data recovery - Hard disk mechanical failure or just a corrupted windows installation
2014-07
ivn420
My Windows 8.1 equipped Acer Aspire V5-471 suddenly lagged for about 1 to 2 minutes - the mouse cursor became very slow and the YouTube video that I was watching that time exhibited an extremely low frame rate. The sound also became very choppy. 1 or 2 minutes later, the blue screen (BSOD) suddenly appeared. Unfortunately I wasn't able to take note of the error code. All I can remember is that it said something that starts with "Your PC ran into a problem and needs to restart...". After it automatically restarted, it didn't even reached the windows 8 loading screen. After the BIOS screen, the BSOD appeared again, but this time I noted the error code - 0x000021a. Searching for the error code revealed that my hard disk drive was the culprit.
I've tried repairing the windows installation with recovery and repair disc/USB and different bootable devices but with no success. I can't refresh the PC as it says that the hard drive is locked and cannot restore it as it contains errors. I've also tried chkdsk /f and /r but after 3 full days of waiting, it never got up to even 1% of stage 1 out of 3. So I just closed it by exiting the command prompt (I ran chkdsk on the command prompt from the Windows 8 repair media).
Now, after 6 days of being in agony of trying to repair it, it seems that the disk is now dead. Every time I boot the laptop it hangs for about 10 mins before showing the BIOS screen. Then the BIOS screen is just there for about 20 mins then it just restarts. I can't even enter the boot order setup as it doesn't recognize any inputs. So I researched about disassembling the laptop and I managed to remove the hard drive successfully. I have the right adapters to be able to connect it via USB. Now, whenever I connect the hard drive to any Windows PC, that PC will hang once I open My Computer, Disk Management, or any application that's related to storage. The hang will only go away once I remove the hard drive or restart the computer. In one instance, my windows 7 laptop even displayed a BSOD upon inserting the hard drive. It said "KERNEL DATA INPAGE ERROR". I managed to boot a laptop into Linux using Hiren's BOOT CD (Mini Windows XP also hangs just like normal Windows). Inserting the hard drive into that Linux seems to show no hang problems but I don't even know how to use it.
Right now, I just stopped trying to do anything to that hard drive. I'm now clueless on what I should do next. I really don't have any problem at disposing the said hard drive but the content is really valuable for me. I'm currently doing a research about some data recovery specialists in my country (Philippines) but I just want to know if there are any steps that I should do before sending it to them as my last option. Fees for these "specialists" are pretty expensive so I want to be sure that there is no other option before sending it to them.
This is a very long post. Please excuse me if this is not necessary as I have no clue on the ethics on these kinds of forums. I hope that someone can shed me a light on this.
By the way, if it helps, the hard drive is a Western Digital Blue 500GB. As far as I can remember, there's about 130~GB left on it.
EliadTech
If you have an extra hard drive, connect both hard drives to one PC, boot with Hiren and load Ghost,and try to take a full disk image (and put the image on the extra HD of course).
Since Ghost access the disk differently than Windows, there's a chance that the imaging will succeed.
If the imaging was successful, boot to Windows 7 (or WinPE3, but I couldn't find any normal links at the moment), with the HD that the image is on connected and deploy the image on a VHD.
After Ghost is done, assuming all went well, your files should be on that new (virtual) drive.
EDIT:
I have one more idea.
If you can get another HD as identical as possible (not just Caviar Blue, but also with the same model and firmware version - it all should be printed on the HD), switch the circuit board attached to the faulty HD, and test that HD again.
Ann
While I was viewing the settings for my external USB hard drive, my 1 year old son clicked the "start format" button. I managed to unplug the drive within 5 seconds.
Now, when I connect the drive to my laptop (or any PC), I cannot open or read my hard drive, instead I get a message saying:
The disk in drive F is not formatted, do you want to format it now?
I believe the disk has not yet been fully formatted, some of the technicians I spoke to said my data is still on the hard drive because I immediately removed the USB cable.
Does anyone knows how to recover the data on the drive? This drive has very important work and family documents on it, and I really need them.
Tom Wijsman
If you click that button you will get another window first asking how to format it...
As that window would appear I don't think it started to format it but you somehow caused corruption...
You could try to click no and try to get on the disk to see if you can still see the files.
If not the only thing you could still try is to use a tool like Recuva.
You can prevent this in the future by taking back-ups and avoiding that part of the system.
KronoS
For Data reovery, then best software that I have found of use has been GetDataBack which is a paid software (about 70 to 80 bucks for NTFS) but it works wonders. I've been able to recover a lot of data from hard drives using this software. If you're looking for a free option, the choices suggested already will work.
In either case though, It is essential that you do not write any more data to the hard drive, that INCLUDES recovering your files. When you recover the files, transfer the files to a separate physical disk. Once you're sure that you've recovered all the files you need then transfer the data back to the original disk. Not following this rule, will cause you to possibly never see your files again.
digitxp
Try using Piriform's Recuva. The technician is right though. It's probably easier actually to recover a formatted drive than a partially formatted drive, as a partially formatted drive is probably corrupted.
And on another note, remain calm and prepare for something like this to happen again. Start backing your data with another hard drive or a service like Mozy. $55/yr. is a low price to pay for security. Don't put your computer where your son can hit the mouse.
William Hilsum
It really depends what tools you use.
If you don't mind buying something, I highly recommend R-studio. Using R-Studio, it can do a whole scan of your physical drive and recover files that just exist and have no allocation or similar.
I use this program all the time to recover damaged or similar drives and highly recommend it for this sort of thing.
Seen others recommending Recuva. It is a good tool, I have recommended and used it myself a few times, but for anything professional or serious, R-Studio is what I would use.