Yesterday night, when I was eating my dinner, due to fluctuation in electricity I lost my hard disk. It was not just a Hrad Disk, it was having all my work that I have done in the past three years. My university projects, my c++ software that I did for a company, the backup of my current wallpaper site, the 2 new sites that I was working for past 3 months, my 85% of wallpaper collection that I collected from hundred’s of sites & other resources, my software collection of over 10 GB (that was not copied from cds). In short, I lost everything. (I am almost crying while writing this ) To all DP members, never ever trust on your HD. Create 2/3 backups of your important data or you will be writing a similar article like mine. I was thinking to make a backup as soon as I get some money to buy a new hard disk. But unfortunately, it was too late for me. And now, I will not have any money ever to get something as I lost my entire work. I don’t know if any one here will be able to recover the data from my HD, today it’s a local holiday here. The markets are closed so no luck for me. I was having 80GB Maxtor ATA/133 HD. (there was only 10-12 GB free space in it so you can understand my feelings) If there is anyone out here, who can guide me how to recover my data back from this HD. Please step forward and help me. Crying .. Crying for help I don’t know what to do now. Through my PC out of the window, sell my site, buy a DVD player and start watching old movies OR Start from a scratch. And perhaps this time it would take me 1 year to do everything. Crying for the stupid mistake i have done with my life
There are tons of sites that do this. A lot are forensic teams that can get data from hard drives that have been in plane crashes and fires so I reckon they will be able to do yours.
Happend to me too, but it wasn't to hard to recover the data. So you really should try a recovery tool!
I think you can still recover most or everything on your HD... Just go see a good Computer engineer or a technician.. There are ppl making good business out of this market... Relax for now!! Tomorrow hopefully you can get someone who can do it for you.. I understand wht you are goin through... Ill pray for yaa..
So you are saying we should do back ups of important data? Wow, never even occured to me... Whilst I feel a bit sorry for you, I also think it was rather stupid. Of course you have back ups of important stuff! Watch this - it'll teach you a lesson and give you some hope. Data can probably be recoverd unless it was literally fried. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGSaQEdKlNM&NR
Thats a really bad situation... i know as i have suffered it in past. But a local computer expert was able to do this and so i think there is a way out. I will call on his office in morning and post here what he says. Where r u located BTW
Consider it a lesson learnt. I've been there too, and I know how heart breaking it can be. I lost 6 months of work a few years ago (including a $5K project that I had to recreate), luckily it wasn't more... but I learnt my lesson. I now make DAILY backups, to a separate drive (using Second Copy) And make monthly backups on DVD that I store at my parents house.
I sure need your prayers. Yea, i will try my best tomorrow, But i am not sure if i will fine any good Engineer here who do such a thing. To my best knowledges, most of the big shopes here just give you a new HD and replace yours. Ahh, I hope i would have access to these "Data Recovery' persons. In my country, it is very difficult to find a person who can do such a thing. I will wait for your post. That will be a great help indeed. I am from Pakistan. And i don’t know of any person/company or shop here offering data recovery services. As of the current stat of HD In bios I can see it. (detect able) If I use it a master derive, I can see the Win XP screen asking to chose “normal mode, safe mode, last good known ….. etc†but what ever I chose. It gets restart after that point. If I use it as a secondary drive from my current HD, all I see is One drive with file system “RAW†and when I click on it, it says, “Disk is not formatted, Press Ok to format it nowâ€
If I would have that kind of budget, don’t you think I would have bought a new HD to backup all important data
Back in the olden days when an HD died on me, I'd scout the online buy & sell forums on various BBS'es looking for dead drives that had working electronics. Buy the same model of drive, swap off the PCB board and just hope that it only fried the PCB and not the motor. You might get lucky. Saved myself from a few tears a couple of times that way .. OK duh, just saw this. The drive is working. The filesystem is merely screwed. Lots of recovery software out there. The link suggested above (spinrite) looks like it might be a good choice. There are cheaper ones out there that I've used for SD card recovery, and likely work on regular drives too. Google is your friend in a case like this
I had six logical drives in this 80GB HD. Now all i see is one drive with unknow space and unknown file system. Don't know if any data recovery software would be able to read it in its current form. (The worst part, I had 2 paid Data Recovery softwares in it which i have used many times to help my friends, But now, all gone )
Shouldn't be a problem. You should still be able to pull any readable files off it, even reading it as a whole drive. Sounds like just the partition info might have been corrupted, there should be some software available to scan and detect it, and repair that, after retrieving the data first, just to be safe..? This might be what you need? http://www.partition-recovery.com/partition.htm Recovering Undetected / Unscanned partition
OMG The above tool is actually reading my HD. (I tried two before but none of them worked) Although instead of 80Gb its showing it as 31.7 GB but I can see my files in C & D drives. I can’t recover any thing as it’s a demo version. But still its giving me a blink of hope.. A smile on my face since yesterday night Now I am going to give it a try. If any of you knows any good “Fee Data Recovery†tool please tell me now. I can’t go for a paid version as I neither have any money to pay nor I have any mean to pay. (No PayPal, no CC at the moment) If anyone here who have a paid version of any Data Recovery Tool and will like to “Lend†me his software for some time, Please PM me… You can really make my life back on track… I will be online searching Google & finding any software available for free. //Update I found two free software on Google but they work for Fat 32 file system. I was having NTFS on all my drives. So i need something that can read & recover NTFS.
I downloaded "Active@ Partition Recovery for Windows" from this page download Its not completely working as its showing only 31.7 GB and i can only see two Drives. (Don't know if its coz of demo version or the limit of software)
Sorry to hear that, man, you should be able to get alot back, But seriously, Get a battery back up / surge protecter, and a second sperate external drive to back up. I have read this alot, and I dont understand why alot of people dont treat data like anything serious When you take a long car trip , you always make sure you have a spare tire ..... I think spending $200 on a battery backup/ surge protecter , and an external hard drive ( many back up automaticly ) is or should be bought from the time you put that first finger on the keyboard That was totally directed at you but I have read alot on this forums , about people loosing it all ( years of work) I hope you get your databack!
Ok, I got a copy I am now trying to figure how I can transfer you the license (I emailed them and waiting for a reply)
I don’t know if I would ever be able to give my gratitude to you for this thing. (I hope they reply quick and reply positively) An other smile on my face for today So far, I tried 4 more tools. None of them is working properly. One of them only searches jpg files but I am not interested in this. Interestingly this one also showing me 31.7 GB instead of 80GB HD. I think I should try recovery tool by myself before give my HD to a local shop. (They might screw it completely as I know they are not so expert in hardware) Its 2:00 am here and i will be online till morning working on it. I will not be sleeping tonight as my whole work is at stake.