How to restore data from broken Hard Drive

[Charlotte01]

I'm having a problem with my hard drive for my Asus eee pc 1025ce, I was going to back it up to my new external hard drive but it broke before I got the chance. I'm going to try freezing it and then backing it up later.

My question is if it work and I save the data how would I restore it to the laptop if my hard drive breaks afterwards? My mum's data will also be saves as a file on there and I've never restored it before so I don't know really what to do.

Also because it's been refurbished and I bought it second had the laptop came with windows 7 starter but had been upgraded to professional (I think) will the data for that mean if I can't fix the hard drive that I'll start with the starter again? Also I don't know where to find the official windows product key or if I'll need it to restore my windows software.

Thanks 🙂

 

[digitaldoc]

I tried the freeze the hard drive once, and it totally did not work. It got condensation on it, which totally eliminated any chance of it ever working again.

 

[D_Know_WD]

Hi there Charlotte01,

You can transfer your old HDD to a new one with simply using some cloning program.
Though, it seems that your old HDD is completely dead. I wouldn't advise you to freeze it as well. You can further damage the drive. In case the data stored on the drive is really important, your safest bet of recovering it is to contact a data recovery company.

You can try using some data recovery tool for DOS mode. This way you will see whether your old HDD is still accessible.

Cheers,
D_Know_WD

 

[James Mason]

Freezing a drive only works if it's soon to fail, not after it fails.

It's prohibitively expensive to recover the data from, but data recovery services can do still do it. (but expect to pay over $500)

And sometimes hard drives aren't actually broken, and only the master boot record (that allows windows to boot) gets corrupt. Another working computer can retrieve data from the drive still.

 

[AJammy]

It’s not hard to restore data from broken Hard Drive. If you are not professional then don’t do it on your own risk. Freezing some time works but it depends how much you have lost your drive.
Drive inside a Zip Lock bag and put it in the freezer for about 3-4 hours.
After that take it out and connect it to the computer as fast as you can so that it does not have time to warm up. Make sure that you do not remove the hard drive out of the bag and that you open it as little as possible when connecting it to the power and data cables, so that outside air doesn’t come in and create condensation on the drive.
Turn your computer on, look for your data and take it out as fast as you possibly can. Time is key here because you do not know if that drive is going to ever work again. Make sure you do this on a fast computer that does not take long to boot up, if possible connect the hard drive to an external USB enclosure so that you do not waste time with the computer booting up. Also make sure you know the exact location of your data; is better if you go to straight to the folder rather than using Windows search utility, as searching the drive will heat it up faster due to the amount of work the arm will have to make. Drives usually work for a few minutes and stop working once they heat up. So hurry!!!
If after freezing the hard drive and connecting it to the computer you are still not able to access it and you still hear the noise, hold the drive in your hand and, without taking it out of the bag, tap it with your knuckles on one side to see if this releases the heads, you obviously have to do this while the hard drive is powered on and connected to the computer.
If tips does not work for you or Windows detects the hard drive but it can’t be accessed and you still want your data back is time to send your drive to a data recovery service, there are number of those on the web. I have never actually tried one, but some of them will charge you a flat fee regardless of the problem. No data recovery program will return your files to you in exactly the condition you originally kept them. However, these services will not guarantee your back all of the time, in fact most of them regardless of what they claim, will just have a 75% to 80% success rate.