Salvaging old hard drive

1559 Views 12 Replies 3 Participants Last post by raptor_pa, Jul 22, 2010

Jeremyh89

Discussion Starter · Jul 19, 2010

Hi there,
A few years ago I had a laptop that died and bought a desktop computer. I've kept the laptop around for keepsakes, and in the last few months I've been wanting to get some of my pictures and stuff I had stored on the computer onto my current computer.

I bought an adapter for laptop hard drive so I can plug it into a USB port like I do my external HD, however my computer doesn't seem to be picking it up in the My Computer tab. The lights on the device are lit up and I feel it operating, so I know it's working, I just don't know why my computer doesn't appear to be reading it (or rather acknowledging it even being there).

Any help would be great,
Jeremy

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Ben Her

· #2 · Jul 19, 2010

The HD may be bad. The desktop may have difficulty recognizing a HD being connected via USB.

In order to avoid dealing with the 2nd possibility, I'd try connecting the HD directly to the desktop, as if it were permanently installed. I do this all the time, and just let the HD lay on the carpet next to the desktop.

If the HD is SATA, you can connect it like it were a 3.5 inch HD (the connetions are the same), however if the HD is IDE you'll need an adapter. They sell for about $8.00.

First thing to do is make certain that the HD is recognized in BIOS. If not, it will never get recognized in Windows. Do you see the HD in BIOS ?

Finally, there is a program that has been very successful for me in repairing broken HD's (assuming the problem is a broken HD and not a connection issue). It's called HDD Regenerator v. 1.71. You'll need to burn a CD and boot to it. You can find the program on the latest Hiren's disk, or you can burn the software all by itself. Find the download via Google.

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Jeremyh89

Discussion Starter · #3 · Jul 20, 2010

Ben Her said:
The HD may be bad. The desktop may have difficulty recognizing a HD being connected via USB.

In order to avoid dealing with the 2nd possibility, I'd try connecting the HD directly to the desktop, as if it were permanently installed. I do this all the time, and just let the HD lay on the carpet next to the desktop.

If the HD is SATA, you can connect it like it were a 3.5 inch HD (the connetions are the same), however if the HD is IDE you'll need an adapter. They sell for about $8.00.

First thing to do is make certain that the HD is recognized in BIOS. If not, it will never get recognized in Windows. Do you see the HD in BIOS ?

Finally, there is a program that has been very successful for me in repairing broken HD's (assuming the problem is a broken HD and not a connection issue). It's called HDD Regenerator v. 1.71. You'll need to burn a CD and boot to it. You can find the program on the latest Hiren's disk, or you can burn the software all by itself. Find the download via Google.

The BIOS sees that there is a hard drive there and while trying to boot from it the boot failed. In my safe mode a while ago I noticed that my computer actually does recognize it as a Drive E. I am not sure if putting it into my computer will work because it is a hard drive meant for a laptop, and I don't personally own a laptop anymore.

Do you know if it is possible to boot up the hard drive while logged onto my current hard drive? Heck, do you know where I can actually see that my computer recognizes the device outside of startup processes?

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Jeremyh89

Discussion Starter · #4 · Jul 20, 2010

I grabbed my household laptop with Windows 7 and plugged this hard drive through the USB port again to see if it would recognize it. The computer recognizes the old hard drive and I can even view technical information about the hard drive, however am still unable to retrieve anything from it.

Booting through the USB didn't seem to work, either. So apparently this thing is working correctly according to the status shown...

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Jeremyh89

Discussion Starter · #5 · Jul 20, 2010

Okay, the hard drive is listed in my BIOS on the boot options (under USB) as well on the f12 boot menu. When I selected it to boot from USB and failed to boot, it said that no operating system could be found, although I know my laptop had Windows XP SP2.

Does this mean that everything on it may be gone if the operating system cannot be found? I suppose it'll be as easy as putting in my boot CDs to install the OS onto it, however I know everything I had would be gone at that point.

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raptor_pa

· #6 · Jul 20, 2010

Do not try HDD Regenerator. It tries to fix one speciic issue and can cause data loss and further damage in many cases. Does the drive show up in disk management? The only difference between HDs for a desktop and a laptop are the size, ( and the connectors if IDE ) but other than that direct connected is the preferred way to connect for recovery. Don't worry about booting to the drive, you can get to the data without booting the OS on the drive.
After connected to teh desktop as a secondary drive -
Can you see the drive in Disk Management? ( Right click Computer -> manage -> disk Management. ) What is the make and model of the disk? Does it show in BIOS by correct model number and size?

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Ben Her

· #7 · Jul 20, 2010

raptor_pa said:
Do not try HDD Regenerator. It tries to fix one speciic issue and can cause data loss and further damage in many cases.

I've used it for years and never had a problem. I've researched the program and found very little information. Nothing that I've found indicates there is a "down-side" (risk) to using the program.

Do you have a link to any information that supports the idea that the software causes problems ? Perhaps you've confused HDD Regenerator with another software ?

http://download.cnet.com/HDD-Regenerator/3000-2248_4-10330123.html

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raptor_pa

· #8 · Jul 20, 2010

No I haven't, talk to anyone who does HD recoveries HDDregen and SPinrite are very similar in their behavior. The concept sounds good on the surface, but take a drive with a failing read channel, bad sectors, weak heads, and all you do is beeat the hardware much harder with multiple reads and writes to any one sector. For an idea of the pro feelings on this software go to www.hddguru.com and search on hddregenerator. Unless you know the users there tho it is hard to tell who the pros are and who the end users are, look at post counts of those who recommend and post counts of those who don't. Some of these guys are some of the best in the world when it comes to HD theory, and recovery. The biggest problem with HDDRegenerator and Spin rite, betond the excessive disk access, is the fact that they write over the disk that is having issues, potentially overwriting the data you actually want to recover. If a drive has that many bad sectors, it is time to replace the disk.
A link here from Scott Moulton, one of the few people teaching data recovery classes at the physical level
http://www.myharddrivedied.com/weblog/why_spinrite_is_not_on_my_d.html
Without a proper diagnosis, spin rite and hddregen should not be used. In the right situation, they work well, but they are no magic bullet and can be more damaging to your data.

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Ben Her

· #9 · Jul 21, 2010

raptor_pa said:
Without a proper diagnosis, spin rite and hddregen should not be used. In the right situation, they work well, but they are no magic bullet and can be more damaging to your data.

Thanks. I've been on HDDGuru a few times. I'll dig around for more opinions on HDD Regenerator.

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Jeremyh89

Discussion Starter · #10 · Jul 21, 2010 (Edited)

raptor_pa said:
Do not try HDD Regenerator. It tries to fix one speciic issue and can cause data loss and further damage in many cases. Does the drive show up in disk management? The only difference between HDs for a desktop and a laptop are the size, ( and the connectors if IDE ) but other than that direct connected is the preferred way to connect for recovery. Don't worry about booting to the drive, you can get to the data without booting the OS on the drive.
After connected to teh desktop as a secondary drive -
Can you see the drive in Disk Management? ( Right click Computer -> manage -> disk Management. ) What is the make and model of the disk? Does it show in BIOS by correct model number and size?

When I first opened it up it didn't show it on the main disk management part of the page like it did my internal hard drive, however it shows it under the box that lists my disks. The name is coming up the same as it did in the bios, and I can view driver information and such about it as well just like I can my internal hard drive. What next to actually be able to get into the old hard drive and begin extracting information?

The one difference, however, is that it says "unallocated" rather than "healthy."

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raptor_pa

· #11 · Jul 22, 2010

At this point you can scan the phsyical disk with r-studio or get data back. Look for error messages about unreadable sectors in the debug windows of the two programs ( bottom frame in r-studio, center in getdataback. It may take some time to scan the disk. You can then register the one that does the best job and copy your data out to another disk.

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Jeremyh89

Discussion Starter · #12 · Jul 22, 2010 (Edited)

raptor_pa said:
At this point you can scan the phsyical disk with r-studio or get data back. Look for error messages about unreadable sectors in the debug windows of the two programs ( bottom frame in r-studio, center in getdataback. It may take some time to scan the disk. You can then register the one that does the best job and copy your data out to another disk.

Well r-studio certainly shows that everything is still there and intact, however it didn't appear to want to recover any file above 60ish kbs unless I forked out money for the non-demo version. Is there a way to get my stuff without paying for special software?

At $80 it would be cheaper to bring it to CompUSA or BestBuy and have them do it for me 0_o

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raptor_pa

· #13 · Jul 22, 2010

Actually it probably wouldn't be cheaper

You can try a program called recuva -it is freeware and may work, but like anything else, you get what you pay for.

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