Recovering data from corrupt HDD - Please help

Horsebox9000

Hi Folks,



I basically have an issue that I can not solve and I was wondering if someone here could point me in the right direction.

So my friends hard drive has crapped out on him, every time he turns on his comp it says a fatal error has occured and he needs to press ctrl+alt+del and try again. He does this but it keeps him stuck in a loop....

I took his hard drive and and hooked it up external to my comp.

Now what I would like to do is just to be able to get his pictures from his hard drive, that's it (He spent 4 years living abroad so a lot of his memories are stored on that comp).

I have used some data recovery software already but all it has given me is some .rbf files and some windows update files.

The photos on his hard drive were not deleted in the first place, so I am looking to retrieve information which was never deleted.

So basically, can someone tell me how to do this? All I want is the photos, can someone please guide me on this?

Thanks for any response to this, I appreciate all the help.

P.S. I have used chkdsk /f on the drive and it took 3 days of running non-stop before it just stopped for a full day at scanning a bad clsuter on the drive.

PropJoe10

I would be careful about running Chkdsk on a failing drive, as all it does is put the drive under more stress.

When you connect the drive to your own PC externally, does it show up in Windows? Or is it not identified?

Horsebox9000

Thank you for your reply.

Yeah it gets detected when I plug it in alright, comes up with the Drive and its partition.

When I click on it through "My COmputer" it takes ages and then gives me a message saying that I need to format the drive before I access it.
Obviously the last thing I want to do at the moment is format.

Thanks

PropJoe10

Yeah sounds as if its really on its last legs. Unfortunately, the only option if you cant read any data at all off it would be a data recovery company. One thing you could try is to connect the drive internally as a secondary hard drive, boot to your normal hard drive and see if you can read any data off it that way. I had success with that before, I couldnt read anything on the drive using a USB dock but I connected it via internal SATA cable and it worked for long enough to get some data back off it. Long shot, but worth a try. Sorry I cant be of any more help than that.

white_westie

Just had to this for my sister with her laptop and her external harddrive - long story, but recoved 20thousand readable photo files spanning 10 years.

Trick is to use a linux live bootable cd and not windows to read the dodgy drive.
Then use a program like photorec to read/recover the photos to a seperate hard drive.

I downloaded a gparted livecd which had testdisk and photorec programs on it, but most livecd's have these tools installed by default.

Only problem with this is that you have to be comfortable using linux and some command line stuff, and be able to identify your drives.

Would also recommend not powering up the disk unless you have a clear plan of action as each power up could be the last! If you do power it up, do not attempt to write anything to it either.

One problem with recovery is the urge to try things out - do not if you can. Also it can take a long time to achieve anything.

If your mates photos are that important then stop, and consider a data recovery service.
Prices for recovery have dropped in the last few years and there are places in Dublin, Belfast, UK etc. Google is your friend.
Have never used one myself, but had a colleague who had to a number of years ago and she had to send it to the UK. It cost her dearly, but then she had lost all family photos, so it was worth it.
Could be worth getting a quote from them!

WW

Horsebox9000

Thank you for that information. I will give the Linux CD boot a try (Lucky for me my last module in college was Operating Systems and Ubuntu server so it is somewhat fresh in my mind.

Cheers again folks, this is great information.

Horsebox9000

Would Hirens be acceptable to use as a Linux Cd?

white_westie

teskdisk and photorec are open source programs - see here http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec

I ran it from a linux livecd as windows hides too much.
Opened a terminal with elevated privs, or open a terminal and sudo to root.
Use 'fdisk -l' to help you identify your drives - handy to know maker, model number and size of drive. Format should be /dev/sdx.

run 'photorec -h' for help info

Long time since I used a hiren cd, but if I remember correctly it runs the commands in a freedos environment (not sure)! You can run onto trouble with this environemnt in that it does not always recognise your hard drives, hence it might be better to run it from ubuntu or something similiar.

Another thing to try is if you are using a desktop pc, is to temporary remove your own hard drive and replace it with the drive you are recovering from (ensures you don't mix them up) and precreate a folder you are recovering to.

Try hiren and see do you get anywhere!

PS: before you do anything boot ubuntu and mount the damaged disk and see if you can see the missing photo folders first - useful to know some folder names from your mate.

just be warned if the disk is physicaly damaged this may all be in vain, and you might want to take the professional route.
e.g. if its a head crash, then can open the drive in a cleanroom environment and make some physical repairs to allow the disk to be read.
see faqs here http://www.datarecoverydublin.ie/index.php

riclad

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec
you can just install photorec in windows.
OR use the linux version http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Livecd .

live cd with photorec .

BootMed Plus is a premium live CD with built in video tutorials. TestDisk and PhotoRec are featured in BM+'s advanced menu


http://www.pcinspector.de/Default.htm?language=1

Recovers files, even when a header entry is no longer available. Competition products cannot recover such files. The "Special Recovery Function" supports the following disk formats:

HTM | JPG |
PDF | PNG and other file formats

I find this easier to use than testdisk

Horsebox9000

Some great information and advice from folks here.

Thank you all very much, I will try all of the above and post back in the next few days with a result.

snipey

I have the same problem as in lost photo's on a hard drive so i gave it in to D.I.D who sent it to Dublin but they rang me today to say to couldn't recover my photo's but he did tell they could send it to a lab and open it up and hopefully recover my photo's,anyone know how much and is it possible to do this.

beauf

If it was my own drive I'd try the Freezer trick. (it has worked for me in the past) . But probably not on that drive with 4yrs of someone else photos on it. Depends if the owner can afford the cost of professional data recovery. Which I expect runs into the hundreds of euro. None of them give a guide price. You could ring and ask for a quote.

KAGY

Another thing to add to this. If at all possible, try to make a copy /. Image of the disk (using dd_rescue in linux). Then you can play around with this image without worrying about physically damaging the disk further. For this you will need a disk aat least twice as big as the disk you are recovering from.
There should be lots of infornation on this, even a searchin this forum should give you what you need to get started.

riclad

Specialist companys charge 100,s to recover data.
IT can be hard to recover data ,depending on ,is the drive working ok,
were the photo,s overwritten,
Does the drive power up,
do the drive heads spin up?
IE drive mechanism works normally,
even if some files are not visible .
Does the drive show up in my computer, if connected to pc.

white_westie

As the others have said, if the disk is physically damaged (mostly occurs if disk was knocked off the table when powered on) then your only option is a Data Recovery Service.
You have to try and put a value on the loss of the disk contents, and then decide if it's woorth paying a few hunder euro to have it looked at!
e.g. what cost would you put on the total loss of all your family photos/videos for the last 10 years?

On the other hand if the disk is still working, the suggestion of making an image backup to play with is good advice - remember each time you power up the failing disk could be it's last!
Testdisk and Photorec are open source tools. There are many others,mostly paid for, but you can get full version copies of commercial tools off the net and use them to scan the disk, but you will have to pay for a license to allow you to use the restore/recovery options.

Also, disk recovery can be time consuming.
e.g. running photorec against a 1TB disk in a external usb cradle can run for nearly 15hours!

Best of luck.

snipey

I dropped my Laptop from a table while it was running and it just died so i got a fellow to look at it and he put in a new hard drive so the other one is with D.I.D and i don't do the heads spin etc, if they don't can they recover any thing any suggestions who i should ring, thanks

Horsebox9000

riclad wrote: »

Specialist companys charge 100,s to recover data.
IT can be hard to recover data ,depending on ,is the drive working ok,
were the photo,s overwritten,
Does the drive power up,
do the drive heads spin up?
IE drive mechanism works normally,
even if some files are not visible .
Does the drive show up in my computer, if connected to pc.

YEs the drive powers up,
Yes the mechanism works,
Yes it can be detected in My Computer but it gives a message saying the drive needs to be formatted before I can access it.

I have a photorec running at the moment and have it searching for JPG and PNG. It has found a small amount of pictures but mainly JPGs from iTunes and INterner Explorer(Like album covers, online ads) and I have only found a few personal photos.

riclad

snipey wrote: »

I dropped my Laptop from a table while it was running and it just died so i got a fellow to look at it and he put in a new hard drive so the other one is with D.I.D and i don't do the heads spin etc, if they don't can they recover any thing any suggestions who i should ring, thanks

https://www.google.ie/search?q=datarecovery+ie&oq=datarecovery+ie&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.660

Some irish companys here.
http://www.datarecovery.ie/faq.htm

These company,s charge 100,s of euros to get data back.
Especially if there,s a physical problem with the drive,
eg does not spin up drive head units.

Theres a data recovery place , pc repair shop,
near phibsboro shopping centre,
dublin.
about 250 yards away as you come from santry ,direction.
on the right hand side of the road.

riclad

Horsebox 9000 use this,
http://www.pcinspector.de/?language=1 Recovers files, even when a header entry is no longer available. Competition products cannot recover such files. The "Special Recovery Function" supports the following disk formats:

| JPG |
PNG | eg photo files. RTF | TAR | TIF | WAV | ZIP files .

PC INSPECTOR™ File Recovery 4.x is so-called FREEWARE. This means that the software does not cost you a single penny



maybe try Recuva free program.
DO A deep scan .

aoh

I've used Critical Data Services in the past for a laptop that fell off a desk. Their evaluation fee is €50 and then they tell you how much the actual data retrieval will cost. They quoted two weeks but had it done in a couple of days.

It wasn't cheap - 675 including VAT but they got everything that was needed and provided an external hard drive with the data on it.

simplybam

Give recuva a shot (linky).

I used it on a bollixed hard drive before to get photos back and it has also recovered images for me from re-formatted sd-cards and usb sticks. Defo worth a shot imo

Oh, and it's freeware too.

Horsebox9000

riclad wrote: »

Horsebox 9000 use this,
http://www.pcinspector.de/?language=1 Recovers files, even when a header entry is no longer available. Competition products cannot recover such files. The "Special Recovery Function" supports the following disk formats:

| JPG |
PNG | eg photo files. RTF | TAR | TIF | WAV | ZIP files .

PC INSPECTOR™ File Recovery 4.x is so-called FREEWARE. This means that the software does not cost you a single penny



maybe try Recuva free program.
DO A deep scan .

I'll go down this route. Thanks .

free_man

Recuva was my savior as well.

Give it a try.

Also try to connect it as hard disk within ur machine. USB is painfully slow in recovery cases.