Recovering data off a S.M.A.R.T. failed HDD

[Bane]

Been handed a bare 40GB Maxtor hard drive which I tried to recover files off by attaching it as a slave in a working system.

XP Disk Management wanted to convert the drive, which I declined. And only listed it as 120 ish MB and not initilised (or something to that effect) instead of the 40GB unit. Drive was not listed in My Computer.

Tried the drive as master and it refused to pass POST screen with message of S.M.A.R.T. failure. Listed option to press F1 to resume, but it just stayed on that screen.

I've been told the drive started to load Windows and then blue screens with a Stop error.

Not sure if it contains Windows 98, 2000, or XP. Need to ask some questions tomorrow.

Any recommended FREE software to use to grab data off it? As I need to recover a licence key from it for the clocking in time system.

As Windows Disk Management was having problems I'm not sure what will work.

 

[dazsly]

Hi I recently backed up files from a corrupt hd to a usb stick using paragon - http://www.paragon-software.com/uk/

Although the software is not free, its really good for fising boot and making images etc.

 

[Raumarik]

Use a live linux CD such as Knoppix, boot off the CD with the drives connected as you've got it and copy disk to disk. Linux tends to let you at data you normally wouldn't, had some good results Any Linux live CD will do, knoppix is just one I know off the top of my head! If you want to copy to a USB device ensure you have it plugged in prior to booting.