How to retrieve data from a crashed hard disk?

[Rudyard]

My in laws still have there old PC from a few years ago that crashed and apparently doesnt start anymore. They have many digital photos that only exist on that HDD. So I was wondering, as im assuming its something with windows thats dead and not the whole HDD itself can I plug it in to my PC as a 2nd HDD and then access the files they need before getting rid of it?

I figure if It is a 2nd drive on my PC it wont need to boot of it and as such will bypass windows....but have no idea if it works like this.

Any ideas?

[lordsmurf]

If the hardware can be seen, sure, maybe.

[yoda313]

Or if you have an external enclosure for a 3.5 inch hard drive that might be safer than installing it in your pc. Then you will be simply installing it as a usb hard drive. Then you'd know right away whether or not it still works.

Just a thought - they go for around 30.00 for generic brands I believe. And they'd be useful for any extra harddrives your not using anymore after your project is done

[Rudyard]

Hmm Yoda, are you saying an external enclosure is something that has the connections for a HDD to plug into and then it transfers via usb to the PC?

I was actually thinking of getting an external HDD, would it be good idea to use this device or is this a way to make internal HDD's external?

The price seems like a good way to achieve my goal rather than potentially mucking up my PC.

[ybeard]

If it's simply an issue of Windows not loading, I don't see how it would hurt in attempting to hook this drive up as either a slave drive on the primary IDE interface or master or slave on the secondary to see if you can copy any data off of it.

However, if you are hearing a clicking sound, chances are that the heads are actually crashed and there might not be much hope of getting any data. I had a hard drive that was clicking and I popped it into a sealed freezer bag for about an hour, then removed it and quickly hooked it up as a secondary master. I was able to get about 800mb off it before it crashed, this time permanently.

[Rudyard]

I will have to check the finer details about what was wrong to know if it was a hardware crash or software failure.

Just out of curiosity what on earth made you think to put a hard drive in the freezer and then back into a computer?

[anonjon]

Get something like this( link ) and if the hard drive is functional, this will enable you to get the files off of it. After this, you could purchase another internal drive of whatever size you choose( provided it is of the correct drive interface, of course ) and use the resulting combination as your desired external drive. I do this and it's quite handy to be able to grab drives out of computers while you're going on a trip and using them with your laptop while you're gone.

[yoda313]

To rudyard - yes a hard drive enclosure is exactly that.

[redwudz]

I also use a IDE>USB adapter on occasion if I just need to get data off a hard drive. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16812156101

But one of those external drive boxes may be more useful after you have gotten the data off the hard drive as a extra external drive.

[Alan69]

Also don't forget, even if the drive doesn't show up, don't format it etc trying to make it work.

If it doesn't show up, likely only the controller card on the drive is damaged. Get another drive of the exact same type, and swap in the working pc board, and often it's back working.

Won't help one where the heads/platters are really damaged, but that's rare if their computer just stopped working etc and wasn't dropped. You can even swap the HD platters into another drive too, but that's a lot of work. Won't last long with dust etc getting in, but usually long enough to get what's still there off..

Later,
Alan

[vico1]

I also use a IDE>USB adapter on occasion if I just need to get data off a hard drive. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16812156101

Another happy user I have 3 of those exact same adapters...
Work Great for me!

[jman98]

Rudyard - If you're still reading this thread, I have had exactly the same problem where Windoze got all messed up and wouldn't boot off my hard drive and I was able to connect this drive to a good drive and copy off the data I needed. The drive was basically OK, Windows just got in a state where it couldn't fix itself on the disc.

I have also had success doing this - attach a good 2nd drive to the system that has Windows installed (it can be a slave or master - doesn't matter), boot Windows XP from CD and go into rescue mode. Log into the good disk version of Windows and from there do
chkdsk C:/
or whatever the bad disk is called and fix it from the good disk. Then I can boot from the first disk. If you have older versions of Windows like 2000 or worse something even older, this method may or may not work. It probably will NOT work on Win ME or Win 98 or Win 95.

I'd say the odds are better than you think that you can recover the data. Most of the time I see disks that won't boot, a lot or all of the data is recoverable, it's just Windows that has the problem.

[Alex_ander]

Sometimes the problem can be more complicated than simple Windows fault and after connecting your HDD to a healthy PC Windows might not see the files, just drive letters for some partitions and identify those as 'not formatted'. Then you'll need something like Active Partition Recovery or Active File Recovery software. The latter will copy all existing files to another HDD or to another (healthy) partition, then you can format the problem partitions and copy the files back. I did it a week ago, worked fine.

[Nelson37]

If you want the best odds of getting the HD to function, then connect it internally on an IDE cable all by itself. The external may work fine, but if it does not, the internal still might. It is also possible for a defective external enclosure to either destroy the data on the drive, or even the drive itself. Not likely, but I have seen it happen. Not much problem with a warranty and a blank drive, but you have neither.

Assuming these pictures are valuable, it is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT that absolutely no attempts at repair are made to the drive except as an absolute last resort. Many so-called repair programs will completely destroy any possibility of data recovery. Try to clone it first to another drive, or use a recovery prog that puts the results on a seperate HD.

[oldandinthe way]

Do not connect this drive to a USB to IDE adaptor.

Some older drives are not compatible with such adaptors and the contents can be destroyed by making this connection.

I've done it with known good drives.

The IDE standard has evolved over the years. And although the data may be present it may not run on a more modern IDE adaptor.

If the file system is FAT16, I'd recommend booting the system it resides in from a dos floppy. If it is FAT32 from a Win95/98/ME recovery disk. If XP from an XP recovery disk.

The safest action you can take is to leave the hardware in place and get an operating system running on the system without touching the drive. If necessary place the drive on the second IDE port in its sytem and put a good bootable hard disk on the primary IDE port.

[Rudyard]

wow thanks for all the replies, for some reason I stopped getting emails that there were replies and just read the last 6 or so!

I just searched for this thread to report back that I have successfully gotten many hundreds of family photos of the drive using a HDD enclosure, it worked very simply and showed up as a USB drive.

So thanks to all who helped and for the many sugestions, thankfully it was simple in the end for me and nothing was destroyed.