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HDD Recovery

The document discusses options for recovering data from a failed hard drive, including using free data recovery software, installing the hard drive on another computer, or paying to have recovery experts retrieve the data. It also mentions using the Knoppix Linux distribution or putting the hard drive in the freezer as potential solutions.

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ivkesd
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56 views2 pages

HDD Recovery

The document discusses options for recovering data from a failed hard drive, including using free data recovery software, installing the hard drive on another computer, or paying to have recovery experts retrieve the data. It also mentions using the Knoppix Linux distribution or putting the hard drive in the freezer as potential solutions.

Uploaded by

ivkesd
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Just imagine this: you've been working on that important paper for the
past 2 weeks, and you are just about to finish it. The deadline is in a few
days. You save your document, go for a coffee and when you get back,
your screen is black. Your computer rebooted itself automatically and is now
stuck in the bootup process with a message similar to this: No boot device,
please insert a bootable media. You try to restart your computer a few times,
but it does not fix your problem. At this point, it's important do stay calm, don't
PANIC! There may hope yet!

First, you'll have to make sure that your problem isn't related to something else
then the hard drive. The failure of your hard disk controller may also be causing
this. You could always try to switch your hard drive from IDE1 to IDE2 and see
if it fixes your problem. If it's not, remove the hard drive from your system, and
bring it with you to a friend's house. If it still doesn't work over there, then you
know what the problem is.

The only solution to your problem now is to use a data recovery software, like
PC Inspector File recovery. This application is completely free, and it works
beautifully. It helped me once or twice in the past few years. Don't make
yourself any illusion, it's not perfect, and doesn't work all the time (Like any
other har
d dri
verecover
yutility). Sometimes, data cannot be recovered out
of a broken hard drive, unless you are ready to take your disk to a specialized
recovery shop and pay 1000's of dollars to have your data recovered.

While being at your friend's house, install your HD as a secondary device and
start the computer. Be sure that the drive is seen in the startup process,
because PCinspector will not work if you are having mechanical problems with
the disk drive or If it is no longer recognized by the BIOS. Head over to
pcinspector.de and download the utility. The software supports the most
popular file systems on the market: FAT 12, 16, 32 and NTFS. To be able to use
PC INSPECTOR File Recovery you will need a working Windows System. Never
install it on the drive from which you intend to recover data! The software must
be installed and run on a second, independent drive (Amazon.com has many
affordable hard drives if you need one!). When you are done, the utility is
very easy to use. Just let the application extensive HTML tutorial guide you
through all the steps. I hope this little hard drive recovery how-to could help
you. Hopefully, the application will let you recover your data.

If after trying this, you still are unable to recover your data, you can always ask
experts to do the job for you. The folks at DTIData and at the RAID Data
Recovery Group can probably help you get your data back, no matter how
damaged your drive is. Here are the specific pages on their sites concerning
hard drive data recovery solutions:

DTI Data Recovery

Hard Drive Recovery Group

Here are 2 great articles about hard drive recovery. Read them!

Beginners Guides: Hard Drive Data Recovery

Data Recovery Myths

Edi
t:After writing this article, several readers wrote to me about the knoppix
Linux distribution CD. This bootable CD has the ability to mount and read FAT,
FAT32 and NTFS partitions, even damaged ones. So after your HD crashed, you
can always use this to recover your data and back it up on a USB key or second
Knoppix can be downloaded via This location.

This site has some VERY complete instructions about how to use Knoppix to
recover your lost data, so I won't have to write about it.

Some people seem to think that if your hard drive has some mechanical
problems, you can try putting it in the freezer for a few hours. Check out the
discussion here, I'd like to know what you guys think about this. There are
already ALOT of comments over there, so if you guys are curious about this
solution, check it out!

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.

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