Have damaged Western Digital HDD,

[Devra]

is there a disk I can use to recover info?  I burned and used system recovery, but as far as I could tell it doesn't help recover info.

[agmg]

What kind of disk is it?
Internal or external?
Is it a software damage or a hardware damage?
Did you drop it?
What did you have installed on this disk?
What are the sympoms?
Do you have a LiveCD with PCLinuxOS available?

Please give us some more info...

[Devra]

yes, sorry...
the desktop unit was given to me the motherboard in mine got fried, somehow...
so this had a damaged HDD and was given to me...I have a new HDD installed and working, but would like to get the info off the original one, to give back to my friend.

it's an internal hd, it had an error message when turned on that would not let you access anything.
I would imagine it's a hardware issue...but am not sure.
no, it was not dropped to my knowledge
she had windows vista or xp installed.
symptoms are that it will not boot, thus I tried system rescue
yes, i have a live pclunixos cd avail, and it is installed on NEW hdd, I don't want to use the old hdd unless I can use it as a slave....I really just want the info off of it...

[agmg]

OK, now I got some more info.
You have a working install of PCLinuxOS on a healthy disk. Good.
If you want to try and access the damaged disk, you have to either connect it to your motherboard or use an external case with USB connection.
Is it a SATA disk? If yes, you don't have to worry about master/slave settings.
Just plug it in a spare SATA port in your motherboard.
Check if the BIOS recognizes it.
If the answer is no, then there's not much you can do.
If the answer is yes, then boot to PCLinuxOS and check if you can access the disk from there.

[zorlac]

"Check if the BIOS recognizes it.
If the answer is no, then there's not much you can do."

I hope that's not the case but, here's some info.

Unless files are stored in two places, they're really not saved.  

[agmg]

"Check if the BIOS recognizes it.
If the answer is no, then there's not much you can do."

I hope that's not the case but here's some info.

Unless files are stored in two places, they're really not saved.  

Some say three places

There are great recovery tools available for Linux too...
Provided that the disk is still working...

[zorlac]

Since when is more not better? 

[Devra]

the trick would be to get another connector for the old hdd, there are plenty of extra thingies hanging around in there, but nothing that looks like the connectors I've got on the new hdd...thingies...technical word in case you're wondering.

[agmg]

Ha, ha! Thingies!

How old is that disk anyway?

[7272andy]

thingies...technical word in case you're wondering.

without the relevant thingies we're a little stuffed  

[Devra]

dang!  they have expiration dates?

aha!  it's 2007, we're talking the one that got damaged.

[agmg]

Not quite. They do get old and die at some point but that depends on how they are used, not how old they are.
I asked because this drive probably has an IDE connection



Check first if your motherboard has an IDE port.
Then you'll need the right cable.

[AndrzejL]

but would like to get the info off the original one, to give back to my friend.

Sometimes NOT the best idea...

If You really want to - try SpinRite but sometimes it comes with a... price... I mean You have to pay for SpinRite anyway BUT that's not the price I meant... .

Hello. I'm a regular SN listener and I'd like to share this story with you.

I'm always on the look out for broken computer parts. When a friend's laptop broke down, he asked me if I wanted it, which I did. In the conversation, he told me he was a little depressed as there were lots of un-backed-up photos on the laptop. He had done "everything" to try rescue the files but he had lost all hope of recovering them.

I wondered if "everything" included SpinRite, but decided against asking as I didn't want to depress him or get his hopes up. Instead I gave the laptop to a friend (and fellow SN listener) and asked him to try his copy of Spinrite on it. Next day, he reported that it worked, but warned that the disk was not long for this world and I should make a backup while I still can.

Buzzed for a chance to be the hero, I booted the laptop up and prepared to copy the files onto a USB hard disk. Not knowing where his pictures were, I browsed into the "My Pictures" folder and found myself looking at some very pornographic pictures of my friend and his wife.

I quickly made a copy of the files, slightly embarrassed at what I saw. He must have been really convinced the contents were gone for good.

Now, I'm not sure what to do. He didn't ask me to recover the files but I know he really wants the pictures back. If I gave him a copy, he'd know I must have seen them. Any advice please?

Bill P. Godfrey
Daventry, England

Source: http://www.grc.com/sr/testimonials.htm

Be warned! What has been seen cannot be unseen!

Also HDD Regenerator helped me in the past.

Regards.

Andrzej

[7272andy]

 
Spinrite is a real miracle worker (for a price), it's helped me out several times.

But until we get the physical connection right we're going nowhere

[Devra]

lol and your advice to him was?

back to me...

umm the connectors shown are not what I have...mine are small, one is about 1/2" the  other is 1", they sit side by side.  there is a spot for another cable that has eight small progs sticking up, i've never used it...