Topic: Anyone capable of data recovery?

[Tall Adam]

Well apparently my hard drive died today IBM is sending me a new one and i have 30 days to mail back the old one, but I have like 30 gigs on it that i need (shows, documents, pictures, etc). i know there are alot of computer geeks on here so if someone could try and do some recovery for me, i will GLADLY compensate you for your services (i jsut cant afford to pay real computer shop rates to get the drive fixed)

thanks and thanks to anyone who helps

-adam

[JackoRoses]

does the computer recognize it still?
If it does, does the computer lock up when attempting to access it?
If all this is possible there is hope, but for the layperson, that is about all we can do.
I have heard of some people sticking the drive in the freezer for a few hours, that usually only works
when the bearings are going bad.
If the arm that moves the head broke there is not much anyone can do without
opening the drive up, which will void your warranty.

[Tall Adam]

does the computer recognize it still?
If it does, does the computer lock up when attempting to access it?
If all this is possible there is hope, but for the layperson, that is about all we can do.
I have heard of some people sticking the drive in the freezer for a few hours, that usually only works
when the bearings are going bad.
If the arm that moves the head broke there is not much anyone can do without
opening the drive up, which will void your warranty.

when i start the computer the computer goes to a blue screen and says: UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME

IBM tried to have me do a restore but when it finished, I just got the same screen. I'm not really sure what the computer recognizes and doesnt anymore. I don't think its physical damage to the drive (its only about a year old drive, though laptop taping certainly takes its toll on it, but i defraged and all frequently.) I really think theres just some REALLY corrupted file (i had a torrent give me a weird error message, and then a few weird error messages when transferring files to my external this morning.) then i shut it off and when i turned it back on, i got this shit.

 

[dnsacks]

See -- http://www.techtips4u.com/kb/sw/SW00014.htm

I googled "UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME" and found this and many other links regarding how to get around this error, looks like it's caused by a corrupt boot.ini file -- the link above has a walk-through of how to (perhaps) fix this.

Another thought would be to pick up an external enclosure for the bad drive (from compusa, etc.) and, once the pc is running with the Good drive, see if mounting the bad drive in an external enclosure will allow it to be recognized (since the message you're getting only appears to relate to booting up) if so, grab whatever you want off of it, return the drive to IBM and return the enclosure to compusa, etc. for a refund.

Good luck!

[hzgone]

If it's not clicking or making some horrible noise, you should probably be able to get your stuff off the drive once you get a working OS on the computer.  Like said above put it in an external closure or hook it up as a salve drive.  From the sounds of it, if this is a laptop it will be a lot harder to do.  1. you won't be able to hook it up as a slave drive 2.  There use to be a small enclosure to put a laptop drive in.  I'm sure it's still made but not sure where to get on.  That will probably be your best choice.

Good luck

[tonyvt]

I agree with what others have said about removing the drive and putting it in an external drive. You should be able to locate
an external 2.5" drive at your local computer superstore. Once you get everything back in order you might want to keep that enclosure
and purchase a new raw drive so that you do periodic backups.

If all else fails you can send it to a drive recovery operation. It isn't cheap but it may be your last chance.
http://www.drivesavers.com/



Good Luck.

[dklein]

You can also get those little adapters that allow a laptop drive to connect to a standard  IDE cable and stick it in a pc for some recovery.  I've had some luck using 'Easy Recovery Professional'.  It's pretty flexible about what condition the drive file structure is in.

[chase]

If you have the Windows XP install cd you can boot into the recovery console by hitting "R" when it boots off the CD and asks you what you want to do.  Try the "chkdsk /r" and "fixboot" command as outlined on the microsoft support page.

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=297185


Alternatively, you could also try fixing the master boot record by typing "fixmbr"  Apparently it worked for this guy...

http://www.k7v.com/forum/k7v/data/13026.shtml

Hope that helps and that it's not a hardware issue.

[hzgone]

You can also get those little adapters that allow a laptop drive to connect to a standard  IDE cable and stick it in a pc for some recovery.  I've had some luck using 'Easy Recovery Professional'.  It's pretty flexible about what condition the drive file structure is in.

Both great ideas, i have used easy recovery in the past and it worked really well.  Have also used the laptop to standard IDE option which also worked great

[Tall Adam]

Thanks alot guys. Havent been online much (duh!) so im just getting to read all this. i got the restore discs and im hoping to get the new drive today. after that i assume ill just go the enclosure route, dump it all onto the new drive and return the enclosure (i already have 200gb in other enclosures, so i dont need it)

+ts all around, ill let you guys know what happens

[ethan]

So have you tried booting with a recovery disk? Can you see the files on the drive that way?

One fairly technical way to really know whether the data is still there is to download and burn  (I know tough without a drive) knoppix. It will allow you to boot a working LINUX OS from a CD. It can then mount Windoze drives and allow you to copy data off of them.

Another thing to do is wait until they send the new drive (it'll have winodze on it right?) then set up the old drive as a slave (dip switches on the back) or a secondary master (put it on a second IDE / SATA cable. Boot the machine and see if it will mount that disc as a second volume.

-e

[OFOTD]

I have been in this boat before with the same error.  I ALWAYS use a version of Windows PE.  Stands for "Pre-install Enviroment."  Should be able to find a good Windows PE build on your favorite BT site.  Its a version of Windows that boots from CD.  No need to even have a hard drive.  The version I have has tons of tools added like Norton AV, Nero, Partition Magic and some others. 

If you boot from this disk you should very easily be able to access the drive and move stuff off of it.  Plus you won't have to spend any money on an enclosure.

[Tall Adam]

ok update:

so i got the new drive from IBM and set it up fine. i put the old drive in an enclosure and it recognizes in windows but when i try to open it it says that the drive is not formatted it opens the recovery partition on the drive fine, but wont open the main one.

thoughts?

[dklein]

now try Easy Recovery Professional

[Tall Adam]

im working with ERD commander (i think its called) that a friend gave me, well see how that goes...