Hard Drive Woes

[StaticEel]

Ok so the issue, I woke up this morning and noticed that one of my drive letters was missing under My Computer. It was to a Western Digital 320GB drive. I restarted and BIOS saw it, but when I got into Windows it was still missing. When I went into Disk Manager it said I had a new drive installed and if I wanted to initialize it and create a new partition on it. Since I am not sure if this will destroy the 200GB worth of data I currently have on it I didn't do it.

My question is, is it ok to proceed with all that business or will my data be destroyed? Also is there a good drive utility out there that will let me get my data off of the drive atleast before proceeding and what is that software or will let me preserve the data on the drive while partitioning it and/or formatting it?

Thanks!

 

[deathwalker]

Do you have the option or the ability to slave this drive into another system?

 

[StaticEel]

The only other system I have doesn't have a PS and I dont even know if the hardware works anymore.

 

[praeses]

You'll lose your data if your proceed with the format.

Often this occurs when a computer gets jarred and a cable works it way slightly lose or something similar. First thing I would suggest is pull out all of your (P/S)ATA cables and plug them back in. If you have alternate cables to use, even if they are only ATA 33 compatible <shudder> give them a test. Most likely you are not having power issues, its possible but highly unlikely.

I cant recall if it was one of powerquest's or another one of those nifty utilities that can retrieve information from "unformatted" drives. I think symantec now owns powerquest though.

Recovery of the data is usually worth much more than being able to use the drive, so take it easy with this one. Also, its more important to find out why it happened so it doesn't occur when you have a term paper due in 30minutes.

 

[StaticEel]

Thanks Praeses, the cable coming loose was the first thing I thought, but when BIOS found it I thought hmmm maybe not. It would be a good idea though to make sure everything is secure. They are SATA cables so it might have been that. One has fallen out before but it didn't create this problem. Nothing is ever the same the second go around. I don't believe it is power either as the powersupply is probably 2 months old. The last PS died but this hard drive was not in there at the time so it couldn't have been damaged.

As far as programs I was looking at: http://www.recovermyfiles.com/
Though I am not sure if that is a good program. It is hard finding reviews because all that ever pops up anymore is adds trying to sell it to you.

I agree on the recovery of the data, that is the thing I am most worried about. In all it is about 200GB worth of files like I said previously. If I CAN access the files to transfer them, I still have a two other secondary hard drives in the system that MIGHT have enough storage for it all. At the most I can get the more important files. *crosses fingers* It really stinks sitting here at work for knowing my baby is in pain : (

 

[Slowlearner]

If the drive is recognized in the bios there is a good chance you can recover some of the data. You can use a Knoppix Live CD or even better a UBCD for Windows CD from http://www.ubcd4win.com/. Of course you may have to burn these ISOs off another pc to be able to use them, and then see what is recoverable. If you can see the files, and cannot do a simple copy, then look for a data recovery software like GetDataBack from http://www.runtime.org/ or File Scavenger from http://www.quetek.com/prod02.htm. They are reasonably priced and offer a limited demo/trial version also. ERD Commander used to be a highly recommended product for data recovery - unfortunately it is no longer available as a standalone product at a reasonable price.

You could also get drive diagnostics tools from WD to test the drive and prepare for a rma if its still under warranty.