Hard drive troubleshooting? Broken due to improper shut down?

[lhuigi]

I accidentally shut down my desktop computer then when I open it, it wont boot, there's a message "Please insert removable media" or something like that, I inserted my windows 7 cd, but when the time I need to chosse drive where to install windows, no drives detected, so I suspect my hard drive is broken then I bought new internal hard drive and replace it. Is there any chance to recover files from the hard drive?

 

[herrwizo]

There is always a chance, but depending on your luck this may cost you a lot. If the drive can be recognized in any computer, you can try using a data recovery software of your choice, and you might just get lucky and recover all, or be unlucky and find out that some of the data can't be recovered.

However, the worst scenario is if the disk is not recognized at all. You can only send it to your local specialised company dealing with data recovery. And that costs several times more than buying a new disk. It all depends on how important the data is to you, of course.

 

[herrwizo]

Just to clarify, by "recognized" I am referring to "recognized in BIOS". If the BIOS can see the drive, but Windows can't, it likely lost the partition data.

You can try using this software to recover it:

http://www.piriform.com/recuva/

Note: Recover to another (working) disk only, and make sure you have enough space. Some of the data, depending on your luck, might not be recovered.

 

[lhuigi]

My bios cant detect my hard drive. SATA 1: no disk drives detected, SATA 2: my internal dvd-rom is detected.

 

[lhuigi]

What if using a SATA/IDE to USB Adaptor?

 

[herrwizo]

If you have one, no harm trying. But frankly, I doubt that this will do anything. If you are really desperate, you can try freezing this faulty drive in a fridge for several hours (wrapped in several layers of plastic bags) and then quickly try to connect it via USB enclosure and copy data. But you have to be really quick, as soon as it warms up it may lose electronic contact again. This is not guaranteed to work, though (I have only once managed to save data this way), so be warned. Use this only if you have nothing to lose. Obviously, the drive needs to be EXTREMELY well protected against water condensation when doing so. Report whether it helped or not if you decide to go that route.

But honestly, your best bet is a company specialised in data recovery. Quite expensive.

 

[lhuigi]

I bought a SATA/IDE to USB Adaptor yesterday for $6.40 then I just recovered some of the files using EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard 7.0, I think 70% of them, and I formatted the hard drive and I just used it for backup storage, since I bought a new hard drive. Thanks for your answers =)

 

[herrwizo]

Glad you made it! Now keep backuping things, a good practice indeed!