Your hard drive just stopped working.
It never made any odd sounds like screeching, popping, or clicking, and it didn't crash. It just quit and it has some priceless data that isn't backed up to another device. This guide may help you troubleshoot and correct any problems related to your drive. (Alternatively, read up on how to recover data from the hard drive of a dead laptop.) Be sure to read all warnings before proceeding.
Steps
Method 1 of 7: Basic Steps
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Inspect the outside of the hard drive for damage.
Stop using your computer or external hard drive.
Power down the computer or disconnect the external drive.
Remove the hard drive from the computer or device.
Examine it carefully for 'hot spots' or other damage on the external controller board.
Check if there are broken parts.
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Replace the cables. Plug the hard drive in with new cables (power and data connection) that you know works and try again. Note that an IDE drive will need a flat-ribbon cable.
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If you have a PATA (IDE/EIDE) drive, switch drive pin settings.
If it was “slave” or “cable select,” set it to “master.”
Plug it in alone without any other device on that port and try again.
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Try other IDs and/or another PCI controller and try again. If you don't have another controller, a PCI card that adds ports to your computer, just change the ID.
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Plug it into an external drive adapter or external drive case (i.e. USB) if you have one.
If it does not spin up, try connecting it to another power source (include data connection as some drives don't spin up without). If on both it does not spin up, the fault is most likely related to the Printed Circuit Board.
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Connect the drive into another computer and try again. If this works, it is possible that the motherboard is at fault and not your hard disk.
Method 2 of 7: Replace the Drive's Controller Board
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Inspect the drive's controller board carefully to see if it can be removed without exposing the drive's platters. Most drives will have an externally-mounted controller board. If not, stop here.
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Find a sacrificial drive. It is important to match the exact same model number and stepping (i.e. firmware revision, printed circuit board number). Matching drives can sometimes be found at places like eBay, inspect the photo in the auction carefully to determine if the model and firmware match. Contact the seller to be sure the drive being auctioned matches the picture prior to buying.
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Remove the controller board of the failing drive.
Remove the screws with the correct screwdrivers. Most drives use Torx (star drive) head which is available at home repair stores. Be careful, the screws are soft.
Learn everything about how it is connected to the drive. Most drives are connected via ribbon cables and pin rows. Be gentle. Do not crimp or damage the connectors.
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Remove the controller board from the working drive. Again, be extremely careful.
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Attach the working board to the failing drive.
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Connect the drive to your computer or device and test. If it works, immediately copy your data onto another form of media or a different hard disk drive. If that didn't work, try to re-assemble the sacrificial drive with the working controller board. It should still work.
Method 3 of 7 Using Linux to Recover the Data
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Take an image. Many times when Windows cannot see your drive, it's because the file system itself is damaged. In the case of a damaged filesystem, it would be wise to first take an image of the hard drive before running any type of "filesystem repair" utility. The reason for this is if you have a drive that has both filesystem damage as well as minor physical damage, you may make matters worse. Taking an image of the drive prior to attempting to fix it will allow you to always revert back to the original state. If you are linux savvy you can use DD to image a hard drive. Be careful with DD as imaging the wrong way will be disastrous.
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Boot up off a Windows XP installation CD. Select the recovery console and once in a dos prompt use chkdsk to repair the file system like you see below. Replace (DRIVELETTER) with the applicable drive letter: chkdsk (DRIVELETTER): /f . This will force windows to attempt to repair the file system itself.
Newer versions of Linux may have the ntfs-3g program and ntfsprogs and it includes a program called ntfsfix which can help repair a windows ntfs file system so it can be mounted or booted. Linux might have no issues being able to see and actually access the data even if the drive is not bootable.
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While you can try to mount the drive in a computer that is already running Linux, you can also use a Live CD do the same without having to do anything other than downloading and burning the CD or building a bootable Linux system on a USB stick. To find out how to build a bootable Linux USB stick you can find detailed instructions up on the Pendrive Linux Website.
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Download a live disk. System Rescue CD is a good one for this application.
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Burn the .iso onto a blank CD with an Image Burner.
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Boot the computer, don't forget to change the boot order in the BIOS.
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Boot up a Linux system or mount the drive using a Linux live disk and begin to backup your data if Linux can see the filesystem.
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Mount the drive by typing this command: mkdir /mnt/disk && mount -t auto /dev/sda1 /mnt/disk. If the drive is a IDE drive the command would be mount -t auto /dev/hda1 /mnt/disk assuming you only have one partition on the drive if in doubt Consult a basic linux guide for specifics.
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Mount another drive and backup data. Again, consult a basic Linux guide for specifics. Linux has many different utilities specifically designed for doing data recovery. If the partition table is too damaged Linux can easily fix this with a utility called Testdisk. Testdisk will help recreate the partition table.
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Boot into a Linux live disk. See above instructions.
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Run the command: testdisk /log. This command is not on every live disk, it is on System Rescue CD.
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Follow find your drive and choose to recreate the partition table. Read the documentation on the website for Testdisk; this can be found online here.
For those who have never used Linux the first IDE drive in your system will be seen as /dev/hda if it is a sata or SCSI drive or is connected via USB it will be seen as /dev/sda.
The first partition on the C drive would be /dev/hda1 the second partition on that drive would be seen as /dev/hda2 and so on. Whenever running either testdisk or its companion program photorec always run it with the /log command unless the system you're attempting to recover data from is very small. What this does is give you the ability to run the command again if for some reason the program stops running without having to start all over again.
Method 4 of 7: Photorec
There is a second component to Testdisk that is called Photorec which can recover your data even if the partition table is not able to be recovered. It can take a long time to run but it does a great job, even with severely damaged Hard Drives.
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Learn about Photorec. Photorec is file/data recovery software originally designed to recover lost pictures from digital camera memory or even Hard Disks, it ignores the filesystem and instead is looking for what is known as file headers, this is the very first part of every file and generally tells the OS what kind of file it is without the system having to read the file extension. It has been seriously extended to search also for non audio/video headers. It can now search for over 80 different types of files. Photorec is part of the Testdisk package.
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To install the following package in a Debian based Linux Distro you would as the root user run the following command.: apt-get install testdisk.
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If you are not running as root just precede the command with sudo like you see below.
sudo apt-get install testdisk
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Know what to do. There are some basic rules when dealing with Photorec:
Photorec can also be used to recover deleted files as long as they were recently deleted.
When running photorec, unless the device your running it against is very small (less than 1 gig), and not severely damaged, it is always recommended to use the \log command function so if for any reason photorec stops its processing it can be restarted and it will continue from where it stopped as long as its is recognized as the same drive again. IE, /dev/sda
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If you do not know which drive it is, open up a console/shell and run the command dmesg. Assuming the drive is connected via USB, just plug it in and after perhaps a minute, run dmesg. Then read the messages you see. After the drive is plugged in, it will show up in the system and you will see this in the dmesg output.
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If you do run photorec and or testdisk without the /log flag you will be forced to start again from the beginning if for some reason the program closes or does not complete. I have had seriously damaged drives take over 100 hours to complete but generally it takes perhaps 5 hours to do a recovery on a 40 gig drive. Also never write back to the same device even if all other partitions are good.
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To run Photorec on an image file in Linux, do: sudo photorec /log imagefilename -d /some/directory/to-store/recovered/items.
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To recover files directly from a device, run photorec without any arguments and you will be given a menu sudo photorec /log.
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This utility should only be used if you are unable to mount that partition as your filenames will be lost but it does a great job of recovering data even if the hard drive is very damaged, as long as it will spin up you can pretty much expect to get some stuff back and frequently you can get virtually everything back. What this program will do is search the HD for readable files by searching for the magic headers and copy them to where ever you tell it to with the -d flag.
Another rule of thumb is if you are recovering 20 gigs of data in this fashion you will need a minimum of at least 40 gigs of free space. The resulting files will get dropped into folders and since your partition table doesn't exist or is not readable the file names would be lost and will instead be renamed with the inode number of where they were found on the drive. In other words, you will end up with files with names like f53247.doc or f21433.jpg that will be in folders named recup_dir.1, recup_dir.2 and so on. The folders get created dynamically once they reach about 50 megs in size a new one is automatically created and the found files are copied into each folder as the program runs across the drive recovering data.
Many types of files actually have some data in the magic header or other locations that might enable you to recover some part of the original file name or at least give them more meaningful names. For instance Digital Cameras write what is known as exif data into the pics. You can use a Linux program called jhead to read this data and rename all of the files with the date and time the actual pictures were taken, Mp3's also save the ID3 tags which if they are correctly set will give you all the info you need when renaming your recovered files.
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See the the Testdisk website for a detailed description of how to use Photorec and Testdisk. There is also some hints on how to rename and sort the resulting recovered files once the program is finished.
Method 5 of 7: Whack It
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1
If the drive is recognized as a USB device but doesn't appear as a drive letter and seems to need initializing, and is clicking before going quiet, then possibly the head has got stuck.
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Give it a hard hit on your hand on the narrow edge near the cable connector end. It might free it.
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Plug it in again. With any luck, the click will be gone and the drive will be correctly recognized and given a drive letter.
Note that this can also cause data loss, as the head may scrape the platter.
Method 7 f 7: Squeeze It
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Hold the hard drive really tightly. Press in with your fingers, palms and thumbs.
Do not bend any of the jumper pins before you try this method.
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If it was loose, the case will now be temporarily held together. It will work while you squeeze it.
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Have a friend back up your data to another drive while you squeeze it or use a vise to keep it tightly held in place. This will take 4 minutes for 1 GB, 2 hours for 250 GB, or 2.5 hours for 320 GB, depending on your transfer rates.
Methd 7 of 7: Freeze
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If the drive has become overheated, the center shaft may have over expanded and is stuck to it bearings. Freezing it allows the materials to shrink and gives the shaft more clearance
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Place the drive in a resealable plastic bag, to keep moisture out.
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Place the drive inside of the bag in the freezer. Leave for 2 hours.
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Remove it from the freezer. Place it in service immediately.
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If the drive operates properly, make a bootable backup, on a second external hard drive.
Note that this method may cause severe data loss, as temperatures under 5C/14F can cause the magnetic platters to demagnetize.
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