Need some tech help

[urslave188]

I know there are a few tech heads around here so really hope ye can help.

Tried to turn on my computer recently only to find it wouldn't start up, said one of my files were corrupt or missing. Have my hard drive partitioned so knowing that the majority of my files were safe I decided to try and repair the file with my Windows XP CD only to find that it would not repair the file. Tried to format the hard drive after this and reinstall windows completely but this also failed because of the same error. Have a Windows 7 CD and had been told that when you install Windows 7 it automatically backs up your old files into a folder called windows old. Tried to format the hard drive with the Windows 7 CD and guess what...yup it failed.

Managed to get a loan of a cradle so took out the hard drive, hooked it up to the cradle, hooked the cradle up to the laptop only to be told that the USB device attached to this computer has malfunctioned and windows does not recognize it. When I click on it to get more info it says windows has stopped this device because it has reported problems (Code 43).

I'm guessing I need a new hard drive but is there anyway i can get the files off if before I dump it. Had a whole lot of stuff stored on that hard drive including all my music and pics.

Please help

[El Gordo]

I know there are a few tech heads around here so really hope ye can help.

Tried to turn on my computer recently only to find it wouldn't start up, said one of my files were corrupt or missing. Have my hard drive partitioned so knowing that the majority of my files were safe I decided to try and repair the file with my Windows XP CD only to find that it would not repair the file. Tried to format the hard drive after this and reinstall windows completely but this also failed because of the same error. Have a Windows 7 CD and had been told that when you install Windows 7 it automatically backs up your old files into a folder called windows old. Tried to format the hard drive with the Windows 7 CD and guess what...yup it failed.

Managed to get a loan of a cradle so took out the hard drive, hooked it up to the cradle, hooked the cradle up to the laptop only to be told that the USB device attached to this computer has malfunctioned and windows does not recognize it. When I click on it to get more info it says windows has stopped this device because it has reported problems (Code 43).

I'm guessing I need a new hard drive but is there anyway i can get the files off if before I dump it. Had a whole lot of stuff stored on that hard drive including all my music and pics.

Please help

It doesn't sound like you're going to be able to fix this on your own. There are companies that specialise in hard drive recovery, but they aren't cheap. You need to decide how valuable you feel the stuff on that drive was.

[monster_monster]

It doesn't sound like you're going to be able to fix this on your own. There are companies that specialise in hard drive recovery, but they aren't cheap. You need to decide how valuable you feel the stuff on that drive was.

El Gordo is right, you're probably best going to see a specialist. If you want you can try to take the actual disks out of the hardrive but make sure you have a matching model to put them into. It's worked for me before but it's tricky as hell

[nicegirlsarenice]

If you format the drive you're deleting all files on it, and then after installing another operating system on top of that you'd have an awful lot of trouble trying to undelete them later if possible at all.

There should be another place you can hook up another hard drive on your computer, such as a different connector on another part of the cable. Install windows on your new hard drive, boot from that, and if it is working properly at all it should be able to pick up your new hard drive as a different volume (like C:\ drive, E:\ drive or whatever). Did you hear a clicking noise on it? If it's clicking it usually means its dead.

I have a program called Speedfan to try to warn me of future hard drive failure before it happens, and I have important files backed up anyway.

[El Gordo]

This won't help you, urslave, but for anyone else who's reading this, backup is generally cheaper than recovery. I make regular backups to cd or to other machines' hard disks, but the simplest thing to do is to buy an external drive and copy everything to that. This only works, of course, if you make the backups before your hard drive dies on you.

[El Gordo]

If you format the drive you're deleting all files on it, and then after installing another operating system on top of that you'd have an awful lot of trouble trying to undelete them later if possible at all.

This is only partly true. When you format the disk you lose all the information about where the files are on disk, but they don't actually get overwritten yet. Reinstalling Windows will probably have overwritten some, but the others should still be there, though Windows won't be able to find them. There are programs which will scan a hard drive for blocks which look like the headers for known file types, which would include the music and pics urlslave is looking for. A good data recovery company will have these programs, and know how to use them, which is important because data recovery is more art than science.

[urslave188]

Have an external hard drive that a lot of stuff is backed up onto but have not done it in a couple of months. How much would we be talking to get the files recovered from a specialist. As the name suggests I am into BDSM and domination so I have a good few videos of this sort of thing downloaded onto the hard drive. As much as i want to save the files, think I would be to embarrassed to bring it to a specialist. As I need a new hard drive think I'll go with installing Windows on the new hard drive and booting from that and hope it will pick up the old hard drive.

Thanks for the help so far.If anyone's got any other ideas please do share

[nicegirlsarenice]

This is only partly true. When you format the disk you lose all the information about where the files are on disk, but they don't actually get overwritten yet. Reinstalling Windows will probably have overwritten some, but the others should still be there, though Windows won't be able to find them. There are programs which will scan a hard drive for blocks which look like the headers for known file types, which would include the music and pics urlslave is looking for. A good data recovery company will have these programs, and know how to use them, which is important because data recovery is more art than science.

No, what I wrote was all true... he will find it a lot harder to obtain the files again if he formatted the drive. If he "wiped" the drive (that's format and rewrite with random data)... he would need specialized equipment for it. If he wiped the drive twice or three times, it would be practically impossible to ever obtain the data. File shredders generally wipe the data three or more times.

[El Gordo]

Have an external hard drive that a lot of stuff is backed up onto but have not done it in a couple of months. How much would we be talking to get the files recovered from a specialist. As the name suggests I am into BDSM and domination so I have a good few videos of this sort of thing downloaded onto the hard drive. As much as i want to save the files, think I would be to embarrassed to bring it to a specialist. As I need a new hard drive think I'll go with installing Windows on the new hard drive and booting from that and hope it will pick up the old hard drive.

Thanks for the help so far.If anyone's got any other ideas please do share

I don't think anyone will give you a quote until they've seen the drive, but you could end up paying several hundred. I wouldn't worry much about the videos, as long as there's nothing actually illegal there. You wouldn't be their first customer with BDSM videos, I'm pretty sure.

[anon361]

It sounds to me you have turned what could have been a very simple fix into a complete mess, had you not used the words format and failed together in the same post I may have been able to help you but not now. People need to understand, formating a hard drive is basically wiping it clean so it can be used for whatever reason, if you had files on the first partition chances are they are gone. If the are on the second partition you have some hope but the information to access that is held on the first, if that gets corrupted say by a failed format your screwed. Yes the hard drive can be repaired but the info is lost. Only option without seeing the drive is to send it to a specialist hardrive recovery company but last time I done this after a head failure they charged £300 in the UK.
If Windows will not boot for whatever reason it's usually because the boot.ini got corrupted, windows has a built in boot repair utility which is run in dos from the bios. If that doesn't work there are several freely available utilities that can be downloaded. The last thing you want to do is format which is tech speek for erase and start again!!!