Hard drive dying? What would you do to rescue the data?

[Brad]

One of my storage drives gave me problems on March 23. Too busy/annoyed to deal with it then, but seeking advice now.

It's a Seagate 4TB SATA 3.5" (ST4000DM000, label firmware CC52) in a StarTech dock connected via eSATA.

What are these files worth to me?
I don't think I had anything super-important on it, but I truly don't know as my folder & file organization leaves a lot to be desired and my memory is abysmal. Usage-wise, perhaps 80% of the TBs were dedicated to video captures that I can easily redo. Maybe there were some small non-video files I'd miss if I remembered what they are. If some local service could wave their magic wand and guarantee my data back, I'd happily give them $100, but I'm sure that's an extreme lowball for any reputable business.

Symptoms
"Not initialized" / RAW (Healthy) / "You need to format the disk before you can use it." / Other inconsistent bad behaviour.

Long version

March 23:

While downloading a file to my U: drive, it auto-disconnected and re-connected itself with accompanying Windows sound effects. The program performing the download immediately balked, and when the drive came back, Windows popped up a message saying that the drive needs to be initialized before being used (or similar wording; didn't write the exact message in my notes). It showed as Local Disk U: with no space utilization or file system in Explorer, and in Disk Management as a RAW partition (Healthy).

Rebooted, and the bootup was sloooow. It kept pausing at multiple points. CTRL+SHIFT+ESC did bring up Task Manager after a few secs. The HDD activity light on the dock showed plenty of activity towards the end of that bootup slowness, including after all my previously-opened Explorer windows were restored and there was a long pause after I tried to open Notepad.

"You need to format the disk before you can use it." After clicking cancel, it wasn't even showing up in Disk Management. Hardware problem where it dropped off completely?

Turned off U: drive via switch on dock. Waited 20 secs. Turned back on. Spin-up sound, access sound with no activity indicator, then a quick red flash as Windows popped up the Format window. U: drive was back in the "Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media" taskbar list again (Local Disk). Ejected and turned it off.

Which brings us to now. I've just had it sitting in the dock (turned off) since that day.

What would you do in this situation, keeping in mind that only the smaller files are truly desired? Attempt to image the drive and then parse through that image? Use some recovery tool to look for the missing partition and do targeted copies of the most-important files that are found, if any? Buy that SpinRite tool? (Snake oil? Disk-thrasher?)

[DB83]

Use recovery software.

Had a similar issue and Zero Assumption Recovery (ZAR) got everything back. Mind you the drive (unless you partitioned it) will take a long time to analyse.

[Nelson37]

Remove drive from additional, unnecessary hardware and connect directly, as an internal drive, to a desktop PC. ALWAYS, repeat ALWAYS, do this as STEP ONE with any suspect drive.

This is a very simple concept that far too many overlook. Whenever you have a complex, multi-component system with errors, and you can remove some of those components, you are eliminating possible sources for the error.

Best and most repeatedly successful data recovery prog I have ever used is GetDataBack, not free but fairly cheap. Excellent, Excellent prog. Takes a while to run, I think they have a free demo that will tell you what files it can access, but won't copy them without payment.

[Bjs]

Testdisk live cd distro ... no windows os in the road ... works when others choke ... if doesn't then nothing else will.