Rescuing files from a "dead" drive

  • Thread starter Thread starter Guest
  • Start date Start date
G

Guest

About a week ago my old hard drive crashed. It had been running XP home on
the c: drive. Don't think it was an OS issue, cause I got that
click-click-click sound instead of hearing a spinning disc.

I did a clean install of XP home, onto a brand new 160 GB drive, again
putting it on the c: drive. The OS and all my software is installed and
ready to go.

I had not made a backup not for a good 4 or 5 months. (I know, I know, bad
move.) I would really like to try rescuing the files from those months, so I
tried hooking up the old drive as a slave. Well, lo and behold, it spun! So
now the old HD is working, but who knows for how long.

Here's my big question: how do I get the files from the old one onto the
new one? I can see the old drive in device manager, and got an "adding new
hardware" bubble. But I CANNOT see the drive in Windows Explorer, nor in
disc management under My Computer. Western digital tools software sees the
drive and asks "do you want to set up this drive to work with your system",
but I want to make sure that won't re-format it and erase all data. I also
tried going through the BIOS setup program, booting from the Windows that was
installed on the old drive, but it wouldn't boot.

Any ideas what else to do? Shoudl I try one or more of these things again?
Push ahead with the WD setup or with formatting the drive? I really would
appreciate any help. Thanks in advance.
 
OK, tried what was suggested, along with other suggestions I found on this
board. Still no luck. Before I give up I thought I'd see if anyone here had
any other ideas.

Here were some of the things I've tried, with the results:
(1) uninstalled the driver using Device Manager, then ran add new hardware.
The add new hardware wizard set up the disk, and it re-appeared in Device
Manager. But it still cannot be read by either Explorer or in Disk
Management.
(2) Went into the recovery console using the install CD. Tried chkdsk, got
"specified drive is not valid or there is no disk" error msg. Tried fixboot,
got similar message. Tried fixmbr, and literally nothing happened, just got
back another command prompt. Finally, tried the Map command and it did not
show the drive connected at all.
(3) But ... system bios, which is the most recent version, still shows the
drive. So does Device Manager, no change from before.
(4) I've tried utilities like Active Undelete, will also show the drive and
seem to be scanning the sectors, but then they don't finish the scan, i.e.
nothing happens.
(5) formatted the drive using manufacturer's utility tools, which got me a
drive letter under Explorer. Opened drive letter, and windows said drive
must be formatted. Strange, but did it anyway figuring it couldn't hurt
(much). Quick format did not work (forgot error message, something like
"this drive cannot be formatted") So I did a full format, it went all the
way through until 100% was showing on the progress bar, then I got the same
error message that the drive couldn't be formatted. (BTW: yes, I realize
that this move erased data, but hoping to rescue it later with, e.g., Active
Undelete)
(6) Tried reinstalling Windows XP, but got an error that "setup cannot
access this disk" and a blue screen error (Page fault in nonpaged area...0x50)

I really want to save my data, but I'm starting to think I'm really hosed.
Anything else I can do? Thanks in advance for any help...
 
Tried that. Both before and after reformatting the drive. Didn't do a
thing. Also tried booting to Knoppoix 3.9, and it still didn't see the
drive. I'm thinking the drive is toast.
 
Back
Top