Attention Clever People

[cordroy]

The story so far - the power supply on my desktop machine blew, however simply replacing it revealed that a problem had also occurred with the mother board so that's been replaced and at least the machine now works - however here's the rub - I cannot access any of the data on my 2 hard drives (1 is main drive and I use the other as the back-up)

No need for smart replies about using external back-ups (although I know I deserve them!!) - I'll be sure to do so from now on

Neither drive appears to have crashed so I'm sure the data is still present - just I can't get at it

Does anyone know how I might be able to retrieve my data - I'm particularly interested in photo's and music, although all the rest is going to be a pain to live without as well

Alternatively does anyone know whether I can retrieve photo's and music from my Ipod

Any assistance is extremely welcome

 

[centaur]

When you say 'the machine now works' does that mean it boots into windoze, and if so, what flavour (98SE, XP, 2K, etc) ?

If it does boot into windoze, can you see the drives in 'explore' with all the details ?

 

[Womble]

Nasty, that's a bad'un.

There are some things that you can do, but you have to tread carefully.

Firstly, I'm sure that you should be able to get the data off the iPod, but I've never had to try so I'll let someone else help there.

From your description, both your disks' controller boards are likely to be fried, but the drive assemblies are more robust. Now that's not the end of the world, but you can see it from there on a clear day...

Are the disks recognised at all? Do they even spin up? What exactly do you mean by not recognised?

There is one simple ray of hope - have you got a disk controller card, such as a SCSI or SATA card? If you have, then there's a chance that it's that that has blown. If so, buy another and see if that works.

Before we go any further, I recommend that you try the disks in someone else's PC first - if that works then you're home and dry but there's another problem with your PC.

If they're fairly dead, i.e. they are recognised in Windows, but the filesystem is trashed, then check out forensic recovery software, such as Davory from X-Ways. You might be able to mount the drives in Linux from a CD distribution such as Knoppix. Davory is good because it looks at the patterns of the files on the disk and can pick out jpgs, docs, pdfs etc. The more regularly you defragmented, the better your chances are.

If they're both really very dead, you will need to track down near-identical copies of your existing disks as you will need to swap the controller boards. This link will help.

There's a really good presentation about disk recovery on the same site as well.

I have done this trick in the past, but to be honest the newer the drive, the more difficult it gets. As I said, it's not for the faint-hearted - if it was my data I'd give it a go, as I'm happy playing with sensitive electronics, but if that's not your thing then you will have to consider the expensive option, which is talking to professional data recovery firms, or supplying beer to someone who's willing to try.

 

[Dickieboy]

If your running XP try repairing windows, load XP disc and choose 'Boot from CD' then follow on screen instructions , when you get offered the choice select the 2nd repair option that appears DO NOT select 'Repair using Recovery Console' then have a boring half hour so waiting for prompts etc.

If the 'Boot from Cd' option doesn't present itself, go into the Bios and select 'CD' as first boot device.

 

[Womble]

If your running XP try repairing windows, load XP disc and choose 'Boot from CD' then follow on screen instructions , when you get offered the choice select the 2nd repair option that appears DO NOT select 'Repair using Recovery Console' then have a boring half hour so waiting for prompts etc.

If the 'Boot from Cd' option doesn't present itself, go into the Bios and select 'CD' as first boot device.

If the disks are making strange noises or are obviously struggling, this is the last thing that you should do - any damage to the filesystem will only get worse and repairs are likely to break more than they fix. Trust me, I've been there

 

[PhilM]

If all else fails with your HD, try this lot

http://www.vogon.co.uk/

no, it's not a joke, we have used them at work before and if the data is recoverable they can get it.
no sure how much it would cost though.

 

[Womble]

It looks like Vogon have bought out OnTrack, who are the firm that I would have suggested.

There's a freephone help number and a free consultation service - it would be worth having a chat.

 

[Mech]

Has the bios been set to see two hard drives ?

 

[cordroy]

Sincere thanks to everyone who has posted - great assistance

Looks like it's the boards that are attached to the disks themselves that are shot (sorry for the non-techie description!!)

One of my techie colleagues swapped the board on one of the disks for one he had lying around (likely story hey?) and it's worked - i.e. the PC can now see the disk and the data

So all I've got to do now is try and find a disk the same as the one that's still FUBAR and hope the magic works again - I'll be trying e-Bay first - I know it's a Seagate, but that's about it 'til I get home tonight

Once again thanks to all who've offered advice - if this fails then I'll be considering the forensic approach