Hard Drive Not recognized after reboot

[Michael Reyes]

Hi,

I have a problem with one machine, the machine was working well the last
months but last time after i restarted the machine i have a message to insert
a boot media.
i cheked in the bios and the hard drive was recognized so i setup the boot
priority to the HD but the same message.

i tok out the hard drive and put i in an external case, connected to another
pc.
the pc recognize the HD if i go to Computer management/disk management i can
see the partition but i can not open it.
from My computer i can see other External HD's but not this one.
how can i restore the HD funtionality because is very important data inside
and no back ups where loaded for this machine

 

[DL]

Use the HD manufacturers checking utility, available on their site.
If, as is likely, your hd is toast, then a data recovery Company will be an
expensive option.

Theres no such thing as very important data that is not backed up

 

[Bob Harris]

General information of how-to diagnbose and recover hard drives:

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1139
http://www.data-recovery-info.com/
http://www.hard-driverecovery.com/
http://www.get-data-back.com/data-recovery-how-to.html wizard to help you
decide how bad the problem is


Does disk management recognize the FORMAT of the partition, not just the
existance of the hard drive? If not, then possibly the partition table is
corrupt. There are some programs that can fix this, if you are sure that is
the problem. For examle: http://www.ptdd.com/index.htm Do a Google
search on "partition recover" to see more possibilitiies.

Can you run CHKDSK on the hard drive, when it is in the external case? If
yes, does that help? If no, then this disk is probably not accessible by
ordinary XP programs.

So, try lower level programs, such as the disk testing tools available free
form most hard drive makers (e.g., SeaTools for Seagate drives). Avoid "low
level format", as that will erase everything. Most such tools are available
as bootable CD images, although some are also available as installable
software.

Try file recovery software, some of which can find files without a valid
partition table. This is more likely to work if the hard drive was not
fragmented, or only slightly fragmented. See the following link and try a
few of the free programs, or read about the capabilities of the not-free
ones and maybe try one of those. Some programs offer a free find-files
version, but you have to pay for the version that can recover the files.

http://www.majorgeeks.com/downloads38.html

However, if the disk is physically damaged, it is unlikely that software
tools will fix it or recover most files. If you come to that comclusion the
only hope might be a professional recovery service, which can mount the disk
platters in a new hard drive, then recover (some) data. Such services are
not cheap, but most offer a free/cheap diagnostic, and only change big bucks
if they can recover a lot of files. A list of possible services is at:

http://www.get-data-back.com/data-recovery-services.html
http://www.data-recovery-directory.com/usa-canada.htm

While roaming the web in search of a solution to your current problem, also
check into backup and recovery software. You should never (again) let
yourself get into a situation where you have important data without a
backup. At the very least consider performing backups to an external USB
disk via windows explorer or better via XCOPY.

 

[neil]

Boot from a Linux live (op system on the CD) distribution disk and you
should be able to read the drive, if it is readable. Then you could copy the
important data to your external USB drive.
Neil

 

[whiteurls]

You can take the help of third party tool to recover your data.Stellar
Phoenix Windows Data recovery software will help you in recovering
your lost data and partition. It works for both FAT & NTFS file
system. Stellar Phoenix is helpful in recovering data from
inaccessible hard drive or data lost due to accidental format,
viruses, software malfunction, viruses or even sabotage.
Download the demo version from: http://www.stellarinfo.com/partition-recovery.htm

 

[Paul]

Hi,

I have a problem with one machine, the machine was working well the last
months but last time after i restarted the machine i have a message to insert
a boot media.
i cheked in the bios and the hard drive was recognized so i setup the boot
priority to the HD but the same message.

i tok out the hard drive and put i in an external case, connected to another
pc.
the pc recognize the HD if i go to Computer management/disk management i can
see the partition but i can not open it.
from My computer i can see other External HD's but not this one.
how can i restore the HD funtionality because is very important data inside
and no back ups where loaded for this machine

I'd agree on the "test the disk" thing first. The disk could be
in a lot more trouble, than any software can fix.

From a previous post, this is Wasbit's list of data recovery tools:

http://groups.google.ca/group/alt.comp.hardware/msg/5d0362a3de172dcb?dmode=source

One poster here reported that this tool worked for him, and got some
of his files back.

Drive Rescue - http://www.woundedmoon.org/win32/driverescue19d.html

Drive Rescue testimonial
http://groups.google.ca/group/alt.computer/msg/e0bf22172b2703a4?dmode=source

You'll need a place to put the recovered files, so you'll need to set up
another disk, partition/format it, so there is a place for any recovery
program to put the recovered files. If the drive seems to be about to
fail physically, you might also consider a sector by sector copy to
another disk. So a few spare disks is a small price to pay, for
DIY data recovery.

HTH,
Paul