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Posted by: yogihit Jul 5 2009, 10:02 AM

Hello All
Yesterday my new HDD (500 GB) crashed.. I lost everything..

Please Help me for best Hard disk recovery tool or someway to recover my HDD
I am not worry about software’s but my songs..

urs
Yogi

Posted by: Mandrake Jul 5 2009, 10:24 AM

Yogihit, just sharing our collective experience - hard disks with songs usually crash.
Keep a back-up on cds. Not one set but TWO. If a disk develops scratches, that collection may be gone too.

Posted by: yogihit Jul 5 2009, 10:53 AM

yes ur right.. this is my whole story.. plz tell what i should do..

---------------------
I brought Seagate 500 GB HDD (3.5” SATA), with USB case to use for data storage.
I have old PC (P4, 512 MB, 40GB HDD, 1.7 Hz etc. XXP SP3)
Yesterday I disconnected USB HDD and use my MP3 player device for little time and again I tried to connect my USB HDD.
My OS was detecting USB hardware giving some extra warning (Hi –Speed USB installation), it was same before but never problem come across.
Now when USB show as a connected, but my HDD not shown as drive (drive E, F, G etc.) in explorer.
First I thought my USB motherboard drivers may corrupt. I just uninstalled USB drivers and next reboot time it’s installed automatically.
USB drive properly detected in ‘Device Manager’ with my HDD partition numbers too but not in explorer as drive.
I checked it from ‘Mange’ but there are not my disks.
Now I put my HDD as a secondary on different machine (at my friends PC). We change all type of slave options, but HDD not detecting by PC.
In my HDD there are no installed OS so we can not try boot from disk. I am using this HDD as like my data backup.
Please help me out .. other wise I will lost everything near about 200 GB data.

Yours
Yogesh

Posted by: Faraaj73 Jul 5 2009, 03:23 PM

Yogi Bhai

If you are hell-bent on recovering the data, don't panic. You will. Now, a few pointers based on personal experience and research.

1- As Mandrake mentioned, please keep 2 sets of back-up. I have three 1TB hard-drives (music, movies etc.) and all contain the same set of info. Hard-drives today are much cheaper and its absolutely a worthwhile investment. The heart-ache of data loss is just not worth it. Your back-up requirements don't seem nearly as extensive as mine so you could use smaller HDD's.
2- Leave Seagate, Maxtor etc. The best and most reliable HDD in the market nowadays is Western Digital. Stick with that until a more reliable one appears.

Now to the immediate problem:

3- There is a problem with your HDD but also partly with your old PC. Connect the HDD with another PC (preferably a laptop). You will probably be able to install and access the drive immediately. Immediately transfer the data to the laptop and then try connecting the HDD to your old PC and you may be surprised to see it connect and appear to be ok. If however, the drive is corrupted - which will be obvious when you connect to the laptop, you will need an external recovery tool. Try to google and download Easeus Data or Test File as a last resort.

Kind Regards
Faraaj

Posted by: Exon Jul 5 2009, 04:57 PM

QUOTE(yogihit @ Jul 5 2009, 10:53 AM)

Posted by: Devje Jul 5 2009, 09:40 PM

Best recovery tools for recover data from a crashed HD :

If your os is Windows

-Ontrack easy recovery
or
-GetDataBack (ntfs or fat32).

But first try to go in :
-pannel configuration
-administration tool
-computer management
-hard disk management.

sorry ...I can't explain more because ....because I am in french country ,I don't explain more in english ,I am using french OS.

Posted by: oye_sonu Jul 6 2009, 12:50 AM

Yogihit ji

Few suggestions from my side agar kuchh kaam aaye

1) One of my drives had crashed. ( I think D ) all I could see was junk characters . but laterz I managed to retrieve lmost of data using "Drive rescue" software. So dont be hopeless..... b pstive and keep trying !.So try gettng drive rescue. it can even retrieve data from formated drives ! and remember dont try to add any data or try to format that drive !

2) did you got the USB case made for that HD separately? or it was a USB HD built in it External USB cases are not very reliable. any voltage fluctuation can render your HD useless ! As happnd with my Frds HD. he had got a USB case made for his HD.

3) Its not known what error your hard disk has.why its not getting detected ie whether it has got corrupted or its power ciruit has fault !
My frds HD's power ckt( the plate at the bottom) was burnt. I got it replaced for just 150 ! and HD was working like earlier ! so you still have hope. but try going to hardware repair in the last !


Keep your harddisk in cool place. sometimes this tukka works !


Sonu

PS : Frommy own exp maximum damage( in india) to computer occurs due to variable voltage fluctuation or shock. (it includes improper shutdonw s )

Posted by: yogihit Jul 6 2009, 10:22 AM

Hi..
Faraaj Bhi you are right.. now i learned ... i will keep 2 sets
today i will try with laptop.

Exon ji
I have Fedora 10, I will try with that also

Devji ji
this options also very good
i will download and try that

sonu Ji
this is gr8 option "Drive rescue" software let me try with this one..
most IMP you said..
"2) did you got the USB case made for that HD separately? or it was a USB HD built in it External USB cases are not very reliable. any voltage fluctuation can render your HD useless ! As happened with my Frds HD. he had got a USB case made for his HD.
"
that must be problem, that external convertor USB case is not standard company. That case any HDD (IDE type etc) can use as a USB drive.

I must check all related Voltage fluctuation

Thank you all of you for gr8 and valuable suggestions and quick reply too.

Yours
Yogesh

Posted by: oye_sonu Jul 7 2009, 12:06 AM

QUOTE(yogihit @ Jul 6 2009, 10:22 AM)

Posted by: sani_thakur Jul 25 2009, 03:01 AM

One of my 500 GB HDDs crashed late last year after several months of the "click of death" warning (which I did not realize at that time). And for a good month I actually pretended everything to be perfect to avoid realization of a problem (and I had nothing backed up -- and this was my primary music/movies/data storage drive).

Then I finally made some time and spent about 4-6 hours on YouTube learning everything about hard drives. It was only then I came to know about the "click of death" -- which I had ignored for many months. If your HDD clicks for whatever reason -- it will die soon enough and you must backup ASAP.

And from the many (initial) solutions they mentioned, one tiny one actually worked for me, thankfully. I used Linux (more specifically Knoppix). And it was quite cold outside so I did open my window and kept the room really cold (I am talking around 5 to 6 deg C). Cool temperatures are super good for your HDD.

And when I switched to Windows-7, it worked as well. So my HDD actually let me copy-paste stuff from it (that's all I wanted), but not write on to it ! I first got all my songs and University/Job stuff. I have yet to transfer the rest. It gets very hot very fast and starts the clicking noise around 45 min so I am taking it very slow.

Worst case scenario -- spend money (I had gotten quotes from some companies in the mean time, around $1100 to $1500 for my level of problem) and get someone to recover it using professional tools. Had that not worked either, I swear I would have cried like a little girl.

Now I actually have at least two copies of everything. I await a Blue-Ray burner so I can burn them all for a third back-up. That should do I suppose.

Posted by: r&d Aug 8 2009, 08:14 AM

heat is the enemy of hard drives. most only last 5 years.
very much depends on manufacturer and model. Newer model
usually have bugs so don't buy the latest and greatest. wait
for a year.

laptop hard drives die in 3 years some even less.

cd-r and dvd-r are not reliable. may last on few years
depending on storage and dye material. should not be
used as primary backup. use dvd-r to share with your relatives.
iTunes burns with all the metadata just create a playlist with 4.34 GB size.

Buy external usb or firewire enclosure.
buy a good 3.5 inch hard driver. create partition.
use backup software to backup and do manual backups as
well.

In few years SSD will be the main way people will
use hard drive. So save up your money and buy those
when you can afford.

Also, you can use ipod nano as a backup and listening is bonus.

Posted by: yogihit Oct 18 2010, 03:43 PM

..and finally I got new PC.. recovered most of the songs with the help you all ...thanks a lot for help..

i3-530
Asus P7H55D-M-Pro
CoolerMaster- Elite 310 ----------------------4.8 k Cabinet & SMPS (1.8+3k) ..lol
CoolerMaster - 500 W SMPS
W.D 1 TB
CREATIVE SPEAKERS - SBS 2.1 A300

total cost 26k only on above without LCD..