hdd error

xirokx · 7 Jun 2008 at 14:41

Hi,

a friend has given me 1x maxtor 30g ata hdd from which to recover data, so i plugged it into my pc and trouble is:-

a) the drive flashes in the bios
b) says unallocated and unreadable in "disk management - storage"

when i right click on the drive in "storage" all options are grayed out apart from properties...

my friend has document,jpgs on that drive...

I can hear it spinning and clicking away or whatever it does when I plug it in..

so how can i access this drive?

pls help

thanks

screenie - its disk 1 as you see

Dappy · 7 Jun 2008 at 14:55

Do you know what file system the drive is formatted as i.e FAT32/NTFS or Linux filesystem like EXT?

If he has important data that needs recovering then get him to purchase a copy of Spinrite £45 from www.grc.com which will correct the file system if it's correctable.

xirokx · 7 Jun 2008 at 15:07

im unsure of the file system...

there must be alternative ways to fix this? will spinrite fix it especially as its unreadable and unallocated...

pls clarify

thanks

Dappy · 7 Jun 2008 at 15:30

SpinRite will be able to recover the drive so long as there is no physical damage to the drive internally, so it's worth a shot if there is important data to be recovered.

Take a look at the testimonials - http://www.grc.com/sr/testimonials.htm

xirokx · 7 Jun 2008 at 15:50

i have just tried spinrite and it didnt work...it couldnt read the drive despite it being seen in bios...

i tried to get spinrite to read it and it kept giving me critical errors...

i think this drives wrecked..

have you used spinrite? i went into recovery mode , option 2 and it just couldnt recover or fix it..

any advice would be appreciated...