My hard disk crashed and I cannot recover data
My laptop hard disk crashed along with optical drive. I have got the new parts in place now. I am connecting my old hard disk in an USB enclosure to the laptop. I cannot see the drive in My computer though it shows up in disk management as healthy. It is FAT 32.
Please help me to recover the data. Do I need any recovery software?
If the old drive appears in the disk management but not in My Computer, apparently the file structure on the hard drive is corrupted. In this case you’ll have to use data recovery software. It’s still possible to get personal files with the data recovery software even though the hard drive will not appear in My Computer.
Also, you can try this method but it’ll take some time. It’s free. Download a copy of Knoppix – live Linux and burn it on a CD. Boot your desktop (with the laptop hard drive attached to it) from this CD. The desktop will boot to a Windows-like environment and you should see the laptop hard drive icon along with the desktop hard drive icon on the desktop. Click on the laptop hard drive and find if you can see any data this way. Sometimes Linux can see what Windows cannot see. You can burn it on a CD or DVD if your desktop has two optical drives. Knoppix comes with CD/DVD burning software. Alternatively, you can transfer data to an external flash drive/hard drive formatted with FAT or FAT32 (not NTFS). You’ll have to enable writing to the flash drive/hard drive through the drive property settings.
June 19th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
hi my laptop is a window xp COMPAQ presario2100 when i turn it on it says press (esc)to change boot order. press (f2) to enter system set up. and pres (f12) to enter boot lan. but if i just let it go and dont press anything it will say press (R) to repair ur pc because it is missing the file called \windows\system32\config\system. plaes respong back everything is really wierd if u dont know ll try to get mor info
June 20th, 2008 at 11:47 am
Sergio,
That could be hardware related problem, maybe the hard drive is bad or the memory module is bad. First, I would run diagnostics on both the hard drive and the memory module. For testing the hard drive you can use Hitachi’s drive fitness utility. For testing the memory module – Memtest86+. I linked to both utilities in Useful Links.
If one of the components fails, you’ll have to replace it.
If both components pass, it’s possible that you have software related problem. In this case try reinstalling Windows.
July 11th, 2008 at 7:52 am
how do i install windows
August 10th, 2008 at 12:58 am
thanks for the suggestion, let’s see if it works.
August 14th, 2008 at 11:46 pm
I have an older (`02) Dell Inspiron laptop that came with an OEM Toshiba 30GB hard drive (HDD) that failed. It produced a Blue Screen/dumped memory (to HDD?) w/ HDD light on. After that it would not access HDD – boot went to “read error” with no HDD light action. I bought a new HDD, working OK now.
Previously, I backed up most of the important data. However, I would like to recover other data if possible. How can I try to make the HDD readable? (What hardware/cable/connecter to USB, serial, parallel, SCSI (?) or PS/2 port? What software?) Or should I try to find a service shop that can do this?
Thanks. & thank you for this site!
Phil
August 14th, 2008 at 11:48 pm
PS – Sorry, I have no Desktop – only laptops to work with.
Phil
September 10th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
Dear Freak,
I have a HP Pavilion Altec Lansing. At about 13 months, one month after Warranty is out the hard drive filled to capacity and would only sometimes boot up. But the 105 G hard drive was full. I compressed the files that gave me 30 g but it was quite funny that I wrote one line on Microsoft Word and saved it and it took up a half gig of space. It’s like it’s not compressing the files when it saves them but I’m a novice and don’t know what I’m doing.
I see on the internet that I’m not the only one with this problem. This has Vista if that makes any difference.
And thank you much for your website. I took my toshiba apart and fixed the DC jack just like you said.
I made the mistake of taking the mother board to someone that said he knew what to do but I had to open it up again and do it myself to make it work.
Bob
November 9th, 2008 at 9:32 pm
I have a HP Pavillion ze4910 that has crashed and when I run the diagnostics from BIOs it says ‘No IDE’ I took out the hard drive and cannot see it in My Computer or Disk Management when I connect it to an IDE to USB cable. I can hear the connection when I attach the USB card. Is it necessary to use a jumper on the drive when using the cable? Also, I was told that although I cannot see the drive in My Computer or Disk Management, i may be able to still use a recovery software? I am a novice in this matter and I have even heard you can freeze your hard drive and it can fix the issue? Help!
January 17th, 2009 at 9:56 am
I have a Toshiba Satellite A105. After the screen that says Toshiba, In touch With Tomorrow, A black screen appears and reads ‘warning: immediately back-up your data and replace your hard disk drive. a failure may be imminent press f1 to continue’. I press F1 and nothing. I have tried using the recovery disk, and nothing. Is there anything I can do to fix my notebook computer.
February 6th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
I recently got a virus that i couldn’t heal with AVG 8.0 free edition. After hours of tring to clean the virus i made a mistake of tring to re-run XP. I little of the process the software prompted to enter a key numer to activate software. It was there that i ran into a problem, A while back i had spilled a drink on my laptop keyboard and ruined the original keyboard. I have been using a usb keyboard ever since. I found out that i could not key the key into the software for that reason. I have two questions: one is there a way to retrieve my original data because the OS hadn’t fully been ran? and is there a way to use a usb keyboard to enter the numerical dta into the software. thanks
February 9th, 2009 at 12:10 am
Chris,
The best way to reinstall the operating system would be using the recovery disc.
I don’t think so. The hard drive has been reformatted already.
Not sure why you cannot enter numbers. Maybe numbers are not locked on the external USB keyboard? Press on the NumLock key.
February 12th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
Hi,
My laptop’s harddrive was also crushed after I see blue screen. It is Dell Inspiron 6000 and about 4 years old. I used XP before it was crushed. I tried to use the way you explained. When I tried to boot from Knoppix CD, it was stopped in the middle and didn’t see Windows like environment. I was using my crushed HD as the first boot. When I tried to read the HD with external enclosure, the busy light was on and only one of two drives on HD can see on windows explorer. But, no data in it.
Is there any other solution for me? The data in that HD is critical for me. My friends suggested me to go and see a repair guy who can recover data from dead HD. But, I’m afraid that could damage my data inside.
Please suggest me.
Thanks in advance.
February 21st, 2009 at 6:54 am
Hi,
I have a external hard drive (Hitachi 80 GB) and i can’t see it in My Computer…I tried restarts, I changed the cable, I tried it on other computer..still the same.If it’s crashed…how can i recover my data?
July 26th, 2010 at 9:07 pm
i will be glade to have this software to help me recover my loss data on acrush hard disk