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Recovering IDE HDD
 

One of my PCs got a virus and wiped out 4 HDDs and caused a lot of problems.

my 4th HDD is an old IDE and I used a SATA converter.
So when I try to boot my PC the PC hangs during Bios, then windows boot up screen, then desktop in which all 3 takes a very long time to boot up and just stays there.

When they do boot, the HDD is nowhere to be found.
Not in My computer , nor Disk Management, nor Bios setup.

Anyone has any ideas how to make this HDD appear so that I can Format it and recover my files?

Thanks in advance.

try connect externally and use esues to see if its there and format it.

Free Download Magic Partition Manager freeware: EASEUS Partition Manager, Disk & Partition Copy and Partition Recovery Software.

1.) Is the hard drive actually dead? If so, did you try the freezer trick?

2.) Do you have or do you have a friend who has VMware? Try connecting the drive to a virtual machine as to avoid putting viruses on your main system and see if you can see it on your virtual machine.

3.) If the hard drive ISNT dead, what about a third party file transfer HD? I think they have them at electronic stores. Basically you hook up your HD to the new HD and hit a couple of buttons and it transfers all the data to the second HD. Afterwards, you should be able to use the NEW HD to see what files were on the old one.

I have been looking for an IDE enclosure and noone has it here.
I'll read both your posts when I come back and try them out later.
Thanks

Giordino, Oh, there's a HDD to HDD transfer system?
Do you know what it's called? It's not dead for sure... just corrupted real bad.

Get a tool called WinHex, it's more than just your average hex editor, but also a very useful file disk content manipulation tool. To use it, you must be able to boot into a working Windows environment. Go ahead and reinstall your OS, and do NOT touch the partitions/drives which you want to recover during this process.

Once reinstalled, open up Winhex, go to Tool > Open disk and select your partition/disk that you wish to recover. If the filesystem on the volume is still in good condition, you should be able to browse it using the build in explorer and copy out your files. Repeat the last step for all of your partitions until all of the files are recovered, then you can proceed to reformat the drives.

Unfortunately, the tool is not free and requires a license to use its specialists features. Nevertheless, these registration checks can be easily bypassed, if you know what i meant :amen:

I have used this in the past and it tends to work much better then windows,

you burn this to a CD and boot off it, the software is specially configured to handle "at risk" drives.

Geek to Live: Rescue files with a boot CD

Edit: I should mention that this software is both free and legal

Try koharski's method first, and if it doesnt work try it again, but only after you have your HDD in the freezer for a good 2 hours or so. Cooling down the HD to freezing temps shrinks the gap between the data on the disk, meaning its possible that whatever hole in the data thats preventing you from accessing it could be managed only if it was smaller.

I can't even view the drive. It won't show up in neither bios, my computer nor disk management

did you try either of our methods?

Windows is designed to expect a certain response from the drive. With the live CD I sent you the software is designed to boot the drive with minimal information.

Using Giardinos method you may be able to fix a drive even if it is physically damaged.

If your drive does not show up in the BIOS, then it's a hardware failure. Try using the drive with another motherboard, and if nothing shows up, then you are out of luck sorry.

If all else fails the try the freezer trick as stated above, it really does work, i have recoved hdd's like this and car radio's lol

Happened to me 2 times Saijin with 2 HDDs - absolutely corrupted so - while this is not advice - I took the 2 drives to a physical extraction company. Cost me about $150 - they extracted my data for me.

You're also risking permanently destroying the data that's on the platter by doing it that way.

Wow, only $150? Where is this place?

$150 per drive - out in West part of Montreal

yes but if you can't retrieve it anyway unless you pay and round here it would cost a packet so unless there is valuable information on there your not really losing anything and it was the last resort, if its got valuable information on it then i would pay for it doing and that would be my first option.