Recommendation - free data recovery program

[Guest]

I can google it but just want to know if there is any recommendation which
one to use from anyone out there who have experience in free data recovery
program, thank you

 

[Detlev Dreyer]

I can google it but just want to know if there is any recommendation
which one to use from anyone out there who have experience in free
data recovery program

Data recovery programs should be installed prior to the encounter.
Otherwise, the installation may overwrite the data to be restored.

I never ever lost any data due to frequent backups of important data.
However, there have been good results within a testing environment:

"PC Inspector": http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/uk/welcome.htm

 

[Guest]

My hdd had already crashed, making funny sound. Is there a way I can recoery
the data?
I have another pc2 and what prog should I install on this pc2 to revover the
data? TIA

 

[Kerry Brown]

If the hard drive was making funny sounds it may be too late for some of the
data. If you can install it in another computer then using xcopy will get
whatever Windows can read. Create a folder say for example OldData. Open a
cmd prompt and type "xcopy d:\*.* c:\OldData /e /c" without the quotes. This
will copy whatever Windows can read to the OldData folder. This assumes the
old drive is D:. Change the drive letter to whatever the old drive shows up
as. Make sure you have enough free space before starting. If the old drive
was very large this may take a while. If this or Detlev's suggestion don't
work out the alternative is a drive recovery specialist which can cost many
hundreds of dollars.

 

[Detlev Dreyer]

My hdd had already crashed, making funny sound. Is there a way I can
recoery the data?

Yes, there are special companies (eg. Ontrack) that may or may not
restore the data in a cleanroom. Anyway, this is pretty expensive and
a 100% success is not for sure.

I have another pc2 and what prog should I install on this pc2 to
revover the data?

If the data are lost due to the HDD's head crashing the surface, third-
party Software will *not* restore the data.

 

[Guest]

Need clarification, this command 'xcopy d:\*.* c:\OldData /e /c" does it copy
everything in "d' which is the defective secondary hdd. 'everything' meaning
including the xp prog etc (since its has xp been installed) or the command
will just copy data files? Thanks

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

My hdd had already crashed, making funny sound. Is there a way I can
recoery the data?
I have another pc2 and what prog should I install on this pc2 to
revover the data? TIA

Programs won't help you at this point/ Your only recourse is to take the
drive to a professional file recovery company. This kind of service is very
expensive and may or may not work in your case.

 

[Kerry Brown]

It will copy everything. Once you have copied everything you can then use
Windows Explorer to drag and drop what you want from the OldData folder to
where it belongs. Once you have done that you can erase the OldData folder
to recover the space. If you are familiar with the cmd prompt and xcopy you
could just copy whatever folders you need from the old drive.

 

[Guest]

thanks

It will copy everything. Once you have copied everything you can then use
Windows Explorer to drag and drop what you want from the OldData folder to
where it belongs. Once you have done that you can erase the OldData folder
to recover the space. If you are familiar with the cmd prompt and xcopy you
could just copy whatever folders you need from the old drive.

 

[Kerry Brown]

One thing I forgot to mention is you may need to take ownership of the files
first.

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=308421

Try copying them first. Taking ownership would write to drive possibly
causing more corruption.