How to recover a crashed laptop hard disk (windows NTFS)
 

Does anyone know of freeware which can diagnose & recognize an already
crashed hard disk on an IBM laptop?

My kid's IBM laptop hard disk "stopped working" (it had been making noise,
he said).
- The IBM laptop would not boot no matter what I tried
- I put the laptop hard disk in a different working laptop - same thing
- In a 2nd IBM laptop as a 2nd disk - it still wasn't recognized.
(Even though it was a second disk in a second bay, the good laptop would
not boot, saying "Operating System not found" even though it was clearly
the second disk.)

I figured I'd see if I could be a hero and save his lost photos and email.

After googling, I bought a Vantec "SATA/IDE to USB 2.0 Adapter" and
connected the crashed laptop IDE hard disk to the USB port of a second
(good) laptop. The hard disk would not be seen, even when I used the WinXP
"Disk Management" utility found by right-clicking on My Computer. (A second
hard disk worked fine so I know the Vantec IDE-to-USB adapter was working.)

After googling some more, and with the laptop 2.5" IDE hard disk externally
tied to the USB port of a good computer, I tried using the TestDisk &
PhotoRec 6.9-WIP, Data Recovery freeware (from
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Download) - but "TestDisk" also did
not see the hard disk attached to the USB port via the Vantec adapter.

Googling some more, I downloaded PCWorld's "Recover Data for Fat & NTFS"
shareware at
"http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,66229-order,1-page,1/description.html

At least this program recognized the good disk (disk 0) and the bad disk
attached to the Vantec IDE-to-USB adapter (disk 1) - but PCWorld's program
said the crashed hard disk was zero size:
- Physical Disk Number: 1
- Model: USB Device
- Media Type: Fixed hard disk media
- Cylinder: 0
- Head: 0
- Sectors Per Track: 0
- Disk Size: 0MB

And, when I tried to recover data, PCWorld's Recover Data program said
"Encountered Bad Sector(s) while reading disk."

Digging further, I found PC Magazine recommended PC Inspector
(http://pcmag.ph/hard-disk/recovering...rd-disk-crash/) for freeware
hard disk recovery after crashes.

I even put the hard drive in a zip-lock bag in the freezer (based on google
results) but nothing changed when I repeated the tests.

QUESTION:
What hard-drive crash-recovery WinXP freeware do you recommend which will
diagnose a hard drive and perhaps recover some of the lost files?

How to recover a crashed laptop hard disk (windows NTFS)
 

"Erica Eshoo" wrote:
Does anyone know of freeware which can diagnose & recognize an already
crashed hard disk on an IBM laptop?

very long post snipped

QUESTION:
What hard-drive crash-recovery WinXP freeware do you recommend which will
diagnose a hard drive and perhaps recover some of the lost files?

You may be able to download a diagnostic program specific to the brand of
hard drive (from the manufacturer's website), or you could try one of the
hard disk diagnostic tools on the Ultimate Boot CD:
http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/index.html

However, as your drive isn't being recognised and read then it could be that
freeware or paid for diagnostic software will not help in the circumstances.
I hope I am wrong and that someone else can give you some hope. I suspect
that you might be looking at using a commercial data recovery service.

If the fault is on the hard drive circuit board, and you can replace it with
a working board for that drive, then that might give you access to the data.
But if the fault is inside the drive then I suspect that the situation is
hopeless.

I am not an expert in data recovery or anything else.

How to recover a crashed laptop hard disk (windows NTFS)
 

Erica Eshoo wrote:
[SNIP Disk recovery attempts...]

Nothing may work, but before the next try, put the disk inside a plastic
bag, seal it, and put it in the freezer for an hour or two, then *very*
quickly try to recover the data.

Cheers,
Gary B-)

--
__________________________________________________ ____________________________
Armful of chairs: Something some people would not know
whether you were up them with or not
- Barry Humphries

How to recover a crashed laptop hard disk (windows NTFS)
 

Gary R. Schmidt wrote:
Erica Eshoo wrote:
[SNIP Disk recovery attempts...]

Nothing may work, but before the next try, put the disk inside a plastic
bag, seal it, and put it in the freezer for an hour or two, then *very*
quickly try to recover the data.

Cheers,
Gary B-)


Did you not read the second to last sentence of the original post?

John.

How to recover a crashed laptop hard disk (windows NTFS)
 

Hi,

I think you will find that most, if not all software only recovery
programs, will require the operating system to detect your drive as a
physical drive. I know this is the way I have written CnW Recovery.
Once software get get a handle on the drive, it can access sectors, or
attempt to access sectors, and then recover logical data. If it cannot
see the drive, then it cannot start.

There are also limitations when using a USB caddy, for instance it is
not possible to access S.M.A.R.T data using USB.

With specialised hardware and software, it is possible to diagnose the
problem further.

The suggestion of getting a replacement controller board is very
unlikely to help as all boards store details of the drive defects etc
that would need to be copied, recreated.

A specialist company is probably the only way forward. In the furture,
backups should be investigated!!

Michael
www.cnwrecovery.com

How to recover a crashed laptop hard disk (windows NTFS)
 

John wrote:
Gary R. Schmidt wrote:
Erica Eshoo wrote:
[SNIP Disk recovery attempts...]

Nothing may work, but before the next try, put the disk inside a
plastic bag, seal it, and put it in the freezer for an hour or two,
then *very* quickly try to recover the data.

Cheers,
Gary B-)


Did you not read the second to last sentence of the original post?

No - evidently not, I must have missed it.

Cheers,
Gary B-)

--
__________________________________________________ ____________________________
Armful of chairs: Something some people would not know
whether you were up them with or not
- Barry Humphries

How to recover a crashed laptop hard disk (windows NTFS)
 

On Sat, 03 Nov 2007 22:20:28 +1100, Gary R. Schmidt wrote:
Did you not read the second to last sentence of the original post?
No - evidently not, I must have missed it.

How does that work anyway?
What does a "cold hard disk" do differently than a warm one?

How to recover a crashed laptop hard disk (windows NTFS)
 

In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Erica Eshoo wrote:
On Sat, 03 Nov 2007 22:20:28 +1100, Gary R. Schmidt wrote:
Did you not read the second to last sentence of the original post?
No - evidently not, I must have missed it.

How does that work anyway?
What does a "cold hard disk" do differently than a warm one?

Very simple: It skews a lot of operating parameters. If the
drive just barely not manages to work, this can make it work
temporarily. It is a long shot though.

Arno

How to recover a crashed laptop hard disk (windows NTFS)
 

In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Erica Eshoo wrote:
Does anyone know of freeware which can diagnose & recognize an already
crashed hard disk on an IBM laptop?

My kid's IBM laptop hard disk "stopped working" (it had been making noise,
he said).
- The IBM laptop would not boot no matter what I tried
- I put the laptop hard disk in a different working laptop - same thing
- In a 2nd IBM laptop as a 2nd disk - it still wasn't recognized.
(Even though it was a second disk in a second bay, the good laptop would
not boot, saying "Operating System not found" even though it was clearly
the second disk.)

I figured I'd see if I could be a hero and save his lost photos and email.

After googling, I bought a Vantec "SATA/IDE to USB 2.0 Adapter" and
connected the crashed laptop IDE hard disk to the USB port of a second
(good) laptop. The hard disk would not be seen, even when I used the WinXP
"Disk Management" utility found by right-clicking on My Computer. (A second
hard disk worked fine so I know the Vantec IDE-to-USB adapter was working.)

After googling some more, and with the laptop 2.5" IDE hard disk externally
tied to the USB port of a good computer, I tried using the TestDisk &
PhotoRec 6.9-WIP, Data Recovery freeware (from
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Download) - but "TestDisk" also did
not see the hard disk attached to the USB port via the Vantec adapter.

Googling some more, I downloaded PCWorld's "Recover Data for Fat & NTFS"
shareware at
"http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,66229-order,1-page,1/description.html

At least this program recognized the good disk (disk 0) and the bad disk
attached to the Vantec IDE-to-USB adapter (disk 1) - but PCWorld's program
said the crashed hard disk was zero size:
- Physical Disk Number: 1
- Model: USB Device
- Media Type: Fixed hard disk media
- Cylinder: 0
- Head: 0
- Sectors Per Track: 0
- Disk Size: 0MB

And, when I tried to recover data, PCWorld's Recover Data program said
"Encountered Bad Sector(s) while reading disk."

Digging further, I found PC Magazine recommended PC Inspector
(http://pcmag.ph/hard-disk/recovering...rd-disk-crash/) for freeware
hard disk recovery after crashes.

I even put the hard drive in a zip-lock bag in the freezer (based on google
results) but nothing changed when I repeated the tests.

QUESTION:
What hard-drive crash-recovery WinXP freeware do you recommend which will
diagnose a hard drive and perhaps recover some of the lost files?


I think your chances are very slim and that physical repair is needed
to recover the data.

Time to teach your kid about backup. The lession that HDDs can fail
should already have been sucessful.

Arno

How to recover a crashed laptop hard disk (windows NTFS)
 

On 3 Nov 2007 16:24:53 GMT, Arno Wagner wrote:
Time to teach your kid about backup. The lession that HDDs can fail
should already have been sucessful.

Indeed. He's crying over the loss of his data. I'm trying to be syphathetic
but personally, from an adult standpoint, I'm not too worried about it.
But, it would be nice to recover it so I'll keep trying for a while.

Since cold operating parameters didn't work, I might try putting the hard
disk in a zip-lock bag and heating it, either via the microwave or the oven
or boiling it in the water-tight baggie.

Actually, microwave might be too dangerous as it's metal on the outside so
I'll skip that - but I'll try heating it to change the operating parameters
in the other direction.

Does anyone know the maximum heat a hard disk can take in the oven. I'm
thinking about 212 degrees (pot) or perhaps 250 (oven).

Can a hard disk take 250 degrees?
More importantly, do you think hot works in addition to cold?