Hard Drive Repair/Recovery Tools - Any Recommendations?

I've had success in the past with Ontrack Easy Recovery Pro (I have a "FOSI" version 6 if you want a copy :augie)

Also I have used Active Uneraser - had to pay for that :eek:

If the disc spins but won't boot you may have some luck with BartPE - assuming you have another machine to download and build the bootable CDROM from of course :)
 
I have the disk out of the errant machine and in a hard drive caddy which I've connected to my laptop via USB2.0, its easier than bringing a pc home on a bike :D

I guess any of these solutions require the disk to be in a bootable windows box :nenau
 
A lot of Linux rescue systems can read NTFS. You could try some of the dedicated CDs like Backtrack - look for one that has ddrescue, it takes a long time, but it's darned good at getting a bitcopy of the filesystem from failing disks, that you can then image onto a fresh disk.

There are PE images around that you can boot into Windows from USB drives and which have suites of rescue and imaging tools, but I'm not sure if there are any that are freely available, so I can only recommend dusting off the wallet if you want to go down that route.

You don't say what's wrong with the disk, is it physical failure, filesystem corruption, or not yet known? The problem with NTFS is you can't mount it read-only which makes pulling data off a failing disk more of a problem.
 
judge said:
I have the disk out of the errant machine and in a hard drive caddy which I've connected to my laptop via USB2.0, its easier than bringing a pc home on a bike :D

I guess any of these solutions require the disk to be in a bootable windows box :nenau
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BartPE runs (as a bootable CDROM) as a "fresh" OS i.e. it will see your current Boot disc and the dodgy disc as E: & F: (or whatever) - if the file system of the dodgy disc is accessible you could then try and copy files to your laptop drive.

Ontrack Easy Recovery Pro is an installable application (on your Laptop drive) - you can then use it to try and recover files/partitions etc from the dodgy drive.
(Actually I assume that is the case - never tried it with a USB disc)

EDIT: What are you actually trying to recover - user files or trying to fix disc cluster errors or something else :) ?
 
When it was in its home PC it would not boot into Windows - BIOS would load then try and access the disk, then I'd get a failure reading disk. Cannot get into any F8 boot option on XP.

Brought disk home figuring if I couldn't restore Windows I might be able to recover users folders (local settings etc.) but although my laptop can 'see' the drive, no attempts at reading it work for me :(

Best case I'd like to restore Windoze, worse case I'd like to recover users docs etc.
 
judge said:
When it was in its home PC it would not boot into Windows - BIOS would load then try and access the disk, then I'd get a failure reading disk. Cannot get into any F8 boot option on XP.

Brought disk home figuring if I couldn't restore Windows I might be able to recover users folders (local settings etc.) but although my laptop can 'see' the drive, no attempts at reading it work for me :(

Best case I'd like to restore Windoze, worse case I'd like to recover users docs etc.
Click to expand...

You have a PM.

Also - check the HD manufacturer's site - Western Digital and IBM (e.g.) have free HD check utilities which may be of some use.
 
try having a look at ntfs dos pro, if you need it pm me an I will see if I can find a copy.
It loads up and gives all the normal functions of a dos prompt but on an ntfs drive. helps with all sorts of problems. failing that try spinrite.
 
judge said:
Thanks Peeps.

I'm giving EasyRecovery a whizz see what falls out the bottom. :thumb2
Click to expand...

Well here's a thing, ran the disk tests both quick and full and reports no problems :nenau

Now using the data recovery utility which can see the entire disk including a folder of LOST FILES (I guess this is where the file structure has gone skewy) and I'm recovering 60GB of user files onto the laptop.

So clearly the disk has a problem but I can't see anything within the EasyRecovery to repair the disk so it seems my only option is new disk, XP install and copy back the documents & settings folders I've recovered.

Ah well, could have been worse might not have got anything recovered :confused:
 
+1 on cooling in freezer, 15 minutes will do, if it had a bearing problem, which will probably show up as funny noise. (or not funny, depends).
I had to get stuff of a drive piecemeal - 10 minutes freezer, copy what could be read before the thing warmed up, then back in freezer. Took about 6 goes. Fun or what?
 
judge said:
Well here's a thing, ran the disk tests both quick and full and reports no problems :nenau

Now using the data recovery utility which can see the entire disk including a folder of LOST FILES (I guess this is where the file structure has gone skewy) and I'm recovering 60GB of user files onto the laptop.

So clearly the disk has a problem but I can't see anything within the EasyRecovery to repair the disk so it seems my only option is new disk, XP install and copy back the documents & settings folders I've recovered.

Ah well, could have been worse might not have got anything recovered :confused:
Click to expand...

Edit: And there we are entire file structure intact and not a single file readable :nenau

No wonder data recovery people charge shed loads for this stuff. People without back-ups be warned your 3-5 year old hard drive with loads of pictures and documents and email on will die and you will lose it - BACK UP NOW!! :rob

Mine of course is safe thanks to Mac and Time Machine :angel
 
It's like another world to me.............:blast


Stll got my files on your laptop:augie

Post them back on a disc and that'll free up some space:D

Move along.............nothing to see here:P
 
If the index is corrupt, try Davory from X-ways. It can recognise file types based on headers and other data in the files, and has options to scan for jpegs, word files, pst files etc.

Unfortunately, unless the owner was religious about defragging, large files which grew over a long period will only be partially recovered, however there's a free trial so you can get an idea of what's possible before paying for the full version (which is still cheap for what it does).
 
Nippy Normans supply Touratech, Wunderlich, Desert Fox and many other makes of accessories.
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