Disk recovery help!

[fluffymark]

*dies of heat* Can I go back to Norway now? Please? It was a nice 21C there and it was pretty too plus there was snow! Far far too hot and smelly here in London. I just bought a summer sleeping bag for the camping this weekend as my usual 4-seasons sleeping bag of uber-warmness will be an oven. Plus I got a shiny new mat with a fairy on it *squeeeee*. Really looking forward to Trowbridge, it's going to be so much fun! Yay! :)

cassielalone needs urgent computer help. Just days before she was about to copy everything off her computer, the hard disk died. She's in a real panic as she's got lots and lots of data on there she really wants to keep, poor thing. The BIOS auto-detects the drive fine, but then reports "Primary Master HDD Error" and won't boot from any device. Deactiviting the drive in the BIOS allowed me to boot via an ubuntu live CD (which I stole off some friendly geeks nearby), which also finds the /dev/hda device fine, but then only to find the partition table of the drive is unreadable and unwritable. This isn't looking good. Does anyone have any experience or tools for recovering data off really dead hard disks? Help! *hopefulsmile*

Late saturday evening I sat by the fountain in Trinity, watching the stars. You see, I have my favourite spot (all mine, I tell you) where I used to sit there many years back. It's the best place ever to see stars, as theres lots of darkness and the only noise is just the quiet trickle of the fountain. Its so calm and peaceful and makes me happy. I love simple pleasures like that. *nod* *nod* Of course, sunday we went to cinema to see the pirates film, which was also lots of silly fun.

Comments

[mstevens.livejournal.com]

Does anyone have any experience or tools for recovering data off really dead hard disks

I have no experience, and most of the tales of such I've heard have involved throwing a few grand at a data recovery company.

[reddragdiva]

*Unwritable*? That doesn't sound right.

[fluffymark]

parted complained about read/write errors on anything to do with the partition table, even when attempting to write a new one. I know the drive contains one large ntfs partition, but how do i tell the drive that when i can't access the partition table?

[reddragdiva]

That sounds ... horrible and just a bit gerfuckered, yes.

Note that parted does not do NTFS, by the way.

[pinguhateseng.livejournal.com]

Not me, but I'll pass on the thanks if it works:

1. Mount the HDD on a computer (that works perfectly and properly) running the same system (windows?) as a slave.

2. Install OnTrack Easy Recovery

3. Start the programme, point it at the damaged hard drive and let it find the folders and stuff (if it can - it will build a tree of whatever it can locate)

4. Highlight the ones you're interested in and tell it where to recover them to (ie to the main computer's HDD)

If you want OnTrack Easy Recovery, we can send it to you.

Apparently if this doesn't work, nothing will.

[fluffymark]

Sounds worth a try, as I've run out of other ideas. I don't have OnTrack Easy Recovery, and what may be a bigger problem, nobody in this house has a computer running windows XP (although I do have an XP install disk) and that's what's on the broken disk. Still, as I say, I'm out of other ideas.

[pinguhateseng.livejournal.com]

Well? Has it worked?

[fluffymark]

I got your file fine, but the broken hard disk is in Cambridge. It may be a a week or so before I get to try it out.

[cassielalone.livejournal.com]

I'm taking the blasted thing with me to my mum... (Could you call me later tonight and give me help in the removal of HD? I'm worried I might make a pigs ear out of it since my brain is not entirely connected.) Hopefully she might be able to help me perform some sort of rescue mission. I'll mention these probably quite wise things to her... *lives in the hope of a resurrected HD* (... zombie HD... Sorry, that amused me.)
Today I'm recovering from the heatstroke I aquired yesterday... I feel distinctly yukky and brain-dead.

[fluffymark]

*nods* Will call you late tonight, sweetie. Be prepared for lots of talk about screwing ;)

[pinguhateseng.livejournal.com]

Well I am posting OnTrack right now to rapidshare. I'll post the link as soon as I get it and you can download it.

If the broken disk is Windows, then you need a computer running the same system.

[pinguhateseng.livejournal.com]

http://rapidshare.de/files/26330670/EASYRECOVERY_PRO_V60.rar.html

Ta da

[the-elyan.livejournal.com]

I can't help with the computer thing, but my favourite place in cambridge is also in the vicinity of Trinity. Sadly, never having been a Cam person, I have only the public areas, so mine is the first bench to the left by the river, behind the Wren library. It does mean I get to hear about Winnie the Pooh rather a lot from professional punters though...