Dead hard drive : lost photos : help

[Littlepeahead]

Chris8886's laptop died. We've established it's a dead hard drive and a new one is on order and my colleagues in IT have kindly offered to sort this out for him as they are very lovely.

However, he never backed up any of his photos (yes he is an idiot #-o) so these are on the drive currently sat on my desk. The IT boys say the photos may be retrievable but it's not something they have the gadgetry to do here.

There aren't many pics, nor are they of anything that precious, so it's not worth Chris spending a fortune on sending it away somewhere but if any clever bods on here know how to have a go at such things then please let me know.

This is the drive.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B008VBU7TY/ref=pe_385721_37986871_TE_item

Any help/advice much appreciated.

[Bias]

How dead is dead ? Does it show in the BIOS ? Is it ecectronically dead or does it show in Windows but it's unreadable ?

I use File Scavenger to rescue USB sticks and the occasional HDD

It maybe worth a look at setting it up as a secondary disk and seeing if you can pull owt off it

HTH

[Littlepeahead]

Erm, well it's dead as in it's currently sitting on my desk and the rest of the laptop is several feet away and when it was still in the laptop the machine wouldn't even power up.

It didn't suffer any physical damage - no beer spilled on it, it wasn't defenestrated or dipped in a bath of acid.

[garynortheast]

Use a serial connector firstly to hook it up to a second pc via a usb port and see if it will read it. If not, seal it up in a freezer bag and put it in the freezer for half an hour and then quickly get it hooked up to the serial connector and try again.

[Bibio]

computers inc laptops will still power up even if there is no HDD in them. you might find that the laptop battery is dead or needing charged. if it still wont power up with power attached then its a dead laptop and you might find the HDD is actually ok.

[maviczap]

computers inc laptops will still power up even if there is no HDD in them. you might find that the laptop battery is dead or needing charged. if it still wont power up with power attached then its a dead laptop and you might find the HDD is actually ok.

Yep agree, you can get USB - HDD connectors to rescue files from HDD's.

I've rescued photo's from dead PC's in the past & I have such a lead & power supply. So long as the HDD isn't dead, then its relatively cheap & easy.

If the HDD is dead, then it can be done & it's more expensive, as it'll need to go to a specialist firm.

[Littlepeahead]

OK so just to clarify, the PC was telling Chris that there was a fatal hard drive error and that he needed to format the hard drive, which he did as instructed. The result being that the laptop then didn't even get him as far as the log in screen.

Our IT department checked and confirmed that the hard drive is faulty and have told me to order a new one, and said once slotted in and with Windows 7 re-installed the laptop should be good to go again. So that problem should be sorted, happy days.

But as the old hard drive has been formatted does this mean that all the photos saved on the that drive have been wiped, or can it be plugged in and much like my external hard drive that I use to store photos and accessed to retrieve such files by someone cleverer than me? I think this is what you mean by a serial connector? And that's what we don't have at work any more (a former member of staff nicked it when they left recently). If this is one of those operations that requires hours of time, money and the computer skills of Q from the Bond movies then I'm inclined to give up and tell Chris he should have backed up his files like I showed him and let this be a lesson to him!

[maviczap]

The files might be recoverable, but as its been formatted, I think its the job for a specialist firm. Although it wouldn't hurt to use a lead to hook it up to a PC & see if the files are still there?

No, its not a serial connector but a USB - SATa adaptor. This is similar to the kit I've got

http://www.prlog.org/10588826-usb-to-sata-adapter.jpg

Explained here

http://www.prlog.org/10588826-usb-to-sata-ide-adapter-tranfer-hard-drive-type.html

One part plugs into the SATA connector of the HDD & the other plugs into the HDD power port

[Bibio]

you can recover files on a HDD even after format but if it has been written on since the format then a lot will have been destroyed. formatting only removes the header from the blocks of data to say 'we are free' but the information is still there. data recovery programs put the header back.

unless you have the hardware/software or are willing to spend the money in such things then my advice is forget it and move on, they are lost. if you get a new drive then keep the old one in a drawer until such times you can afford to have it done.

[Littlepeahead]

Right, it's unfortunate that Chris formatted his hard drive without really asking first if that was what he should do and the consequences.

I think under the circumstances it's not worth taking this one any further and he'll just have to live with losing his images as he won't have the know how to buy and use such a piece of kit.

It's possible he's still got some of the images on his memory card from his camera. And in future he'll have to set himself a reminder to back them up to Dropbox and burn them to DVDs too.

Thanks for the advice.

[Matt-EUC]

Add a linked Dropbox folder. Then it'll backup for him.


Sent via the medium of interpretive dance.

[Biker Biggles]

Oi you get off.Shouldnt you be supporting the cricket team?:smt109

[Littlepeahead]

I had set him up a Dropbox account but he never used it.

[Littlepeahead]

And I'll have you know I'm in a taxi on my way to the Oval right now with the Trophy, so there!

[maviczap]

Right, it's unfortunate that Chris formatted his hard drive without really asking first if that was what he should do and the consequences.

I think under the circumstances it's not worth taking this one any further and he'll just have to live with losing his images as he won't have the know how to buy and use such a piece of kit.

It's possible he's still got some of the images on his memory card from his camera. And in future he'll have to set himself a reminder to back them up to Dropbox and burn them to DVDs too.

Thanks for the advice.

Send it to me & I'll have a look at it if you want me to, nothing to loose.

[Littlepeahead]

That is most kind! If you pm me an address I'll pop it in a jiffy bag, and regardless of the outcome Chris will owe you beers a plenty! I shall make sure he doesn't forget either x

[JamesMio]

If Mav can't sort it - give these boys a phone

http://www.kingdomdatarecovery.co.uk/

Run by a couple of old friends of mine - they're not cheap, but very, very good at rescueing data from knack'd drives.

[maviczap]

If Mav can't sort it - give these boys a phone

http://www.kingdomdatarecovery.co.uk/

Run by a couple of old friends of mine - they're not cheap, but very, very good at rescueing data from knack'd drives.

Yep, I remember you posting this before, it may be the better option, as I'm a mere amateur. Depends on how much Chris values his photo's?

I'll just plug it in & see what I can find, whereas your mates know what they're doing :D

[Littlepeahead]

Hmm, he doesn't value them enough to back them up despite me setting him up an account and showing him how to do it. If you don't mind having a look then great. If there's nothing you can do then thank you for trying. And if there's anything embarrassing of course you can share it on here.

[maviczap]

Send it to me anyway. There's a couple of programs I can try to recover his photo's, which are free to trial.

I guess if I need to recover them properly I'll have to pay for the full program, but its not a lot of money, but we'll give the free version a try first. Nothing ventured, nothing gained & I'm happy to give it a go

[Littlepeahead]

Cheers, you are very lovely.

[maviczap]

I know :D

[Dave20046]

If he didn't write any data to the drive after the format the raw data is all still there.

Good luck mav

[Littlepeahead]

He formatted then the laptop wouldn't let him log on, then I told him to not do anything else.

[maviczap]

If he didn't write any data to the drive after the format the raw data is all still there.

Good luck mav

Yep, that's what I'm hoping.

Bizarrely, I deleted some files by accident on a USB stick tonight. Files weren't visible.

I downloaded Recuva and found & restored them after a simple scan =D>, so hopefully I can do the same for Chris numbers files. :smt045

[Dave20046]

Yeah recuvas a good tool, I've had it find stuff pro tools won't

It'll scramble the file names and file structure probably, but not an issue with photos

[Dave20046]

Lph that sounds hopeful, if he formatted it and it went black/white writing on boot even better- if he installed windows there's a chance of loss

[Littlepeahead]

He definitely didn't install anything, he wouldn't know how.

[goodgumbo]

When you delete a file you are not touching the actual data in the hard drive, but just removing the links to where that information is in the file system directory. Think about it this way, the house is still there you are just removing it from the maps.

Data recovery tools run through the streets cataloging the houses and ignore the maps.

Key thing here is not writing new data to the hard drive, because that new available space might be used. In other words, a new family moves into the house and it is back in the map with something else.