Issue with retrieving data off an old SATA hardrive

a reply to: StratosFear

is it showing up in control panel/administrative tools/computer management/disc management?

a reply to: network dudeLOL easy way to catch viruses.

Just going off what you said about recovering of a formatted drive: Would initializing the hard drive then try to use deleted file recovery software work?

originally posted by: PhoenixOD
a reply to: StratosFear

is it showing up in control panel/administrative tools/computer management/disc management?

Yes, Under "Devices and Printers" and in the device manager in disk drive section. I disabled it then enabled it and no change.

a reply to: StratosFear

It may, but again, no guarantees. For those programs to work, they usually need to see a valid drive. (like drive "E" ) but once you make an active partition and format the drive, it's up in the air if it will work. If it's not life or death, I'd try it and if it didn't work, you can at least say you tried, but again, if it's critical data, I'd get someone to look at it first.

a reply to: StratosFear

Yes, Under "Devices and Printers" and in the device manager in disk drive section. I disabled it then enabled it and no change.

Thats not what i asked.

Read carefully ..is it showing up in control panel/administrative tools/computer management/disc management?

a reply to: PhoenixODYes, that exact path brings up a popup box and says "You must initialize a disk before Logical Disk management can access it." Then asks to choose between MBR or GUID when initializing a hard drive. The hard drive in question is labeled there as disk1 and is the only thing listed in the pop up box.

Disk0 is my laptop hard drive.

a reply to: StratosFear

There is obviously something seriously wrong with the boot sector / file table etc on the disk. your best bet is to find some software to try to recover it. i would try every free software recovery program you can find before giving in and initializing the disk.

i found this forum post from someone having similar problems

I'm trying to access files from a friend's external hard disk which had stopped showing up in 'My Computer' on his XP machine.

I removed the drive (500Gb Seagate SATA drive) and installed it in my Windows 7 PC. The drive is detected by Disk Management but listed as 'Not initialized'. It pops up a 'Initialize Disk' window asking if I want to initialize with either MBR or GPT partitions styles.

If I go ahead and let Windows initialize the disk, will this make the data unrecoverable? What is the safest way to proceed here?

Update
Short answer, 'No, initialization shouldn't make the data unrecoverable' but probably won't make it any easier to recover either.

I didn't initialize the drive but used the free version of 'Partition Find and Mount' which let me mount the drive read only. Copied the data over OK (free version is speed limited so this takes some time).

a reply to: PhoenixOD...and mine just so happens to be a Seagate 250gb. I`ll never ignore another "Back up now" reminder again. A limited speed is no problem so long as the data is still there. I sort of have a good feeling about going that route so I guess its worth a shot.

If something were damaged is there a way to check for sure other than it just not working?

a reply to: StratosFearNo go, attempted initialization and it says system file not found. Thanks for all the replies you all.

originally posted by: StratosFear
a reply to: PhoenixOD...and mine just so happens to be a Seagate 250gb. I`ll never ignore another "Back up now" reminder again. A limited speed is no problem so long as the data is still there. I sort of have a good feeling about going that route so I guess its worth a shot.

If something were damaged is there a way to check for sure other than it just not working?

Yes there's lots of programs that can analyze the disk.

you can use chkdisk and diskpart from the command line to analyse and rebuild corrupt parts of the disk. but you want to read up on it first.

Update:

I broke it LOL, thanks for all the replies and I apologize for wasting your time.

My neighbor said it was a no problem easy fix and started up a command prompt and went DISKPART/SELECT DISK 1/CLEAN and now it doesn't show up as a hard drive but as a USB storage device with 0 bytes. Some of the recovery software I have tried has not worked and I suppose its a lost cause but it has made me intensely curious about this sot of thing.

Thanks everyone!

I have a couple of the USB to sata/IDE adapters because sometimes they do not work with certain drives. Laptop drives are usually a PIA to recover because they have certain partitions on them that seem to mess up the standard recovery process. Such as Dell and the recovery partition or HP being the same. Sometime the recovery partition messes up the process and sometimes it is just a mismatch in the USB device. I have literally hooked up at least 200 drives and between the couple of USB to SATA or USB to IDE it is still a hit or miss if it is a original factory provided drive. The best thing to do when you get a new laptop is get the restore disks or a real retail/OEM windows disk and get rid of the factory restore partitions and go with what windows installs. Usually a 100 meg partition and the rest as the OS. Dell is bad with a restore partition and a diagnostics partition plus the 100 meg and then the OS. 4 partitions...
Find a desktop with an available SATA port and hook your drive up to that. Don't mess with the USB converter. The neighbor probably wiped your partition table but there are tools out there that may bring it back.

I had a SATA drive do similar things, couldnt find the table, claimed it was 2048GB, but its was really 500GB, then it was 0GB. Then I messed up up and tried writing the table back using a linux boot cd.

I tried several paid recovery programs, though nothing helped.

Then I tried the program Recuva. It found it, and all files .

It may be a long shot, though it worked for me. (and no I aint trying to advertise the program, lol)

Try to recover your old drive data in the way as shown in the following tutorial.

That data is not gone after using the diskpart / clean.

a reply to: dominique657I would but its not working for me. What method was used so I can look it up?

a reply to: blackspiritI tried Recuva but it doesn't "see" the hard drive or as a USB storage device. I also tried Seagate`s program with the same results. I'll give it another shot though.

It seems that you are facing issues in retrieving data from an old SATA hard disk. There could be several reasons for this, such as physical damage to the disk, damaged sectors, or issues with the retrieval mechanism. Have you tried using different cables or connecting the hard disk to another computer? In case the problem is software-related, data recovery professional software or tools may be helpful. If all these measures fail, it might be necessary to seek expert assistance from a data recovery provider.

It seems that you are facing issues in retrieving data from an old SATA hard disk. There could be several reasons for this, such as physical damage to the disk, damaged sectors, or issues with the retrieval mechanism. Have you tried using different cables or connecting the hard disk to another computer? In case the problem is software-related, data recovery professional software or tools may be helpful. If all these measures fail, it might be necessary to seek expert assistance from a data recovery provider.