[El Gran Salseron]

Ontrack has a program named Easy Recovery Professional.....you have to buy it but if it doesn't recover the data for you then the price of the program is subtracted from the data recovery costs if you send it to them.

Also, a local tech may be able to recover the data for you for $50 if he knows what he is doing.

[boris]

"The hard drive was 50% backed up."

I bet your next one will be 100% backed up.

--Boris

[Porterville]

back up and save, back up and saveback up and saveback up and saveback up and saveback up and saveback up and saveback up and saveback up and saveback up and saveback up and saveback up and saveback up and saveback up and saveback up and saveback up and saveback up and saveback up and saveback up and saveback up and saveback up and save

[e_castillo]

When you try to restart do you see any message at all?

[Semaphore Heathcliffe]

sorry to hear that, Dennis. Good luck.

[LanPB01]

I bought a Western Digital hard drive last June. I mainly use it to store files and pictures, but don't put many programs on it. A few weeks ago, while trying to open a file, I received an error message. When I rebooted my computer, it showed the drive was completely blank and unformatted. I think it's a physical problem with the drive, and not virus or software related.

[Grig]

If the computer BIOS recognizes the drive then it very likley is not a hardware failure.

Try GetDataBack to recover the data.
http://www.runtime.org/gdb.htm

[js1138]

I've used this product. It's $49.95 for either NTFS or FAT

There's a free demo that will absolutely tell you whether it will work in your situation and whether you have the knowledge and understanding to use it. The demo is full featured, but will only recover small files.

http://www.data-recovery-software.net/

It's a pain in the butt because once the file allocation table is gone there are multiple ways to interpret the remaining data. However this product and a lot of patience will recover everything that can be recovered.

[isom35]

could be the romulans testing a new weapon?

[j_tull]

ERD Commander

[snopercod]

I fixed a drive that "wasn't there" once by:

1. Removing the drive from the computer
2. Removing the controller board from the drive
3. Cleaning the contacts on the pins/socket where the controller mates to the case.

You will need a little teeny torx screwdriver to remove the controller board.

[bd476]

Dennis while I have no tech help to offer I'm saying a quick prayer for an inexpensive and speedy solution.

[Veracious Poet]

WesternDigital 60GB harddrives have been crappin' out left & right...I had one start acting funny on me as well.

It seems WesternDigital's is having MAJOR quality problems and are no-longer safe to buy.

Go with Maxtor, they seem 100% better in all regards.

[antiRepublicrat]

For all who have this problem and don't already know, a good procedure is:

#1: DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING! Like the doctors say, first do no harm.

Do not use any utilities that write to the drive, as they could damage it further. If it's your boot disk that's dead, boot with Knoppix to see if it's readable (Knoppix booting won't touch the hard drive). If it is readable (Windows just died, not the file system) you can try your Windows recovery disk or use Knoppix to move the data to its own folder on the hard drive and reinstall Windows without reformatting. If it isn't readable:

#2: Get another hard drive or other storage that can hold the data. For my 120GB hard drive I couldn't afford another drive that big (120 was the biggest available at the time and very expensive) so I pulled it off in chunks to the computer and wrote to DVDs.

#3: Have patience. This is going to take a while.

#4: Get software like File Scavenger ($40) or OnTrack (real expensive) that does read-only recovery of the drive. There is a demo of File Scavenger available to see if it works.

#5: If that doesn't work, decide if your data is worth the several hundred to several thousand dollars pros will charge for recovery. If the data is classified, well, how much you got left on your IMPAC card?

#5: After you're done, reformat the drive and do a sector-by-sector disk check. It should still be good to go if it was just a corrupted MFT that caused the problem.

[Revolting cat!]

BUMP, BOOKMARK and Good Luck!

(I'm buying a 250Gb this weekend for the Athlon 2800+ toy I'm about to build. Brand unknown - the FRY'S ad doesn't say, but what, WD's are NFG? Anyone else to avoid?)

[DeaconRed]

My laptop is slow on the NET.
Not a virus (I have Norton & keep it upgraded) scanned - - - - nothing.
Windows XP
Internet explorer 6
I have tried everything even system restore. I can only go back to may 23 and that is worse.
Any suggestions will be most appreciated! !!

[veracious]

Gotta run scandisk (there is a XP version in Exporer _drive_ properties) once and a while on any MS operating system product. Gotta!

[Petronski]

That happened to me under Windows 2000.

I recovered ALL the data ALL by myself with this GetDataBack.

You'll need to get a new drive, install it and install your windows restore disk or WinXP, whichever works. Then install the 'bad' drive as D Drive and run this software. If the data is there, this program will find it. I got it done all by myself. It was very cool. Someone recommended the Knoppix fast boot CDROM, that's another good way to see the drive from a non-windows point of view.

[JRios1968]

Step 1: Grab a hammer

Step 2: Beat the _(&)^&(^(%*%*%*&^ out of the hard drive.

[theepengu1n]

I've used "gpart" to recover a couple partition tables in the past. It has the advantages of being free and working with a great variety of partition types. It has the disadvantage of only running (natively) on Linux/FreeBSD:

http://www.stud.uni-hannover.de/user/76201/gpart/