Faulty Hard Drive Cant load data

[furkan68k18]

Hello, I recenty pulled out a hard drive from my old pc which had windows 7 installed on it. The problem is that when I boot from this hard drive the screen gets stuck on the windows loading screen before entering password. What I did was hook it up to my new pc which has a drive with windows 10 installed on it and booted from windows 10 with the windows 7 hard drive plugged in as well but this time the pc got stuck on the windows 10 loading screen (even though I have removed the windows 7 drive from the boot sequence it seems to be interfering with the boot up of windows 10). What I found is that I could boot the pc without the windows 7 drive plugged in then plug it in once I had signed into the computer and rescan for disks in 'computer management > storage> disk management>more actions> resacn disks' this way the drive could not interfere with the boot up. But once it had found the disk it was taking ages to load the disk in windows explorer and once it did finish I was barely able to copy out 650mb of data in just a couple of hours when the pc crashed. I tried this again but all the other times I have tried I wasn't even able to access the data, windows explorer gave me the error message: drive is not accessible. I have tried this in safe mode but have reached the same conclusion. I still have over 30gb of really important data on this drive and I would be grateful if someone could help me find a solution to fixing the drive and being able to retrieve my data.

 

[RealBeast]

Likely the drive is defective, to be sure download the drive test tool from the manufacturer web site (such as Seagate Seatools, WD Data LifeGuard Diagnostics, etc.) and run it.

You may not be able to get the data off the drive, which is why backup is always important.

 

[furkan68k18]

Likely the drive is defective, to be sure download the drive test tool from the manufacturer web site (such as Seagate Seatools, WD Data LifeGuard Diagnostics, etc.) and run it.

You may not be able to get the data off the drive, which is why backup is always important.

Well the drive is defective that is obvious, I dont think the tool would be able to find the disk since I cant load it in windows explorer. Plus I tried searching the disk on a data recovery tool but even the data recovery tool is stuck on loading the drive. Its a 250 hitachi drive, what tool would I need for this, I might just give it a go.

 

[RealBeast]

WinDFT is the specific tool, but it is simply going to tell you what you already know if you can get the drive to mount -- the drive is bad.

You can try something like one of the free EaseUS recovery tools, although they are unlikely to work as whatever you already tried is not working. If you really need the data (like unique family photos) and can spend a large sum, send it to Seagate recovery services.

Otherwise call it a day and dig up the data again if possible.

 

[furkan68k18]

WinDFT is the specific tool, but it is simply going to tell you what you already know if you can get the drive to mount -- the drive is bad.

You can try something like one of the free EaseUS recovery tools, although they are unlikely to work as whatever you already tried is not working. If you really need the data (like unique family photos) and can spend a large sum, send it to Seagate recovery services.

Otherwise call it a day and dig up the data again if possible.

EaseUS was the exact tool I tried to use but like I told you it couldnt even load the hard drive. Thanks for your help anyway.

 

[RealBeast]

Yup, won't work with drives in real bad shape. And if won't, nothing short of a Seagate cleanroom is likely to work, which is very expensive. If nothing else you will never again go without excellent backup, and most of us have been through these problems and learned from them. Good luck.

 

[RolandJS]

At first read, I was going to ask: Is there a chance to put the old HD back into the old computer and attempt a single- pass sector-by-sector clone it onto an external hard-drive? I'm hoping that might give you an opportunity to work recovery attempts on the clone rather than on the original.
However, a previous poster gave you what is probably the best advice at this point: send it to a data recovery company/specialist, be prepared to spend plenty.

 

[furkan68k18]

At first read, I was going to ask: Is there a chance to put the old HD back into the old computer and attempt a single- pass sector-by-sector clone it onto an external hard-drive? I'm hoping that might give you an opportunity to work recovery attempts on the clone rather than on the original.
However, a previous poster gave you what is probably the best advice at this point: send it to a data recovery company/specialist, be prepared to spend plenty.

Yeah I guess that is my only option. Any suggestions on a recovery company? I have never used one before.

 

[RealBeast]

At first read, I was going to ask: Is there a chance to put the old HD back into the old computer and attempt a single- pass sector-by-sector clone it onto an external hard-drive? I'm hoping that might give you an opportunity to work recovery attempts on the clone rather than on the original.
However, a previous poster gave you what is probably the best advice at this point: send it to a data recovery company/specialist, be prepared to spend plenty.

Yeah I guess that is my only option. Any suggestions on a recovery company? I have never used one before.

I would recommend Seagate, although it is not cheap by any means, if the data is recoverable they will send it to you on a new drive.

 

[cat2devnull]

Hello, I recenty pulled out a hard drive from my old pc which had windows 7 installed on it. The problem is that when I boot from this hard drive the screen gets stuck on the windows loading screen before entering password...

You could try SpinRite 6. It works a bit differently to most recovery software. It runs off a bootable FreeDos image so doesn't require Windows. It accesses the drive at a direct hardware level (not through the Windows API) and keeps reading the damaged area until it successfully recovers the data and then remaps it to an unused sector. Once done you should be able to mount the drive and get copy the data off.
More details can be found here; https://www.grc.com/sr/whatitdoes.htm
Don't let the early 1990's look put you off. It does what it says on the tin!

 

[RolandJS]

While I am a fan of Spinrite for some years now, do not use Spinrite as a data recovery utility, if memory serves me, Gibson Research Corp calls Spinrite a hard-drive's hardware realignment and Allocation Recount fix and does not call Spinrite a data recovery utility. Check with Dr_Luke before using Spinrite.