then wish to try a professional service, they are more than likely NOT going to be able to get the data.  When you use those 3rd party applications, it puts a lot more unnecessary stress on the drive and causes it to degrade more.

If it were a case of you accidently formatting or erased something sure those programs are great.  Even in the event of several bad sectors and the drive still works, you can access it, there isn't any weird clicking or buzzing sounds, then yes those software applications are lifesavers.

Your case is hardware and I would get an evaluation done on the drive to see what it would cost to get the data.  I know for us it ranges from $450-$1700 depending on the condition of the drive and what has to be done to get the data back if at all.

You can look into the controller board as noted but keep in mind that just because you have the exact same model and firmware the controller board and the BIOS/Firmware on that controller board could be different.


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## Jetster (Sep 10, 2013)

The only hope is changing the board. Freezer does not work. There are many examples why on youtube and other places why. But basically when metal drops below ambient temps its starts to sweat and moisture in the air forms condensation. Then the head runs threw the water destroying your data. Its doesn't matter if you put it in a bag or seal it in something else its still going to sweat as soon as it hits warm air

The motor speeds are all over the place because the board has a short. You could try to re flow the board


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## stinger608 (Sep 10, 2013)

RCoon said:


> Put the HDD in the freezer overnight. Then boot up a Parted Magic Live disk and check the disk health, and see if you can access the partition from there.



This was going to be my suggestion as well. As noted though, try changing the circuit board first.



Jetster said:


> The only hope is changing the board. Freezer does not work. There are many examples why on youtube and other places why. But basically when metal drops below ambient temps its starts to sweat and moisture in the air forms condensation. Then the head runs threw the water destroying your data. Its doesn't matter if you put it in a bag or seal it in something else its still going to sweat as soon as it hits warm air
> 
> The motor speeds are all over the place because the board has a short. You could try to re flow the board



Jetster, you have a very important statement there. Now I have had both luck and no luck freezing hard drives in the past. However what I did find, and have had more luck since, is getting a plastic container, putting ice in the container, putting the hard drive in, and filling the rest of the container with ice. Hook a SATA cable to the drive during this process and poke a hole in the end of the container just big enough to run the SATA cable through before filling the remaining area with ice. Now take that entire container and put in the freezer overnight. The next day take that entire container out leaving the hard drive in the ice. Now just open the side of your system, plug the SATA cable into your system and boot the system. 
Having the drive surrounded by ice will reduce heat and give that extra time to attempt to recover the important data.


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## Jetster (Sep 10, 2013)

stinger608 said:


> Jetster, you have a very important statement there. Now I have had both luck and no luck freezing hard drives in the past. However what I did find, and have had more luck since, is getting a plastic container, putting ice in the container, putting the hard drive in, and filling the rest of the container with ice. Hook a SATA cable to the drive during this process and poke a hole in the end of the container just big enough to run the SATA cable through before filling the remaining area with ice. Now take that entire container and put in the freezer overnight. The next day take that entire container out leaving the hard drive in the ice. Now just open the side of your system, plug the SATA cable into your system and boot the system.
> Having the drive surrounded by ice will reduce heat and give that extra time to attempt to recover the important data.



Hmmmm   How about nitrogen in a styrofoam box and run the cables out. So you get the data before it has a chance to sweat


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