Hardware: Harddrives

[Syndicate]

Post any harddrive problems/questions here.

[Aegis]

I need to find some software that will retrieve data off a formatted HD. I've found a bunch through google but would like to know if any of you have used anything like this in the past before I just pick one randomly and pay god knows how much.

We have all our family pics and business pics on the damn thing and I REALLY need them back.

Thanks!

[Limp]

Umm... then why did you format it?

[Aegis]

Right, why indeed

[Roll]

http://forum.alsacreations.com/upload/2043-fail-camera.jpg

[Aegis]

Thanks for that, didn't realize I had fucked up.

[Archetype]

You formatted it after you lost the data?

[Aegis]

No, it got formatted by mistake thus loosing the data. (External that was plugged in during re-install of Windows....I could shoot myself!)

[Roll]

Thanks for that, didn't realize I had fucked up.

Sorry I couldn't help it! But really, in most cases if you formatted it, you're probably fucked.

Download DataRescue. Try not to move, add, delete files to that hard drive until you've had a chance to install and scan your drive with it... Best idea i got.

[Aegis]

Thanks, I'll give that a shot.

[Limp]

No, it got formatted by mistake thus loosing the data. (External that was plugged in during re-install of Windows....I could shoot myself!)
I agree with that last part...

[Aegis]

Found a program that's currently saving my ass for only $29!!

It's called Back2life and can be found at

http://www.sharewareconnection.com/back2life.htm

[Superhuman]

Guys, I need your help.

Today I started my computer and for some reason all of sudden I can't access my external hard drive. When I click on it, it says "The file or directory is corrupted or unreadable".

Is there a way to fix this? Someone please help me out. I've got 300 gigs of porn/movies/music/games/homework/etc. on here.

[Gary_Busey]

Pull the casing off and make it an internal drive.

[Superhuman]

Huh?


I need serious suggestions.

[Gary_Busey]

That is a serious suggestion. The controller board probably went bad. Remove the hard drive from the external casing and attach it to your computer like you would an internal hard drive.

[Hodge]

Well here are my rewards for buying a Dell. In the long run I'll send it in since it is still under warranty but tell me if this sounds right:
My hard drive is dying?
1. I get memory errors when I resume after stand-by (BSOD)
2. My computer hangs mid-start up
3. This only happened once but recently. The screen would flicker to a blank screen anytime there was any loading to do. I actually banged on the keypad and I heard the hard-drive start up. This didn't resolve the issue though.

This stuff usually happens after my computer goes into hibernate-mode and I start it back up. It has happened once or twice from a cold boot.

[mongo]

yup, i had the exact same issues w/ my old dell. fucking inspiron. i ended up installing a new internal in it, it was only a couple hundred bucks and i didn't have to wait for dell to fix it and get it back to me. going w/ a vaio after that was the best choice ever.

[007]

Yup i concur, my laptop hard drive would do the following:

1. Out of no where i would get a black screen
2. Super super slow performance.
3. OS would not boot at all or hang.
4. HDD LED would not light up.

Yup your hard drive is dead, sorry.

[Hodge]

Well that sucks. The shitty thing about it is that my OS is in a box in storage 6 hours away. That adds some extra effort to just buying a new hard drive, plus spending $100-$200 I don't have right now.
Hey Mongo, did your BIOS have any difficulty in recognizing a different hard drive. I'm guessing because it's a Dell they have every piece of hardware tuned in.

[007]

Well, i too have an older dell that i had to swap hard drives out. To my knowledge just pop the new one in. Make sure the jumper is set to the correct settings and install new OS.

[Nature's Folly]

Ive been lucky with my laptop(dell)..hard drive is running just fine and dandy.

[mongo]

Well that sucks. The shitty thing about it is that my OS is in a box in storage 6 hours away. That adds some extra effort to just buying a new hard drive, plus spending $100-$200 I don't have right now.
Hey Mongo, did your BIOS have any difficulty in recognizing a different hard drive. I'm guessing because it's a Dell they have every piece of hardware tuned in.

i had absolutely zero problems w/ the bios. toughest part was unscrewing the plastic cover. my dell came w/ a toshiba hd and i installed a western dig. smooth as semen. also, i just called up dell and ragged on them for like 15 minutes and got them to send me new OS disks. they showed up in like 2 days. i used the "i got no physical disks w/ my comp, you owe them to me" argument. money.

[Skybase]

The worst thing I would imagine you running into in doing this would be proprietary drivers for devices if you install from a non-dell specific OS disc. However, if you have your Dell discs or are getting some sent to you I wouldnt' expect you to run into any issues installing your drive.

And as everyone said above it does sound to me as well that it could very well be your hard disk. Of course first thing, be sure that your power and IDE/SATA cables are seated fully and haven't come loose over time.

[007]

i had absolutely zero problems w/ the bios. toughest part was unscrewing the plastic cover. my dell came w/ a toshiba hd and i installed a western dig. smooth as semen. also, i just called up dell and ragged on them for like 15 minutes and got them to send me new OS disks. they showed up in like 2 days. i used the "i got no physical disks w/ my comp, you owe them to me" argument. money.

I did the same exact thing except with my HP laptop. They FedEx overnight those discs.

[mongo]

I did the same exact thing except with my HP laptop. They FedEx overnight those discs.

exactly. take advantage kneegrow.

[STDSkillz]

Well that sucks. The shitty thing about it is that my OS is in a box in storage 6 hours away. That adds some extra effort to just buying a new hard drive, plus spending $100-$200 I don't have right now.
Hey Mongo, did your BIOS have any difficulty in recognizing a different hard drive. I'm guessing because it's a Dell they have every piece of hardware tuned in.

My girlfriend has one of those shitty Dell laptops, so I've ended up replacing just about every part on it. Her hard drive went bad as well, but it was cake to fix. They sent her a new hard drive, I took the old one out, put the new one in, and sent away the old hard drive.

New hard drive had all of the drivers and everything already loaded on it...no BIOS recognition problems at all, either. Should be a smooth process. Good luck, dude.

[Jackcraver]

Hodge just make sure that you download the drivers for all your hardware from the Dell support site. Just enter your service tag into the support search and it will direct you to the drivers page. Put them onto a CD or Pen drive and install a new HD into your machine. BTW Seagate HDs come with a 5 year warranty and have always been extremely reliable and the 500GB drives are running about $70 now.

[Hodge]

Thanks guys.
Things went from not too bad to shitty last night though. It won't turn on, at all. The power and hd led's light up for about half a second then go out. It's done and the tech on the phone said I need a new mobo (he had me remove all of the other hardware to make sure). Coincidently, it was a WD hard drive, not a Fujitsu.

I can't really go without my hd for the 2-6 weeks I can expect for them to fix my computer so I was wondering if you guys knew if the old hd would fit in a drive enclosure so I can at least plug it into a buddy's computer and get everything I need off of it? It does have the stupid black trim on the outside so that it blends into the rest of my computer.

[Jackcraver]

I have never seen or experienced a WD drive that could not be mounted into an enclosure. If the black trim on the outside of it gets in the way just carefully remove the trim with a sharp knife. Otherwise it should fit fine into the enclosure. Sucks about the MoBo being the culprit but hey if it is under warranty and they will fix it for free then go that route. If not I would just buy a new one from newegg or tigerdirect where you can find a quality board for a good price.

[DjAg]

If it's an IDE drive, chances are you can mount it in a buddy's computer as a slave and not spend a dime on an external enclosure. You just have to pay attention to the jumpers.

An SATA drive would just require that your friend has a free SATA slot on his mobo, and a PSU that supplies SATA power connectors (or if you have a 4-pin->SATA power conector converter...)

Insistant on an external enclosure? I can confidently say that you should have no issues. I never have, and I test/backup HDD's daily at work in a multitude of ways, and the only HDD's to not work... simply didn't work.

The only thing I want to make sure you know before buying anything is to make sure you know if your drive is IDE or SATA. If you need help distinguishing between the two, in this photo the top drive is SATA while the bottem is IDE. I believe I read you state that it was an older drive, so I would assume it's IDE...

http://archive.64bits.se/guider/pcbyggarskola/sata.jpg

[Skybase]

Or a 2.5" laptop HDD. This changes your connectors and thus the external enclosure you'll need. Or simply go w/ an adapter you can get from most small PC shops/etc

http://www.choosealaptop.com/images/laptop%20hard%20drive.jpg
http://www.tomtop.com/syssite/home/shop/1/pictures/productsimg/big/698_20061026165236_1.jpg

[DjAg]

We were talking about laptops? Whoops.

[resolva]

Any guides on partitioning your harddrive you can recommend?

I am looking to split my harddrive up abit and set up a backup.

[Jackcraver]

I always do a partition for my OS and a partition for my data. For Windows XP I would recommend somewhere in the 20-30GB area. This will give you room for updates and some software while the rest of your programs and data go on the other partition. After installing, updating windows, and setting up your core software I would use a image program like Norton Ghost to make a backup of your windows partition. This way if you ever suffer from a horrible virus or windows majorly screws up you can restore from the image in about 30 minutes.

[Syndicate]

Any guides on partitioning your harddrive you can recommend?

I am looking to split my harddrive up abit and set up a backup.

I has a domain controller with remote backups. I rules.

[Skybase]

Just a reminder. . partitioning's great for organization and OS/software crash loss, but that HDD goes and you still lose all partitions. BEST solution for backup would be a separate HDD altogether with incremental backups to other media types.

[travllost]

Ok guys, I am trying to throw an older IDE drive in for some storage space. I currently have a sata drive as the master, but the os wont see the IDE drive even with the pins in any setting (i.e. master, slave) any suggestions from you guru's would be appreciated

[dadaelus]

Buy an IDE-USB External case?

[Skybase]

Is IDE enabled in your BIOS? If so, is the HDD recognized there anyhow?

[travllost]

Is IDE enabled in your BIOS? If so, is the HDD recognized there anyhow?

YES ITS ON ON THE BIOS BUT NO ITS NOT SEEN THERE EITHER

edit: sorry didnt realize caps was on

[DjAg]

Is IDE enabled in your BIOS? If so, is the HDD recognized there anyhow?

YES ITS ON ON THE BIOS BUT NO ITS NOT SEEN THERE EITHER

edit: sorry didnt realize caps was on

If the BIOS is properly setup to detect IDE drives, and it can't... You either have a faulty cable or a dead HDD.

For the hell of it, I'd throw it in a completely different system with a different cable, just to make sure.

[DjAg]

BLAH BLAH

A continuation of that, try using a different plug from your PSU (power supply)... I just had a HDD stop working and realized the plug from the PSU was dead. Didn't think of that before...

[Skybase]

Was just gonna recommend that. I'm surprised how many times I've seen a bad IDE power cable seem to go bad on a power supply (usually stock or cheap ones). Definitely try this before giving up on the HDD. If you do try this on another computer (or even when trying on this computer) try a different IDE cable if you can as well. Depending on HOW old of a HDD it is I guess you could try a standard IDE cable as well, as opposed to an Ultra IDE? (IDE has 40-conducter while UIDE has 80, which is the number of wires run through it) However I'd doubt this would make a difference. I just mention it because I've actually had an older HDD not work on UIDE for myself before. Doubt that's your issue, however.

[Le Goat]

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2009/01/iosafe-solo-front-20090113-500.jpg (https://iosafe.com/solo)

The last time (http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/09/iosafe-3-5-industrys-first-internal-hdd-with-disaster-protecti/) we heard from ioSafe they were taking 2.5-inch HDDs, wrapping them in armor, then stuffing them into 3.5-inch enclosures -- adding fire and water protection in a standard form factor. Now they've given up on the internal route and have gone for something a little larger and more durable, fitting Western Digital (http://www.engadget.com/tag/westerndigital) or Seagate (http://www.engadget.com/tag/seagate) disks into hardened external USB 2.0 cases capable of being submersed in ten feet of water for three days or surviving a raging inferno for 30 minutes. $199 gets you a 500GB model, but, since you'd probably have a hard time upgrading the drive in there without a jackhammer, we'd recommend going straight for the $349 1.5TB model -- early adopters get a tidy $50 off!

[Skybase]

Then the hard drive inside fails. But hey, at least it was water/fireproof.

I've had/seen a few hard drives go bad due to head crashing. Not sure that I've actually had/seen any hard drive go bad due to water/fire. I mean, not saying it's nice added protection for those things that you really don't want to lose but I'd feel more comfortable making redundant backups to DVD/CD and locking them in a fire/waterproof safe. Maybe drop off a copy at a relatives house for safekeeping as well if it's something like pictures or something else you really don't want to lose?

hell for that matter, can you say "online storage"?

[Le Goat]

At least my CP will be safe!

[Le Goat]

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2009/01/1-13-09-wd-green-hdd.jpg (http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=11393&Itemid=1)

Western Digital has known that Seagate (http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/30/seagate-to-jump-into-the-ssd-games-2tb-spinners-planned-for-nex/) was toiling away in hopes of being the first to market with a standalone 2TB hard drive, and evidently it has chosen to work its engineers that much harder. In a presumed effort to beat Hitachi (http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/05/hitachi-breaks-1tb-hard-drive-barrier-with-7k1000/) (and everyone else) to the 2TB barrier, WD is reportedly aiming to launch its Caviar Green 2000GB WD20EADS later this week, and with it will come 32MB of cache, an 8.9-millisecond seek time and an expected price tag of around €170 ($224). Best of all? It should be "available immediately" just as soon as it's outed for real.

[BIG PIZZLE]

I think there are corrupt segments on my external HD. How do I fix that?

[mongo]

why do you think that?

[BIG PIZZLE]

The files dont open and the HD makes a weird clicking noise Also, right now when I tried to do a defrag alalysis, it said it couldnt do it because a certain file was corrupt. So I tried again with the same error but describing a different file.

[Gary_Busey]

I would boot into something like Bart PE, pull anything you could get off it, and then reformat. If it's fucked up after that, take it out of the case and see if you can hook it directly up to your comp. If it's still fucked up, find a hammer and beat it, then throw it in the trash.

[mongo]

I would boot into something like Bart PE, pull anything you could get off it, and then reformat. If it's fucked up after that, take it out of the case and see if you can hook it directly up to your comp. If it's still fucked up, find a hammer and beat it, then throw it in the trash.

what he said.

[Ace Rockola]

I have an old Dell desktop that I'm trying to format the harddrive on. I was told that if I just put in the disc resinstalls XP that came with it, it will format the drive. My only problem is that it's asking for the CD key, which I lost in one of the three moves since I bought it. Is there another way to format?

[Kerjack]

http://www.computerhope.com/formathl.htm

You do know of course format does not equal re-installation correct? You will lose everything and be left with no factory OS.

------

Or put it in another PC with XP/Vista and you can do it from Control Panel>Admin tools>Computer Management>Disk Management (Classic View)

[Ace Rockola]

I know that if I format, I will have no OS. So, that's my next question, is there a way to get my CD key, or is there a generic key that will work?

[s0bv1ou5lyd3sprt]

I know that if I format, I will have no OS. So, that's my next question, is there a way to get my CD key, or is there a generic key that will work?

hahaha.

[Kerjack]

I know that if I format, I will have no OS. So, that's my next question, is there a way to get my CD key, or is there a generic key that will work?


Is windows itself still functional? If so you might be able to get it out of the registry. What version of windows is it?

[Kerjack]

If it happens to be ME/98/95 you can actually still recover it from Command Prompt.

Finding the CD (Product) Key from DOS
If you can't boot into Windows at all, then you can boot with a Startup Disk (CD support is not required) or into Command Mode Only and type the following command:

For 95:

C:\Windows\Command\Find /I "ProductId" c:\windows\system.dat

For 98/Me:

C:\Windows\Command\Find /I "ProductKey" C:\Windows\System.dat
The first line of the screen dump will look like this:
ProductKey XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX where the X's are your actual CD Key.

[Le Goat]

by Nilay Patel (http://www.engadget.com/bloggers/nilay-patel/), posted Jan 29th 2009 at 7:49AM
http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2008/11/ts_e5k500.jpg (http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=storage&articleId=9126869&taxonomyId=19&intsrc=kc_top)We've seen quite a few hardware-encrypted (http://www.engadget.com/2008/11/14/lenovos-thinkpad-usb-portable-secure-hard-drive-will-make-you-l/) disks (http://www.engadget.com/2008/10/29/puresilicons-rugged-renegade-ssd-touts-hardware-based-encryptio/) hit the scene lately, but to be honest, we've always thought they were a risky investment, since all the systems were proprietary -- we wouldn't want to store our encryption-worthy data on a disk that can't be read at all in a few years, after all. That's happily about to change, though -- the Trusted Computing Group has just announced that virtually every drive maker has agreed on a set of 128-bit encryption standards covering SSDs and HDDs. That's Fujitsu, Hitachi, Seagate, Samsung, Toshiba, Western Digital, IBM, Wave Systems, LSI, and ULink Technology, if you're keeping score at home (and we know you are). Ideally this means that we'll see easy cheap disk encryption filter onto mainstream consumer storage, which would basically invalidate all those "I'm stealing this hard drive out of your laptop and using it to log into your Facebook account" crimes of passion we know the kids are into these days. Best part? Fujitsu, Seagate and Hitachi are all already (http://www.engadget.com/2008/11/10/seagate-announces-larger-faster-aes-packing-momentus-hard-drive/) shipping (http://www.engadget.com/2008/11/11/hitachi-joins-500gb-laptop-disk-party-brings-encryption-and-a-b/) drives (http://www.engadget.com/2008/11/11/fujistu-announces-worlds-first-500gb-laptop-disk-with-256-bit-a/) that support the TCG standards.

[BIG PIZZLE]

Is there a better portable HD out there than this for the price?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148235&nm_mc=OTC-Froogle&cm_mmc=OTC-Froogle-_-Hard+Drives+-+External-_-Seagate-_-22148235 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148235&nm_mc=OTC-Froogle&cm_mmc=OTC-Froogle-_-Hard+Drives+-+External-_-Seagate-_-22148235)

http://c1.neweggimages.com/NeweggImage/productimage/22-148-235-05.jpg

[Skybase]

I'd think there are lots of better options, including internal drives in external enclosures anymore. Those are getting pretty reliable. Also just on the first page of Newegg I'd found this. So. . .yea, I'm sure there are better deals.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136324

[Kerjack]

1TB for $88 after $20 mail in. $108 upfront.
http://www.ecost.com/Detail/External+Storage/Acomdata/PDHD1000USE-72/40073546.aspx?navid=155441514

1TB Western Digital for $118 flat. Supports eSATA, USB2.0 and Firewire connections.
http://www.ecost.com/Detail/External+Storage/Western+Digital/WDH1CS10000N/41583855.aspx?navid=155441514

[Kerjack]

Or if you are just looking for cheap but not necessarily a ton of space. 250GB for $32 ain't bad.

http://www.ecost.com/Detail/External+Storage/Seagate/ST302504FDA1E1RK/40473734.aspx?navid=155440051

[nuclearjew]

I've got one of these and it's pretty awesome. (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822101093)

$20 mail-in rebate makes it $95 total with free shipping.

[Kerjack]

Free shipping? We have a winner.

[BIG PIZZLE]

1TB for $88 after $20 mail in. $108 upfront.
http://www.ecost.com/Detail/External+Storage/Acomdata/PDHD1000USE-72/40073546.aspx?navid=155441514

1TB Western Digital for $118 flat. Supports eSATA, USB2.0 and Firewire connections.
http://www.ecost.com/Detail/External+Storage/Western+Digital/WDH1CS10000N/41583855.aspx?navid=155441514

Those look good but are they as reliable? I've always thought at a rule of thumb, the bigger the drive, the more likely it would crash/suck.

[Kerjack]

Baring a few exceptions I think all standard drives have pretty much the same failure rate nowadays.

[BIG PIZZLE]

Like, they all fail all the time?

[Kerjack]

Just don't run 14 at once. You might have to swap one a year. That is not to say 1 in 14 die within a year, but with the combined hours statistically one will probably fail and it might not be the oldest.

[Kerjack]

Google, who run huge data centers have pretty much found there is no good way to tell when a drive will fail or its life expectancy. The only thing they said seems jump the numbers is a sudden rapid temp change for the warmer or cooler.

[dadaelus]

Is there a better portable HD out there than this for the price?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148235&nm_mc=OTC-Froogle&cm_mmc=OTC-Froogle-_-Hard+Drives+-+External-_-Seagate-_-22148235 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148235&nm_mc=OTC-Froogle&cm_mmc=OTC-Froogle-_-Hard+Drives+-+External-_-Seagate-_-22148235)



I use Western Digital Elements. Got a 1tb for $85 with free shipping. They are not the most portable usb drives out there but they have been tanks.

http://c1.neweggimages.com/ProductImageCompressAll200/22-136-324-01.jpg (http://www.newegg.com/Product/ShowImage.aspx?CurImage=22-136-324-01.jpg&Image=22-136-324-01.jpg%2c22-136-324-06.jpg%2c22-136-324-05.jpg%2c22-136-324-03.jpg%2c22-136-324-02.jpg%2c22-136-324-04.jpg%2c22-136-324-07.jpg&S7ImageFlag=0&WaterMark=0&Item=N82E16822136324&Depa=0&Description=Western%20Digital%20Elements%20Desktop %20640GB%203.5%22%20Black%20External%20Hard%20Driv e)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136324&Tpk=WD%20Elements%20Desktop

[Blue]

Is there a way to hide or prevent access to my external hard drive for guest log ons?

[dadaelus]

I use Folder lock - http://www.download.com/Folder-Lock/3000-2092_4-10063343.html

I think that you can also use Group Policy Editor to control how accounts interact with the gear.

[Trident]

I want a small, yet high capacity external HDD that can take a few knocks.

Has anyone used this? Any comments?
http://www.freecom.com/ecproduct_detail.asp?ID=3945&CatID=&sCatID=

http://www.freecom.com/objects/00013825.jpg

ToughDrive 500GB USB

Shock protected 2.5" hard drive from Freecom with 500GB. Built-in USB 2.0 cable. Internal anti-shock mechanism. Withstand falling from 2 meters

Features :
Durable, soft silicon cover
Internal anti-shock mechanism
Withstand falling from 2 meters
Integrated USB 2.0 cable
Buspowered
High quality, slimline design
Fanless design thus no noise
Including award-winning NTI Shadow backup software for PC
and Mac,automatically & continuously protects your photo,
music, video and other data files
2 years warranty
OS: Windows 2000 / XP / Vista / Mac OS X v10.3 or higher
Time Machine (OS X v 10.5 Leopard) compatible

Verdict from DIGITAL LIFE/ June 3, 2008:
"For photographers and road warriors, this shock-resistant drive is a godsend..."
"FINAL SAY: You can be rough with this drive."

Small but tough !
The Freecom ToughDrive represents large storage capacities in a conveniently small, shock resistant 2.5” hard drive. It is designed to withstand bumps and drops, and even survives a fall from 2 metres high! The ideal travel companion for people on the move – for you !!

The toughest drive there is!
In today’s world mobility has become a key factor. People who are on the road carry their whole office with them. Notebook, mobile phone, PDA, external hard drive… Imagine what can happen when you’re late for a flight, running to the gate, and your external hard drive accidentally falls from your notebook case or out of your jacket pocket onto the floor… it breaks. Hundreds of hours of work, gigabytes of spreadsheets, documents, photo’s… all gone. Not anymore! Freecom introduces the ToughDrive. The ideal external storage solution for people on the move. Fitted with an internal anti-shock frame and a unique soft silicon cover, it can withstand bumps and drops so your drive is still fully functional after it has dropped. The ToughDrive ensures you can still access your valuable files.

[mongo]

so anyway, i had a dell up until last summer when it got kyped out of my trunk. however, about 4 months prior to it getting niggered out of my car, the HD crashed. so i rolled from a toshiba HD to a WD HD. good.great.wonderful. problem being, there are some good sex pics from the ex and i on the crashed HD. anyboy know of a way to get some info/files off of the old HD w/out dropping mad cash? i've read a few things online, but they vary so much i thought i'd ask here first.


also, when my old HD died, i was lucky enough to see the blue screen. meh.

[Gary_Busey]

http://lifehacker.com/5237503/five-best-free-data-recovery-tools
http://lifehacker.com/5239099/hive-five-winner-for-best-free-data-recovery-tool-recuva

I used TestDisk last month on my girlfriend's laptop. It looked like the hard drive crashed. Wouldn't boot up, I took it out and hooked it up to my PC and it just showed the whole thing as unpartitioned space. So I used TestDisk to pull off everything she wanted saved, then I rebuilt the partition table and put it back in her laptop, fired it up and everything worked perfectly.

[taha.bluebird]

Hi everyone,
Actually i already had one SATA hard drive in my PC and I needed to install another. So I bought an OEM SATA HD, attached the SATA cable to the motherboard, attached the power cable as well, booted my computer up but it's only reading my original HD when I go into My Computer. My new HD isn't showing up at all. Have I missed anything out? I don't need to do anything with jumper settings on a SATA drive do I? Need suggestions??

[Jackcraver]

It might not be formatted and that is why it isn't showing up as a drive in your "My Computer" Try this

Right-click "My Computer" select manage. choose disk management on the left and see if the new HD is listed there. If it is listed you can right-click the device and format it there. Then it should show up in your "My Computer" If the Drive is not listed there reboot your PC enter BIOS and verify your drive is there. If you still cant find your hardware you might have a faulty HD.