Dead Harddrive.

[AzazaelFenrir]

Short version.
The Hard Drive on my wifes laptop has died. I am trying to use hdat2 to run diagnostics on the drive. I know there are bad sectors on it. However there is information there that she would really like to get. What do you guys use for recovery software, or do you have any suggestions (she already got the lecture on backing things up).

[Meriandle]

Knoppix works like a pro for me. More often than not it lets me boot in and backup a customers data. Maybe I've just been lucky with it though.

[AzazaelFenrir]

I will give it a try tonight and see if your luck rubs off on me. Part of the problem I think I am having is that the partition record is gone, yet it can still see the files.

[Isiolia]

There are forensic versions of Knoppix floating about too, such as http://www.e-fense.com/helix/

In theory you could use netcat to pipe a dd image of the drive to another network computer to try and reconstruct or run tools on. But I haven't done that in a while >_>

[Kriz]

I dabble in HD recovery, it's a fun area.

Here's what I do when I get a HD that's been reported as problematic.

1) Run SpinRite on it (it's a small >2mb boot cd HD utility, set to level 2 recovery, or level 4 maintenance) and let it run for a while.
2) If that fails to fix it, mount the drive on my Mac and see what can be seen.

If BIOS can't seem to see it, and therefore SpinRite can't see it, you're in a whole new world of hurt.

[Meriandle]

Has there been any tryings of recoveries yet AzazaelFenrir?

[AzazaelFenrir]

well it made a really nasty sound this afternoon, so it is sitting the freezer right now, and I will try tomorrow afternoon.

I will let you all know.

[levish]

I typically hook them up to a external enclosure to access them (on another pc). As long as the damaged section isn't in the same area as the files I'm looking for it should work, albeit possibly very slowly depending on what state it is in.

[AzazaelFenrir]

"It's Dead Jim".


Bios can't even see anymore. Thanks for the suggestions everyone.

[Zigma]

well it made a really nasty sound this afternoon, so it is sitting the freezer right now, and I will try tomorrow afternoon.

I will let you all know.

...lol


you're not suppose to leave it in the freezer for a long period of time.

[AzazaelFenrir]

I have left them for a few days before and it worked, either way I am pretty sure the drive was dead before then