[CJ1985]

I was curious if anyone knows how to go about extracting all the files off of a fried harddrive? My friends computer will not boot up or anything, and was hoping to possibly be able to get the files off of the hard drive so that he doesn't completely lose everything. She ended up not backuping up her files or anything, but was hoping she could work around this by possibly being able to get to the files still?

Any suggestions as to what she could do to try and get the files off of the hard drive?

Would appreciate any response. Thanks!

[Albert Lionheart]

First thing - if the drive is dying you may only have a few chances of getting at the contents.
Your best bet to remove the drive (being very careful not to jar the drive) from the machine and connect it up to another system, using the power and signal leads for the CD/DVD drive - this will mean it is installed as a secondary drive and the machine will not try and boot from it. There is no need to fix the drive to the machine but support it securely if necessary (they move about due to the gyroscopic effect of the spinning disks inside).
Boot the machine from the usual primary drive. Stop any drive checking activity at this stage if it starts.
Wait for the boot to stop and then open explorer - if you are lucky you will be able to copy the files you need onto the hard drive.
If not, you can try a reboot and let the drive checking routines run and then try again to pull of the data.
If that does not work or the drive is not seen by the system, get back to us.

[CJ1985]

I will let her know of this, and get back with you and see if it works or not. If it doesn't work for the above you have suggested, what would you suggest then? Just curious.

[Albert Lionheart]

Depends on what the problem is. Sometimes the media is perfectly OK and it is the controller card that has failed - have a look at it and in particular at the power transistors (little black square things) for any pits or misshapen elements. You can usually smell them if they have failed. If the card is dead it might be possible to find another one - but it has to be the same make, model and version. I have done this several times but sometimes it can take an age to find another matching drive.
If is the media, the next step would be to try a data recover program - I use the same one as the UK police force and this works sometimes. Otherwise and depending on how important the files are you can send the drive to a specialist agency who will charge you loads of money!

[CJ1985]

Thanks, I'll see if the first steps you given will work or not. Thanks again!

[Albert Lionheart]

No problem - hope it works! Just remember not to subject the drive to any physical shocks as this will not help if the drive media is damaged!

[Hope Cassidy]

There is one more little thing you can try if it does not work. If you put the drive in a zip-lok freezer bag for about 4 hours and then try to read it as a slave drive again, that works in about 50% of the time.

[Albert Lionheart]

Thanks Hope - I have got this to work sometimes too and had clean forgotten about it. I usually leave it in the freezer overnight - but this has to be the last last resort!

[CJ1985]

Originally Posted by Hope Cassidy

There is one more little thing you can try if it does not work. If you put the drive in a zip-lok freezer bag for about 4 hours and then try to read it as a slave drive again, that works in about 50% of the time.

Thanks Cassidy! It's interesting how you can do that and it doesn't damage the drive even more. Ha! Some times doing weird things can resolve problems for a short period of time. lol

Haven't heard back from the friend yet, so haven't got a clue if what was suggested the first time worked or not. I'm sure we'll figure out if it does or not sooner or later. Thanks again to both of you!

[Albert Lionheart]

It can damage them - but then those that I have tried were probably beyond redemption anyway. That is why I really really only use the freezer trick as a last resort.

[Blackmirror]

If it wont boot up there are a couple things to try
I know this from experience when mine just wouldnt spring to life

When my graphics card died the pc wouldnt not boot until i removed it
Check all the cables as well

[Hope Cassidy]

Originally Posted by Albert Lionheart

It can damage them - but then those that I have tried were probably beyond redemption anyway. That is why I really really only use the freezer trick as a last resort.

Yes and we are at that point now!

[Rik]

The thing is, no one has determined if the hard drive is indeed faulty! It could just be a corrupted boot sector from a power fluctuation or malware.

The first thing to do is to put the windows cd in the drive and see if it will repair.

[Albert Lionheart]

Good point, Rik - although "fried" usually means beyond anything useful!

[Rik]

What we need is for CJ1985 to clarify the term "fried".

Is the term meant to infer that the hard drive gets hot?
Or is it meant to mean that it just wont boot?

We do not know CJ's level of expertise when it comes to diagnosing a hard drive failure so we really really need the situation to be clarified.

You have to remember, we can only work with the information you give us CJ.

[Blackmirror]

My friends computer will not boot up or anything,

It could be anything

[Rik]

Exactly BM, we now need to wait for CJ to post some more information here.

Page after page of assumption and speculation are not of any real use at all.

I'm sorry if it sounds like I'm having a go, I'm not. We just need more information.

[Albert Lionheart]

If you look at the thread, in the first reply I suggested connecting the fried drive up to another PC.
The rest of the thread is all because the next question asked a "what if??"

[Rik]

I am not complaining Albert, after all, if no one offered advice then the forum would be pointless.

I just think we should all wait to see what CJ has to say and to not speculate and muddy the waters anymore.

[Klunk]

My first thought would be to run the hard drive manufacturer's diagnostic utility on the drive and run the full tests.