Data Recovery help

[454697819]

To cut long story short, I replaced my old HDD in my laptop with an SSD due to it begging to fail, I believed I had transferred all the photos etc to my NAS box but I hadn't.

Bottom line I have tried booting it up in the laptop but it now wont boot, neither can windows repair the disk,

I have tried some recovery software which might do the job but I cant find the exact folder I need which contains videos from my sons birth.

Can anyone recommend some comprehensive software - I don't mind paying, or if anyone here is an expert and will help me out for a few beer tokens I would be eternally grateful.

Many thanks in advance -

[pookie]

Have you tried using a dock on another pc as it would be less destructive to than running a tool on the drive first.

[454697819]

Sorry yes - it is being docked via a USB enclosure

[atassiedevil]

Try a linux live cd or DVD. These are remarkably tolerant to bad sectors on windows disks.
They can mount windows FAT or NTFS partitions fine. You should then be able to copy stuff off to another drive.

[maviczap]

Which recovery software have you tried?

I tried a few when trying to recovery Chris numbers photo's from his failed HDD, some were better than others! But his drive was buggered

I've still got these programs & a USB lead to connect it to a laptop. I managed to recover some photos although a lot were corrupted.

I'm no expert!

[maviczap]

Try a linux live cd or DVD. These are remarkably tolerant to bad sectors on windows disks.
They can mount windows FAT or NTFS partitions fine. You should then be able to copy stuff off to another drive.

Agreed, first job is to preserve the data you've got

[454697819]

Try a linux live cd or DVD. These are remarkably tolerant to bad sectors on windows disks.
They can mount windows FAT or NTFS partitions fine. You should then be able to copy stuff off to another drive.


I know diddly squat about Linux can you elaborate a bit further?

Many thanks

Alex

[maviczap]

Read this Alex, I tried this free Linux software

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

[maviczap]

Read this Alex, I tried this free Linux software

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

[maviczap]

More here

http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/10-things/10-linux-rescue-tools-for-recovering-linux-windows-or-mac-machines/

[swaffle]

also key thing is if you have the drive plugged into the computer dont write any files to it as this increases overwrite chance. I used Hirens Boot CD (free), has a few tools on it which are good, if you need to know how to use or where to get let me know. Its one of my techy tricks I keep up my sleve. As maviczap said, some software is good and some is just poor, Ill have a look which one I normally use as I keep forgetting until I see it.

[454697819]

thanks all - much appreciated

few more tricks to try before I deem it a write off then.

I hate to say it but looks like I am going to have to roll over and sign up to Icloud, first a dead phone loosing all of Christmas and now this .. its getting embarassing

[Bibio]

if its just for archiving photos then no need to sign up to anything. use a few a gmail accounts.

64gig sd cards are dirt cheep right now and for pics thats a hell of a lot of storage. SD cards are pretty reliable if your not deleting then writing to them all the time.

[Littlepeahead]

Or use Dropbox.

[ophic]

if its just for archiving photos then no need to sign up to anything. use a few a gmail accounts.

64gig sd cards are dirt cheep right now and for pics thats a hell of a lot of storage. SD cards are pretty reliable if your not deleting then writing to them all the time.
My experience differs from this. Almost all the data I've ever lost has been due to SD cards packing up, or just randomly corrupting files.

[Bibio]

i have never ever had any type of SS card type device fail on me. in fact i have a 512mb compact flash that i keep solely for usernames and passwords on .txt files that is donkeys years old, as i said though i dont go overwriting to them all the time same with the SSD drives on my PC as they are used solely for the OS and programs and everything else is kept on spinning HDD drives. i do however swap out all my drives for fresh ones every two years. the only SS device i have had fail (not my computer but my sons) was an ocz 32gig SATA-II SSD. my computer is pretty much left on for 24-7 as well.

what kills SS cards is driver corruption on the OS rather than the card itself. one other strange thing i have come to realise is that after formatting an SS card it needs a computer restart or it will come up that it is not able to write to.

[ophic]

what kills SS cards is driver corruption on the OS rather than the card itself.
sorry, no.