Everything on my hard drive got destroyed

May 28 2004

[dennisw]

60 gigabytes. Never had problems with it. Yesterday Windows XP froze a few times. Then the computer refused to boot up again. Boot sector wiped out? I can deal with that! I then installed this drive as a slave and it wasn't recognized... was invisible.

With Partition Magic this hard drive shows up as 60 gig of (exact words) unallocated space. It had 3 partitions which are now all gone.

I used the Western Digital Utilities and the hard drive checks out as being in good shape. No errors.

I was using Norton Anti Virus. Using a firewall on a cable connection.

I don't see any references on internet to hard drives being killed all at once.

The hard drive was 50% backed up.I will consider a data recovery company if the price is reasonable.

[Notforprophet]

Try OnTrack Data, I have had good luck with them in the past with work-related data recovery.

http://www.ontrack.com/ I believe is the URL

NFP

[Mister Baredog]

Do you have a hammer?

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Download and burn a copy of Knoppix and boot up with it. It will probably mount and see the drive. If you are on a network you can copy important files to a network share. Knoppix is a fabulous rescue disk.

[LibKill]

Don't do anything until you hear from the guys I just pinged. They know a lot.

One time at work something similar happened to a mac drive. We shipped it to symantec and they were able to recover the data. That was 4 years ago and I think it cost $2-300.

[martin_fierro]

$250 cookie recipe:

(Recipe may be halved.):

2 cups butter
4 cups flour
2 tsp. soda
2 cups sugar
5 cups blended oatmeal**
24 oz. chocolate chips
2 cups brown sugar
1 tsp. salt
1 8 oz. Hershey Bar (grated)
4 eggs
2 tsp. baking powder
3 cups chopped nuts
2 tsp. vanilla (your choice)

Cream the butter and both sugars. Add eggs and vanilla; mix
together with flour, oatmeal, salt, baking powder, and soda. Add
chocolate chips, Hershey Bar and nuts.
Roll into balls and place two inches apart on a cookie sheet.
Bake for 10 minutes at 375 degrees. Makes 112 cookies.

** measure oatmeal and blend in a blender to a fine powder.

[dansangel]

The hard drive was 50% backed up.I will consider a data recovery company if the price is reasonable.

Best Buy did mine for $60.00 last year. I don't know if that's a good price, but it was well worth it to me. Good luck!

[bobsatwork]

Data recovery will cost about $600. I have seen widespread hard drive crashes on laptops in recent years. Usual symptoms: runs fine, then a couple of lockups, then ocassional blue screen crashes, then failue. Usually occurs over several days time.

[dennisw]

I'll try Knoppix but I think since Partition Magic shows nothing but unallocated space, Knoppix won't see anything more. Won't see the 3 partitions the drive had.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

I'll try Knoppix but I think since Partition Magic shows nothing but unallocated space, Knoppix won't see anything more. Won't see the 3 partitions the drive had.

You might be pleasantly surprised.

[tm22721]

Your 'NoDrives' registry key probably got set.

It must be zero or your drives will not be recognized.

BUMP

[Big Otto]

OK, Don't Laugh, but this just recently happened to my daughter.
Same symptoms, it was either there and empty or not there at all.

Turns out to have been the hdd controller, which was surface mounted to the motherboard (HP laptop)

I suggested she put the entire laptop in the fridge, get all the components very cold (she almost froze the LCD liquid!) then give it a try.

In a word - WORKED!!

for about 30 minutes, which was long enough.

Good Luck

[You Dirty Rats]

I'm am pretty sure that the technical reason this happened to your drive is -- IT'S GEORGE W. BUSH'S FAULT!!!

[beckett]

That reminds me. I better back up my drive.

[r9etb]

I'll try Knoppix but I think since Partition Magic shows nothing but unallocated space, Knoppix won't see anything more. Won't see the 3 partitions the drive had.

"Unallocated space" means only that the file allocation table has been hosed. The actual data are still on the disk -- and in fact, most of your FAT is probably there as well.

[HEY4QDEMS]

We use OnTrack, the cost is between $400 and $1000. They will tell you up front that they guaranty nothing, but so far they always seem to recover most of the data.

We've only had to use them twice in the last six years.

Good luck.

[dennisw]

"Unallocated space" means only that the file allocation table has been hosed............

Are viruses etc. known to do this? Kill the file allocation table?

[M. Peach]

I remember one time my hard drive crashed and it wouldn't even reboot. I took it to some computer guru - he tried to boot it a few times, while stroking his long beard.

He then banged the computer a few times and it booted right up. He then said that will be fifty bucks. He said my hard drive is about to crash for good so I better back up.

Try banging on the hard drive a few times. It has worked for me twice after that throughout the years.


P.S. Let me know if it works.

[kylaka]

You may be able to recover all or most of the data if it was formatted NTFS originally. I've done so a half a dozen times whea a drive's $MFT went pffsst! A small inexpensive application called File Scavenger will do the trick. As a matter of fact, it will even recover data from a reformatted drive. Let me know if you need more info or help in finding or using the program. When I lose a drive these days, my blood pressure actually drops. I get to have some fun.

[TomServo]

Next time Ghost your machine. Cheap insurance for about $30.00....and send the image to a second HD.