drive failure data recovery help needed.
 

ok so suddenly my storage drive failed.

it spins, no weird noises, but does not show up in windows, or reluctantly does.

BIOS shows the drive.

when it does show up in explorer, i cannot access it or pull up any menus like format/properties etc.

tried an external enclosure and it does the same. recovery software like Recova and Restorer 2000 or Seatools does nothing. they cannot even run, when trying to detect the drive, they hang.

It still under warranty and i have 90% backups but there's still some family photos i have not backed up in the last 2 months.

I'm trying the freezer trick as a last resort.

no, its not worth $500/hr to recover the data. if i could at least format the drive so windows can see it, recovery software might be able to help.

any ideas?>:okay:

You are the only person on this planet I know who has had more hard drive failures than one can count with their fingers.

Too much hentai does that to your hard drives.

Try Spinrite. It's saved quite a few asses in my time using it.

the main issues are when i try to access the drive, whatever app im running will freeze. the fucking drive is like Medusa.

how many people do you know with as many drives as I do?

law of averages.

I had the same issue a few months ago with a WD 3TB. Except mine doesn't even show on BIOS, and when I can get it to show in windows (plug HDD in while PC and windows in running), it's not accessible.

Tried every software there is, nothing works. The problem was bad sectors. A previous HDD I had, had a defected PCB board, which cannot be read by the PC, this was a seagate one.

Anyways, both times I had to do RMA. The WD one, they replaced with 2TB black caviar. You are not going to get any free data recovery from the manufacturer unless it's a recall for defect.

I went to ME coz I had a drive like this.. they said there was a place that can do this in richmond is $$$$$$$$.. my 500gb drive was quoted $400-$500... :fulloffuck::seriously::fuckthatshit:

i did this a LOOOONG while ago, and not sure if it will still work with current hard drives. and if my memory serves me right, it is ubuntu.

Recovering files from a Crashed Hard Drive using an Ubuntu Live CD - myfixlog.com

Try one of these:
Trinityhome : Blog - Latest news

SystemRescueCd

Although if the hard drive is physically having problems there's not much software can do. The freezer trick rarely works.

You should invest in some sorta autobackup process. I have everything important stored in 4 places. Desktop to server, server mirrored to 2nd drive, server to portable 2.5" USB. :)

My post was tongue-in-cheeck but in all seriousness of your question - yes, I do.

Bumping this back up!

my USB drive has failed. when I go to plug it in, I get a prompt to format. I've been trying to boot from USB (another USB stick of course) and I keep getting the message to remove the USB and press enter when I go to start up the computer.
So what do you guys think is the problem here? Is it that I may have done the bootable USB stick improperly? Is it my BIOS settings?

I've been trying to follow the systemrescueCD link that was posted earlier.

Wait, i don't get it - you plugged in USB stick A, and it prompts you to format it.

And when you try to boot from USB stick B, it tells you to remove USB and press enter?

Are you trying to recover the data from USB stick A? Or is your computer unbootable?

let me clarify.

USB stick B tells me to remove USB and press enter when I change my bios settings to start from USB. I trying to start from USB stick B because that's what the steps say when trying to recover data from USB stick A.

Yes, I'm trying to recover data from USB stick A. My computer can boot Windows just fine, it's just that it won't boot whatever I put on the USB stick B as per the instructions from systemrescueCD

Hope that helps.