Trying to read what I can from a suspected broken HDD on Windows 7

steinooo · 30 Dec 2010 at 19:23

Hi all,

I have a 2.5" Sata HDD which i'm trying to recover any data I can from. I know it's half working as it does spin up, and when put in the laptop from which it originates it loads a recovery console for Windows 7, although I can't perform the basic recovery mode.

So I took the HDD out of the laptop and put it into a caddy and attached it to my Windows 7 pc which recognises it in Disk Management as "Disk 2, Unknown, Not Initialised". When I try to initialise it using MBR as the option it says Device not ready.

Any ideas on how I can try to get some data off this hard drive please?

steinooo · 30 Dec 2010 at 19:30

will it read ntfs drives though? thanks for your reply.

steinooo · 30 Dec 2010 at 19:42

reckon it's worth trying ubuntu live before an Ultimate Boot Disc and some kind of repair function on that or something?

steinooo · 30 Dec 2010 at 19:47

good point, I have some linux distro on my xbmc live box, tempted to try it in that, only trouble is how to mount from cli, might have a go.... thanks for the help so far. Strange that linux may be a better option to read a (broken) windows disc than windows itsself!? :confused:

steinooo · 30 Dec 2010 at 20:08

If I do

dmesg | grep -i "SCSI"

and I don't see the SATA Disk over USB, does that mean linux hasn't been able to detect it?

or shall I continue this in the linux forum?

steinooo · 30 Dec 2010 at 20:11

no probs mate, you've been a big help didn't think of putting it on a linux box first, cheers.