Data recovery of a faulty HDD

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Data recovery of a faulty HDD

Postby surfboardfiller » Mon 10.08.2009, 12:04

Has anyone had experience with a data recovery company in Britain.

I have a 5 year old HDD full of photos and important documents (Uni PHD etc).
Sadly there is no back up for this disk. It functions but some key files have been orphaned and I suspect a Memory failer has lead to the TOC or MBR to be damaged. I have installed a new HDD but Windows doesn't read any data on the old HDD and thinks it's un formatted. :cry:
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Re: Data recovery of a faulty HDD

Postby al » Mon 10.08.2009, 16:28

First thing: leave it the hell alone - don't get running any 'recovery' software on there yet.

Data recovery companies exist and they'll probably get back most of your stuff, but it's gonna cost you.

Based on you saying that the drive hasn't failed mechanically, personally, I'd be tempted to:
- image the drive somewhere, either to a file or block by block onto another identical drive (e.g dd).
[better would be two images so you can try various things, and roll back to try something else without going back to the original drive - you don't need a mechanical failure on top of everything else, and at least this way if all else fails you can send the original drive off to the experts]
- put the original drive away somewhere far far away from your fingers and temptations
- try the various recovery software on the drive image / target drives
- if applicable, make offerings to the gods of your choosing
- hopefully get your data back.

Depending on the filesystem type and size of the drive your mileage may vary.
I can probably help you with the above if you decide that's what you want to do, otherwise expect to spend between a couple of hundred and a grand to get the drive recovered professionally depending on how much manual intervention is required by the recovery guy.

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Re: Data recovery of a faulty HDD

Postby surfboardfiller » Mon 10.08.2009, 16:54

Yes please, it's Halas. I rebuilt her machine and it's fine now, but the data was more important than the box.

Could windows checkdisk have dammaged the data further by trying to auto recover files?

After I installed win XP on the new disk, I installed the old disk to see if I could copy the data off. I booted the machine and turned away for a few secconds. When I turned back windows had detected the old disk. I had 1 seccond to press a specified key to stop it but not long enough it automatically ran checkdisk :shock: I was not happy about this to say the least, but that's windows. :evil: But I though switching the machine off may dammage the disk further. :|
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Re: Data recovery of a faulty HDD

Postby lotos » Mon 10.08.2009, 17:03

Data recovery companies are cheap these days - I've seen prices like $150, $129, even down to $69-79, and you only pay when they recover the data.

That said, have you tried throwing it into an external USB enclosure and seeing if you can access it as a 2nd drive in a system?
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Re: Data recovery of a faulty HDD

Postby al » Mon 10.08.2009, 17:20

surfboardfiller wrote:Yes please, it's Halas. I rebuilt her machine and it's fine now, but the data was more important than the box.

Could windows checkdisk have dammaged the data further by trying to auto recover files?

After I installed win XP on the new disk, I installed the old disk to see if I could copy the data off. I booted the machine and turned away for a few secconds. When I turned back windows had detected the old disk. I had 1 seccond to press a specified key to stop it but not long enough it automatically ran checkdisk :shock: I was not happy about this to say the least, but that's windows. :evil: But I though switching the machine off may dammage the disk further. :|


>_< yep, that's exactly the situation I was trying to get you to avoid.

If things really are as cheap as Lotos says, then maybe that's your best bet, but whatever you do don't plug it in again USB enclosure or otherwise.

You're still welcome to bring it over and I'll see if I can help, but I can't make any promises. I'm out of the country until Sunday night, but you can pop around next week if that's any good ?
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Re: Data recovery of a faulty HDD

Postby surfboardfiller » Mon 10.08.2009, 17:43

Thanks Al, I'll pop over when you are back.

Cheers,

Phil
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Re: Data recovery of a faulty HDD

Postby RayD » Tue 25.08.2009, 21:20

How did you go on with the hard drive Phil?

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Re: Data recovery of a faulty HDD

Postby surfboardfiller » Fri 28.08.2009, 10:18

I just got it back from Hala last night. Hopefully Al will be about so i can go and see him with it. :D :wink:
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Re: Data recovery of a faulty HDD

Postby RayD » Tue 22.09.2009, 19:54

This is a bit of a long shot ... does anyone have the recovery discs for a Packard Bell Easy Note B3312

Thanks
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Re: Data recovery of a faulty HDD

Postby lotos » Tue 22.09.2009, 20:20

RayD wrote:This is a bit of a long shot ... does anyone have the recovery discs for a Packard Bell Easy Note B3312

I've downloaded restore/recovery discs via torrent, there aren't a ton of options but you may get lucky checking that route out.
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Re: Data recovery of a faulty HDD

Postby RayD » Tue 22.09.2009, 22:46

Thanks Randy,

Which of the ones on this site is most likely to match ...

Packard Bell Easy Note B3312
P/N PB21M02301
S/N 598706780239
MID 1036787


and ... presumably I need to download a programme from elswhere in order to download the torrent file? ... if you could recommend one.

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Re: Data recovery of a faulty HDD

Postby lotos » Tue 22.09.2009, 23:10

What operating system + version do you have?
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Re: Data recovery of a faulty HDD

Postby RayD » Wed 23.09.2009, 09:16

On my desktop computer ... XP Pro Version 2002 + SP2 ( This is the one I'll use for downloading the files)

On the Packard Bell lap top ... XP Home Edition Version 2002 + SP2

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Re: Data recovery of a faulty HDD

Postby saska » Wed 23.09.2009, 09:44

This is a bit of a long shot ... does anyone have the recovery discs for a Packard Bell Easy Note B3312

Could be wrong but i don't think PB provided recovery discs -- there should be a hidden recovery partition which is accessed via F11 at startup.
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Re: Data recovery of a faulty HDD

Postby RayD » Wed 23.09.2009, 14:54

Your'e not wrong Tony,

When the original owner bought the machine PCWorld relied on customers to make their own recovery discs.

While pressing F11 at start up accesses the recovery system it asks for the discs that were never made.

Apparently Packard Bell will supply them for £45... :shock:

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Re: Data recovery of a faulty HDD

Postby lotos » Wed 23.09.2009, 15:59

RayD wrote:On my desktop computer ... XP Pro Version 2002 + SP2 ( This is the one I'll use for downloading the files)

On the Packard Bell lap top ... XP Home Edition Version 2002 + SP2

Ray

Any specific reason to use a Packard Bell restore disc, or do you simply want a new Windows install? I would sya, unless you want all the cr@p and bu!!$sh!t they install on new computers, just download an XP Pro disc, and an XP Home disc, reformat and restore with that (using your legit Windows Key from the original Windows installs, perfectly and completely legal so no worries), and have a new computer install without the bloat.

If that sounds okay, let me know and I'll track down good torrents for ya.
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Re: Data recovery of a faulty HDD

Postby RayD » Wed 23.09.2009, 18:29

Thanks Randy,

It’s quite slow ... I wanted to see what it was like at factory settings and decide if it was worthy of buying more memory.

(Requires a 512 MB 200-pin, non-ECC PC2700 DDR SO-DIMM)

But ... an XP Home disc sounds more appealing ... if only to get rid of all the rubbish.

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Re: Data recovery of a faulty HDD

Postby lotos » Sat 26.09.2009, 16:11

I would check out this torrent - it's a copy of XP without any cracks or phony-baloney stuff, it requires your real CD-Key which is good. (Read: legal)

http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4406197 ... _%28TPB%29
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Re: Data recovery of a faulty HDD

Postby RayD » Sun 27.09.2009, 16:10

You have an email Randy,

Ray
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Re: Data recovery of a faulty HDD

Postby RayD » Sat 24.10.2009, 18:04

A couple of weeks ago with Randy’s help I downloaded XP Home plus SP3 and put it on a disc.

Is it practical to get the drivers from the laptop onto a memory stick prior to reformatting then re-install them afterwards?

If so, which will I need, and where will they be ....?

Thanks Ray.
Last edited by RayD on Sun 25.10.2009, 16:09, edited 1 time in total.
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