Hard Drive Failing--Anything I Can Do Before I Go To A Data Recovery Service?

[lungnut2002]

I have a 250GB Maxtor hard drive that is failing. It contains 220GB
worth of files (about 45,000 separate files), it's a data-only drive,
no operating system.

The information on the hard drive is critical and I must get it back up
and running. I can only "see" about 5% of of the files on the hard
drive, and it seems that the failure is somehow happening
alphabetically--the files/folders that I can see are the first 5% in
the alphabetical tree of Windows Explorer.

When I rebooted, chkdisk went to work and started reporting that "File
Record Segment 33XX Is Unreadable" and it went sequentially through
file record after file record reporting that they are all unreadable. I
let this process run until it reached approximately "File Record
17,000" and then quit as it took quite awhile to get to that point.

I took the hard drive out of my PC and placed it inside a firewire
enclosure, but there was no change in the way windows saw the drive.

There didn't seem to be any warning, just the failure.

I will resort to data recovery if I must, but I'm hoping that I can
avoid it if at all possible. Are there any possible things I might try
before sending it off?

Thanks.

 

[Howard Kaikow]

Any attempts you make might make matters worse.

If the data is really critical go to a data recovery service before further
damage occurs.

Take a look at the thread in
http://www.vbaexpress.com/forum/showthread.php?t=4993, in which I listed
some data recovery vendors and the caveat about drives still under warranty.

 

[chad]

Hi Lungnut,

There is something you can do -- STOP USING THE DRIVE. If you are truly
experiencing a hardware failure then continued use of the drive can
result in track damage rendering your data irretrievable. There are
some really affordable data recovery services out there that will
retrieve your data at reasonable costs ($100-$500). If your data is
really "critical" then this should be done right away.

Good luck,

Chad
http://free-backup.info

 

[Shep©]

I have a 250GB Maxtor hard drive that is failing. It contains 220GB
worth of files (about 45,000 separate files), it's a data-only drive,
no operating system.

The information on the hard drive is critical and I must get it back up
and running. I can only "see" about 5% of of the files on the hard
drive, and it seems that the failure is somehow happening
alphabetically--the files/folders that I can see are the first 5% in
the alphabetical tree of Windows Explorer.

When I rebooted, chkdisk went to work and started reporting that "File
Record Segment 33XX Is Unreadable" and it went sequentially through
file record after file record reporting that they are all unreadable. I
let this process run until it reached approximately "File Record
17,000" and then quit as it took quite awhile to get to that point.

I took the hard drive out of my PC and placed it inside a firewire
enclosure, but there was no change in the way windows saw the drive.

There didn't seem to be any warning, just the failure.

I will resort to data recovery if I must, but I'm hoping that I can
avoid it if at all possible. Are there any possible things I might try
before sending it off?

Thanks.

Take the drive out and put in your freezer overnight in a sealed
watertight bag.It's an old trick and works.Re-fit drive and get data
off it ASAP.
HTH