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Dead Hard Drive
Reddragon
Posts: 32 Forumite
in Techie Stuff
I hope someone on here can help, the hard disc on my second computer has just died, and (sackcloth and ashes ) I hadnt backed up my photos for over a year and transferred to new PC, all I want back are these photos no significant or wanted data on disc , they are all Jpeg photos is there any way of recovering these either myself or through a local computer shop?
Thanks for reading and any answers.
Thanks for reading and any answers.
0
Comments
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No. It needs to go to a specialist company. Any company advertising they can do it for less than £400 isn't worth a toss IME. They're only really of any use if it's a software error such as corrupted partition information. They use software based solutions or at best may try and swap over the circuit board on a drive but if the fault is in the motor, the head assembly or the platters, they cannot recover it but they frequently make it even more irretrievable than it was before
A proper data recovery company takes the platters out of the hard drive and reads from them. To do this, you need a proper sterile "white room" environment and they aren't cheap.
I used to have a link for a very good company but I deleted it ages ago as people don't want to pay money for a proper job. You can give these guys a go. They won't charge you for an initial inspection:
http://www.retrodata.co.uk/0 -
If it'll spin up, but is ticking and you can't see it through windows, or get a I/O error, you still may be able to salvage some stuff from it.
First add a new HD and setup windows as before, then attach this damaged drive as a secondary drive (if SATA, just plug into a spare SATA port) if IDE/PATA, you may have to set some jumper settings.
If you have some technical knowledge, the free tools here: http://www.cgsecurity.org
are fantastic, and may well help you recover some data. Try PhotoRec first, and then TestDisk if you get nowhere, however if you don't understand how discs work and store data, read the guide fully!
However if the disc isn't spinning at all, then Conor's suggestion is a good one, I'd recommend OnTrack, but they aren't cheap!0 -
Aha...Ontrack...that's the one!0
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