for the computer guys out there, HELP!

[tseldon]

anyone here know anything about hard drives? i have one that has pretty much fail on me and i need to get all my data off of it. i am computer savvy and have tried everything i can think of. its a 500gb western digital HD, was in an external case(put in by me) and then removed today to put inside my computer that i just built to back up and reformat. tried running check disk, HDD regenerator to no avail. it has a bunch of bad sectors that for some reason cant be fixed. i plugged it back inot the external case and tried plugging it into my macbook but it will not mount it(hehehehe....mount) nor will it repair it. it does spin like its supposed to, no clicking or grinding or scratching noises come from it. i cant lose all of my music or movies or i will be devastated. any help is much appreciated!

 

[Iamarchangel]

Right noises is good.

You're using disk utility, right?

Does the mac "see" it, does it show up on the desktop?

Do you usually run it on the laptop?

 

[wolfo68]

I have a few that have done that, generally they're screwed

 

[victormonopoly]

A partition "rescuer"?

 

[ducrider]

What operating system are you using on the new built computer?Hdd regenerater is a pretty good program but on a 500gig hard drive it will take a long time to regen the drive.It is prob one of the only programs that will work giving enough time.That does not mean if it repaired all the bad sectors it will save your drive.The drive might be having a board failure and not a mechanical failure.Try running it again and use the scan and repair option.Let it run.I have seen them take as long a 4 to 5 days to complete.

 

[d_adams]

http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page

Download the latest iso, burn it to cd or to a flash drive.
Use testdisk to repair it, mount the drive if needed and copy off all the data to another drive.

 

[neomac3444]

http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page

Download the latest iso, burn it to cd or to a flash drive.
Use testdisk to repair it, mount the drive if needed and copy off all the data to another drive.

[up]

Testdisk is by far one of the best. My 120 took 3.5 days to run through 8 times but I was at least able to get the data off and trash the drive.

I also found the best way to have the drive recognizable is to run it in Ubuntu. Either have a computer dual boot into Ubuntu or run a LiveCD out of your CD-rom drive. (after testdisk of course)

Now my server is running everything in RAID 5 for me. Keeps your data safe and backed up!!!!! Never trust just one drive again.[up]

 

[ct1200]

Hiren's BootCD has a ton of useful stuff.
Its the multi-tool of the PC world.

 

[Arkitek]

I have had great success with Active Boot data recovery utility. You boot to a linux shell and you have a GUI interface that lets you see the contents of the drive after it scans it. Very simple to find files you need and just pull them off.

 

[christianmb]

Did you load the WD tools that came with the HDD? I would say, check your connections, let the HDD cool, and see if it will work then. Don't push it too hard...it sounds like you are on borrowed time. I'm thinking it might be a virus too/instead. I've had a few start acting goofy when they got viruses. Have you done a scan lately?

 

[hdstn]

If the drive still spins up this may be the fastest and easiest. Used one of these many times to recover drives.
usb adapter

 

[CowboyKS]

USB adapter route is recommended, OR throw out the old one and reload you data from your backups

 

[tseldon]

sorry for no response here for a couple of days. i found a few programs to test/help me grab my info. so heres what i did. i got a copy of HDD regenerator, ran that a few times to fix a bunch of bad sectors at the begining of the drive(very frustrating to have it stop on you while you arent around to start it again). it got 1.79% done and found 167 bad sectors(FUCK) i knew it was only a matter of a day or so before i was going to cut my losses and smash the drive, i did a little bit more research and found this freeware program called HDD Raw Copy Tool(link), ran that a few time with no luck. ran the HDD regenerator a couple of more times to fix some more bad sectors. now its back to the raw copy tool, 2nd attempt 20% complete and HDD shuts down. try it one more time, 42% before it shit the bed. I let the HDD cool down for a while and started it up last night before i went to bed, thinking that its my last attempt. woke up this morning, task complete 100% NO FUCKING WAY!!!!! so here is where i am at right now. downloaded a copy of ISObuster to read the .img file, since the file is ~500GB its going to take a while before its read the whole file. i will keep you updated as to how much farther i get. thanks for all the responses! its always good to have more than one brain working on such a difficult task.

ps HDD Raw Copy Tool does a low level copy and trys to skip all bad sectors, hopefully its done the trick. check out all the free utilities that HDguru has on here link. seems like a lot of very useful things to have around. better yet, its all free!