Help! Data recovery assistance required

[gentlegreen]

USB caddy - fiver.

Are you sure there isn't a disk in a drive it's trying to boot from before the hard drive ?
I recently had a PC try to boot from a USB-connected digital sound recorder.

It's the modern equivalent of "NON-DOS disk"

 

[Crispy]

I very much doubt it was actually formatting the disk. recovery console should not do that at all.

As with all data loss, the more poking and prodding doen by anyone who doesn't 100% know what they're doing, the more chance there is that the data is gone forever.

Get to a data recovery company - check out their websites and see which ones don't look like one bloke in a bedroom. Get a quote. See if your irreplaceable data is worth more or less than the figure.

 

[Addy]

As the hardrive is recognised, and it tries to boot it likely that you have damaged sectors on the disc which is causing the failure.

Take the hardrive out of the pc and put it into another one as a slave device.
Get yourself a copy of 'File Scavenger' from a torrent and run it on the slave drive.
It should find and recover almost everything, although some filenames will be screwed.
Once you have recovered the data, you can try a software repair of the drive, or 'lose' the bad sectors in a fresh format.
Id suggest getting a new drive for your O/S and keeping the 'damaged' drive as a portable caddy drive as its liable to screw up again but its not tottaly useless.

 

[Guineveretoo]

Okay, a geeky friend came round tonight, and his advice was pretty much the same. He even used that word "slave", but he basically says I have to find a shop and take it there, so that's what I am going to do on Saturday, if I can find somewhere.

Thanks for your help, everyone, and here's hoping that I haven't lost all the photos and other files

 

[gentlegreen]

You can get a USB caddy for a fiver and a new hard drive for £50.

Couldn't be easier to do. Plug and go.

There's no need to hand over money.

I wouldn't hand over my hard drive of data to the people in the average computer shop.

 

[Guineveretoo]

You can get a USB caddy for a fiver and a new hard drive for £50.

Couldn't be easier to do. Plug and go.

There's no need to hand over money.

I wouldn't hand over my hard drive of data to the people in the average computer shop.

I worry about this, too, but I don't even know what a USB caddy is, nor how to set up a hard drive. I have a spare hard drive in this house somewhere that my daughter brought round in case it was helpful to transfer the data. The friend who was round last night said that he couldn't connect up the spare hard drive because the computer was not recognising that it had all the ports necessary. Or something like that...

 

[gentlegreen]

unless the machine's under warranty, cough up for a nice new WD hard drive.

A USB caddy is really easy to use - only one way to connect everything.

 

[Crispy]

I'll say it again, this is beyond over-the-net help. These suggestions would be helpful from one geek to another, but (no offence) Guinevere2 is not a geek. There's a considerable risk of losing everything if things aren't handled carefully step by step by someone who knows exactly what they're doing. This is worth paying someone for.

 

[gentlegreen]

Point taken

I'm way off qualifying as a geek though - nerd maybe

 

[Guineveretoo]

I'll say it again, this is beyond over-the-net help. These suggestions would be helpful from one geek to another, but (no offence) Guinevere2 is not a geek. There's a considerable risk of losing everything if things aren't handled carefully step by step by someone who knows exactly what they're doing. This is worth paying someone for.

I am not in the slightest bit offended to have it recognised that I am not a geek D), and am also worried at making things worse, particularly since I discovered last night that I no longer have access to the recovery function, which was previously available, so things might be getting worse, and I will take the PC to PC World on Saturday morning and let them rip me off, but at least I will get the data back. Maybe.

I will then come back to ask for advice about how to back up, since I don't actually know how to run an automatic back up.

(ETA Having said that, though, I have just opened this link which was sent to me.... http://www.recovermyfiles.com/ - this could save me some money, if it is for real!)

 

[Crispy]

No no, not PC World! They are not experts! Ring round the data recovery places listed on yell to get an idea of which ones have a professional operation going. I wouldn't trust PC World with my precious data.

 

[Guineveretoo]

Oh. Okay. I only thought of them because I thought they would have a reputation to uphold, whereas, the chap who runs the shop on the high street near Norwood Junction station is possibly fronting something else for all I know....

 

[Guineveretoo]

That http://www.recovermyfiles.com/ does sound like the solution! I wonder if any of the attendees at the Bring Your Own Dish tomorrow, which is at my house, would have the geekiness to run it for me....

You don't fancy coming to it, do you, Crispy?

 

[ruffneck23]

guinerveretoo , have you checked the hard drive leads as i had this problem before and this sorted it before , i also have a boot disk whch can sort the ntldr is missing problem to at least boot into the puta , i work in croydon so if you really need to someone to look at it pm me

 

[bmd]

That http://www.recovermyfiles.com/ does sound like the solution! I wonder if any of the attendees at the Bring Your Own Dish tomorrow, which is at my house, would have the geekiness to run it for me....

You don't fancy coming to it, do you, Crispy?

I've used that a few times but I'm not anywhere near you or I would do it for you. It's easy to use, if you can find stuff in My Computer then you'll be able to set it going and recover your files.

If you need to evaluate it at your leisure then let me know.

Good luck!

 

[Guineveretoo]

I've used that a few times but I'm not anywhere near you or I would do it for you. It's easy to use, if you can find stuff in My Computer then you'll be able to set it going and recover your files.

If you need to evaluate it at your leisure then let me know.

Good luck!

I don't even know how I can do the evaluation thing, when I cant open my computer....

 

[Guineveretoo]

guinerveretoo , have you checked the hard drive leads as i had this problem before and this sorted it before , i also have a boot disk whch can sort the ntldr is missing problem to at least boot into the puta , i work in croydon so if you really need to someone to look at it pm me

It's not the leads, it's because a disk format was started and ran for a few seconds. Two geeks have been round so far and booted up from a cd, to no avail.

 

[bmd]

I don't even know how I can do the evaluation thing, when I cant open my computer....

Have you tried something like Killdisk or Acronis disk manager? Have a look at them, they're pretty good at recovering data by booting from the cd they're on and then digging into the hard drive. Those will take some knowledge but aren't beyond the realms of learning if you've got a spare afternoon and are careful.

 

[Guineveretoo]

Have you tried something like Killdisk or Acronis disk manager? Have a look at them, they're pretty good at recovering data by booting from the cd they're on and then digging into the hard drive. Those will take some knowledge but aren't beyond the realms of learning if you've got a spare afternoon and are careful.

No, I haven't. How can I try that?

I am phoning round data recovery companies, and it is becoming clear that I am not going to be able to afford to use any of them! One just quoted me £1000!!

 

[Guineveretoo]

I feel like crying right now. I have just spoken to a much more reasonably priced one, but they in N12, and I would have to send it there, and then, even though they would give me a free evaluation and quote, I would probably never get it back!

In fact, I think I will just have a little weep of frustration and at the probable loss of the photographs and the inconvenience and cost before going off and continuing with my chores.

 

[keybored]

Flame me for not bothering to read the thread properly but just in case...

Guin, are you able to take the cover off your PC?

^^^There's your hard drive, it should be mounted at the front of your PC if it's a "Tower" style as illustrated. The cables might be a bit different if it's a fairly recent PC.
Remove the plug B and replace it firmly. Repeat for the wider plug A. Follow the wide flat cable from plug A to where it plugs into the motherboard and again, remove it and plug it back in firmly. Don't worry if you drop one as they can only be re-inserted one way (the right way).

The next step used to sort out probably 50% of boot problems I encountered; CHECK THERE IS NO FLOPPY DISKETTE IN THE FLOPPY DRIVE!
The floppy drive will be a small slot on the front of your PC (on the outside) and the offending diskette would look like this:

Don't see this as often these days what with the fall from grace of floppies.


Stabs in the dark I know but it could be something this simple

 

[gentlegreen]

Yep - exactly that - I was so embarassed myself a year or two back when I actually phone the IT bods.

these days it can be a CD, a flash drive / camera card, MP3 player ....

I wish I lived nearer - my Saturdays are always completely wasted.

A few photos of the PC with the cover off would help so we could see what sort of hard drive it is.

 

[Guineveretoo]

The computer doesn't have a floppy disk drive at all. It's just over a year old (so just out of warranty!) and it is an HP pavilion. Get a train - you can't be that far away!

 

[keybored]

The computer doesn't have a floppy disk drive at all. It's just over a year old (so just out of warranty!) and it is an HP pavilion. Get a train - you can't be that far away!

Did you or anyone else remove the cover and check those leads yet? It's pretty simple to do


The leads will probably look more like this though

Check both ends of the red one.

 

[gentlegreen]

We have HPs of that vintage .. it's probably serial ATA .... (narrow cable)

Extra hard drive space is a very good idea - your stuff should always be in at least two places. So buying a second one would be advisable in any case - so coughing up 50 quid for a new drive and sticking in your recovery disk wouldn't go amiss.

Don't do this with the old drive in the machine.

Hard drives usually give some warning of failure though ...

I'm the world's worst bodger and haven't broken a PC yet .. just take off your shoes and touch something earthed.

HPs tend not to even need a screwdriver - full of green plastic release levers.

 

[Guineveretoo]

I haven't taken the cover off because I am pretty sure that this happened when the recovery thing started formatting the disk and I wasn't able to cancel it for sevberal seconds.

I have a separate hard disk drive - my daughter brought it round - but it's no use to me because I can't get to the hard disk.

I don't have any recovery disks. It had a recovery thing at the boot up, which is what I ran and which started formatting. I ran it because, after I had been away last weekend, it was running chkdsk but then freezing, so I was trying to boot in safe mode to see what was going on, without success.

 

[keybored]

I haven't taken the cover off because I am pretty sure that this happened when the recovery thing started formatting the disk and I wasn't able to cancel it for sevberal seconds.

I have a separate hard disk drive - my daughter brought it round - but it's no use to me because I can't get to the hard disk.

I don't have any recovery disks. It had a recovery thing at the boot up, which is what I ran and which started formatting. I ran it because, after I had been away last weekend, it was running chkdsk but then freezing, so I was trying to boot in safe mode to see what was going on, without success.

Sorry but as Crispy and others have said, it's going to need that "site visit".

 

[gentlegreen]

Sounds like you missed the bit about putting in a blank DVD and burning a recovery disk. You'll need that ....

 

[bmd]

No, I haven't. How can I try that?

I am phoning round data recovery companies, and it is becoming clear that I am not going to be able to afford to use any of them! One just quoted me £1000!!

You need Disk Director on a cd, put it in the drive, boot from it and have a look and see what the software can do. No promises but it's better than just leaving it.

I've got a copy that you can download directly from my pc if you need to.

 

[Crispy]

Site Visit! Site Visit! Risk of extreme data loss if you use data recovery methods you don't understand.