-=PCTechTalk=- Re: Seems Like I Tempted Fate
- From: "~OoO~" <SirTroth@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <pctechtalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 17 Sep 2003 13:31:23 -0400
Just recently (within the last few days) I had a lot of IRREPLACEABLE files
suddenly disappear on me. I went nuts trying to recover the stuff. On
diagnosing the drive, the physical drive checked out ok using scandisk and
Norton Disk Doctor. But, using another app it showed me that the MFT was
corrupted. As a result, a lot of my stuff was either gone, or partially written
over. On research for recovery software, two came of great use... Active's File
Recovery and Ontrack's EasyRecovery Pro. Using both, I recovered about 90% of
my now-corrupted files. It even allowed me to recover stuff that was on the
drive BEFORE I formatted it (remember how they say nothing is ever safe from
prying eyes???).
Anyway... the Ontrack software is really great, and worth the money. But,
obviously, you need to be able to get into the OS in order to try to recover.
But, I mention Ontrack cause they also offer recovery services if you can't
access the drive at all. Supposedly, Ontrack is one of the more noted companies
for doing this. And, I believe they have both onsite service as well as "send
us the drive" service.
I hope your lost data is THAT important, cause from what I hear recovery
services on a physical drive is pretty expensive. Either way, go to Ontrack's
website and see if they can help:
http://www.ontrack.com
---Troth
----- Original Message -----
From: Barnstoneworth
To: pctechtalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Tuesday, September 16, 2003 11:03 AM
Subject: -=PCTechTalk=- Seems Like I Tempted Fate
Anyone remember a few weeks ago when we were talking about the merits or
otherwise of various brands of Hard Drives? Who was it said they'd never had
one go on them in 8 years??? I do believe that was me!!
OK, drive in question is an IBM Deskstar 80gb drive, just over (By 1 week)
one year old. It's partitioned into 3 15gb partitions and one 30gb+ drive,
all formatted in NTFS. The o/s is on the first partition.
For a while now, I've been hearing the drive make a couple of odd
noises..the first one is an occasional click and a whirr-it sounds a bit
like when you press the restart button on the PC-as if the disc is
re--setting itself. It's never caused a problem, and it was very
infrequent-maybe once or twice a week, and usually after the PC had been
switched on. The second noise it made, on a similar frequency was a kind of
squeaking..my daugter said it sounded like the mice they have in the animal
room at work. Again, it never caused a problem
On Sunday, my Pc wouldn't start...booted into safe mode, went back to a
recent restore point and it fired up perfectly...job solved, thought I.
Tried to re-start last night and it wasn't having any of it again....the
Windows XP screen with the rushing blue squares stayed on screen for ages..I
left it alone and after about 40 minuies, it booted and ran, but a bit
sluggish...
This morning, same again but I get a warning that a windows systerm folder
is missing and to try and repair using the windows disc. Thought I had that
in my office so I took the hard drive out and brought it to work-connected
the disc to my PC here as the slave hard drive and got access to the drive
easily enough so I thought it good practise to back up all my 'essentials'
off the first partition (see above) onto the hard drive of my office PC...
Then, just as I was about to install the problem drive as the master to
attempt the repair, the 'click and whirr' noise I described above
started..and wouldn't stop..at the same time...The all of the drive stopped
responding..rebooted, and the machine would simply not boot with it
attached...went back into the BIOS, and I got 'Not Installed' on the
secondary slave where the disc was installed to. Took the drive out and the
machine booted fine. I tried it in another bare bones PC, and the BIOS isn't
identifying it at all.
In short, I think my hard drive is knackered. Disaster of course, because on
it in the other partitions are lots of stuff I can't now recover...I was
halfway through a couple of huge video editing jobs, and they are on that
drive.
I know I'm in the UK and most of the list is U.S. based, but has anyone ever
had data from a hard drive that went bad restored? I know tthere are
companies that can do this, and I was wondering what sort of price they
charge
Cheers
Andy
To unsub or change your email settings:
//www.freelists.org/webpage/pctechtalk
To access our Archives:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PCTechTalk/messages/
//www.freelists.org/archives/pctechtalk/
For more info:
//www.freelists.org/cgi-bin/list?list_id=pctechtalk
To unsub or change your email settings:
//www.freelists.org/webpage/pctechtalk
To access our Archives:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PCTechTalk/messages/
//www.freelists.org/archives/pctechtalk/
For more info:
//www.freelists.org/cgi-bin/list?list_id=pctechtalk
Other related posts:
- » -=PCTechTalk=- Re: Seems Like I Tempted Fate
