Recoverying from a dead disk...

[RDM]

Any help would be much appreciated!

Just had a few problems logging on, PC would hang in the "detecting ide drives" bit of the bios for about 30 seconds and would then boot up and fail in loading windows.

After much head scratching, cable swapping etc I have discovered that my data drive is sick and the PC will not boot with it attached. So disconnected it and all is well, the PC will boot up and everything is fine.

Of course the data drive hasn't been backed up for a week and I have put a whole bunch of photos and music on it recently (yes I know, very silly not to do more frequent backups, my backup regime is one of my "Tasks to do in April when I more free time"). So, any ideas on how to get the info off the drive?

I was thinking of getting an external enclosure and see if that works either via e-sata or usb. I also need to replace the failed HDD.

 

[sja360]

i dont think it would make any difference using an external enclosure instead of just connecting it to the motherboard directly. unless you were thinking for being able to plug it in at windows so it may detect the partitions and work that way?
as for getting data off it... im not sure.

 

[RDM]

That was my hope, faint as it may be. If nothing else the enclosure will come in handy regardless so no real loss if it doesn't work.

 

[sja360]

if the drive loads fine in windows with the usb you can use recovery programs to fetch your old data, BUT if it doesn't load the drive then i think the option is a professional recovery situation.