Advanced Data Recovery

Linc

Even with the latest hard drive technology, data loss happens. We're here to help you get it back. Rob Hallock tells you how to recover your data.

Many times data recovery is as easy as plugging the hard drive into the external adapter and plugging that into another computer. Numerous issues that prevent Microsoft Windows from loading, including a bad boot sector or corrupt system files do not prevent access to a hard drive.

primesuspect

Great article Rob. I'd like to add that GetDataBack is also available for FAT32 volumes - a fact that saved a client's ass about two weeks ago

GDB is available for FAT32 and NTFS - and if you need both, you are paying for both

jared

Another fine write up Thraxy.

*cough* bitter crumpet *cough*

cheers :cheers2:

zero-counter

I was thinking advanced beyond Spinrite into clean room tactics with swapping logic boards, platters, motors HD replicators, etc. The title may be a bit misleading for some, but kudos for publishing the article.

Thrax

You have to consider our target audience, zero.counter. It isn't people who are going to yank their drives and start swapping logic boards. While we have those people on the forum, by and large, the front-page audience is packed with people who are terrified when their computer freezes.

zero-counter

Thrax wrote:

You have to consider our target audience, zero.counter.

My apologies, I had the wrong idea all this time... While it is clear that the vast majority of users here are asking for help with some of the most mundane tasks, I was only considering the core backbone of forum posters...not the fly-by-night users using the emergency forum who have less than 3 posts.

Thrax

And unfortunately, those are most of our visitors. Sigh.

BuddyJ

And if you are one of those visitors, please stick around! Computers aren't scary death machines, they're just expensive LEGO kits.

Thrax

Yes. I won't at you if you stick around! I'll !

bradgrafelman

Fourth: If your hard drive is making any sort of clicking or grinding noises, skip to the last part of this article, professional data recovery, because it is the only step appropriate for your situation

What about plopping it in the freezer for a few hours?

dragonV8

Buddy Jesus wrote:

And if you are one of those visitors, please stick around! Computers aren't scary death machines, they're just expensive LEGO kits.

And we come under that banner nicely. Came here some years ago with a problem and have not left. Too many good people with good advise, to help us noobs.:)

oh, and GetDataBack got Sally out of a bind.:)

osaddict

And unfortunately, those are most of our visitors. Sigh.

I was originally one of those visitors - however, I check the forum quite regularly now - Helpful and useful without being elitest like so many forums are!

Thrax

osaddict wrote:

I was originally one of those visitors - however, I check the forum quite regularly now - Helpful and useful without being elitest like so many forums are!

!

osaddict

Aye, I feel comfortable posting stuff which I know on other forums would be totally attacked or even ignored, or met with n00b kinda nonsense all the time!

We can't all be experts in every field after all!

BTW - is there some guide that states how many posts or after what duration someone is awarded with 'Icrontic Duke of Haxor' and what ever comes next etc?!

Anyhow - I feel I may be dragging this off topic too much... as regards the article- I've printed it out and Ill givei t a read on the tube on the way home

primesuspect

bradgrafelman wrote:

What about plopping it in the freezer for a few hours?

Actually not a bad point - in my 10 year tech support career, this has actually worked for me twice. Run the drive freezing cold, just long enough to get important data off.

Thrax

It also has the likelihood of causing condensation on the logic board and frying everything.

osaddict

I'd heard of the freezer thing before but not tried it - but I had NOT heard about the possible damage to the logic board in the form of condensation... but I guess if you've tried other things and your screwed anyway its worth a go!

primesuspect

It worked for me twice. You have to be aware of the condensation issue, but if you bring it into an air conditioned room with low humidity, such as an office or computer work area should be anyway, it doesn't make things any worse.

Linc

And remember kids, frying your logic board generally won't take your data with it. I successfully swapped my Maxtor's logic board with one from a duplicate drive to save it from oblivion.

bradgrafelman

Thrax wrote:

It also has the likelihood of causing condensation on the logic board and frying everything.

Very true. I don't recall the material, but if you wrap the hard drive (cloth, maybe?) it should help prevent that.

BuddyJ

I wonder if those desiccant packs (Silica gell - DO NOT EAT) would help?

Kwitko

Put it in a freezer bag first?

Linc

Buddy Jesus wrote:

DO NOT EAT

****!

scorpiontheater

Thank you for these articles!!!!

I deal with video surveillance DVRs and I feel more prepared the next time I have a "crash and burn". Thank you very much for the advice!!!

Does the author have any books in Print?

Linc

No (not yet, heh), but he has been published in a print magazine (Smart Computing, I believe) and you'll be seeing plenty more of him here on IC.

Thrax

scorpiontheater wrote:

Thank you for these articles!!!!

I deal with video surveillance DVRs and I feel more prepared the next time I have a "crash and burn". Thank you very much for the advice!!!

Does the author have any books in Print?

I wish I had books in print! I've been pubbed a few time in magazines, but nothing substantial

Thelemech

Thanks - I really appreciate this article!

Udayan

Hi,
I'm getting "G:\ is not accessible. Incorrect Function" error when I try to burn any data/mp3 songs on an external 'LG DVD Writer Model GH22NP 20' which is in an external casing attached to my laptop via USB cord.
I have a Win XP (service pack 2)
RAM 760 MB
INTEL CENTRINO 1.73 Ghz
60 GB Hard disk with 3 partitions (C=10 GB, D=30 GB & D=20 GB)

Please I have recently formatted my laptop & installed a fresh copy of Win XP thinking it will resolve this issue, but it has not.

Another issue I'm facing past 2 months :whenever I want to access D or E drive from "My computer" I get error message "windows cannot find 'resycled\boot.com'. Make sure you have typed the name correctly, and then try again. To search a file, click start button, and then search"

would really appreciate much needed HELP.

Bacon21

"windows cannot find 'resycled\boot.com'"
Just pulling a fly by night here but, if thats te way its spelled than its just a malicious virus. Give your files a scan with Malwarebytes (free) or something.
Ps Don't use multiple partions on one physical disk. It leads to errors later on.

Bacon21

Also didn't see the post was from march, never mind. soz

FranciscoNET

Quoting "Bacon21"
"windows cannot find 'resycled\boot.com'"
That's a virus, either Conflicker, or a conclicker clone that creates an "autorun.inf" file in every drive's root directory on any physical drive attached to the infected system, this also includes USB flash drives, so later on you plug it into an uninfected unprotected computer and Window's (ZT@P|D) Autorun "Feature" will gladly install the virus for you FULLY automatically. That's why on every computer that I service I make sure to disable Autorun for removable medias, while leaving autorun on for CD/DVD's (so a DVD movie can play automatically).

As far as data recovery goes, I use a utility that is giving me a 100% success rate on every data recovery job where the drive is still some what "alive", that utility is called "HDD regenerator", NO Patching up bad sectors, and NO other dangerous bad sectors related operations that may render your data irretrievable, what it does is it re-magnetizes the bad sectors making them back into good sectors again regardless of the file system of the drive, so important data residing in bad sectors wont be lost, no data will be lost. However, the recovery is for a limited time (based on what I have seen on cheap customers who didn't want to purchase a new HDD immediately, but rather decided to wait on it), the "Regenerated" sectors will last anywhere between 7 days to 180 days, and if you are VERY lucky it may stay good for a really long time (1+ year(s)) after the recovery job has been performed (its like playing the lottery in determining HOW LONG it will LAST after the sector has been successfully regenerated, but nevertheless, it will ALWAYS BE FOR LONG ENOUGH for you to be able to get your data back, thats for sure, sometimes you may need to do two runs on very problematic drives). This tells me that bad sectors are usually caused when the hard drive begins to loose its magnetic field/magnetic density that the read/write heads have trouble keeping tracking on the problem sector, and is the reason why drives begin to continue developing more bad sectors in the future until it reaches a point of non-reliability. For people who decide to keep their old hard drive after doing this fix will find them selves on the same problem in the future, but running HDD regenerator again will make their drive good again. (I have a customer that have to run HDD regenerator every week because she doesn't want to spend "alot of money" on a new hard drive", but at least, for the moment its working good, even though its her 10th run already).

And for "Clicking and Grinding" hard drives? Well, it will work, just not always. These hard drive are severely damaged that not even the BIOS will register it some of the time. What I Have done with limited success is place the clicking hard drive on the freezer for 40 minutes, then immediately back to the computer's IDE or SATA port, then immediately I booted the computer with my HDD regenerator and begin the bad sector regeneration. Since the idea of the freezer technique is to make the hard drive good again just ENOUGH for the system BIOS to be able to read it and POST it, then for my HDD regenerator to be able to see it, that there is a valid hard drive plugged in (after all, BIOS saw it) and that is not clicking yet, the good thing is that after the regeneration process has started it will be like "too late" for the hard drive to fail again and start clicking, if the "problem moment" arises under this condition (usually after 2 to 5 minutes) because the hard drive is not cold anymore, the HDD regenerator will attempt to continue with the regeneration process and it will succeed, just that it will take alot more time to finish, and may require you leaving the computer on for days straight up. The good news is that after it has been completed that process, that "clicking and grinding" drive will be back to life. To be on the safe keeping, I would recommend doing a mini re-run after it has been done just to reprocess the beginning of the drive (where the hard drive was still cold when you first started the process), this is because the drive is not cold at this point and you would want to make sure that the drive wont have problems seeing the first sectors when you power off the computer and attempt to recover data later on. the second run only needs to be run for about 20 minutes, then it can be interrupted.

The freezer procedure for clicking drives and then HDD regenerator is recommendable if you have data to be recovered in excess of lots of Gigabytes that OBVIOUSLY the limited time to hurry up that you will have wont be enough to get you going for a 100% success rate. BUT if all what you need is a mere word document (example, a 75kb file) then you can just go for the plungers immediately after taking that drive out of the freezer and attempt to get the data right away without doing the HDD regenerator first, and THEN if you feel like you can do the HDD regenerator to attempt to recover any other non-important or not so important data you may have.