Can anybody recommend any good data recovery software>

When pulling the portable drive out of my backpack I dropped it and it fell like not even 2 feet. There's so much work on it.. stuff dating back years..

 

So windows can read the drive now but claims it is unformatted. Anyone recommend any good data recovery software? I've had mixed luck with such stuff in the past

No idea, but I've had hard drives break before and it sucks. Good luck man

never had my portable disk damaged or even drop to the floor, but think you should find a company of even a computer shop where someone can make that recovery. some companies specialize on doing that and it's far more secure that using a software on your own.

for sure, but it's more a question of budget. data recovery starts at around $400 and can run over a grand.

 

if i had that kind of money, I'd buy a new mixer, a new computer.. a lot of things.. actually I'd probably put it on my student loans

  On 7/3/2010 at 1:47 AM, TwiddleBot said:

for sure, but it's more a question of budget. data recovery starts at around $400 and can run over a grand.

 

if i had that kind of money, I'd buy a new mixer, a new computer.. a lot of things.. actually I'd probably put it on my student loans

 

i wasn't aware of such high budget required for data recovery. it's a shame its so expensive, because it would be safer.

 

maybe you should start exploring softwares then. but be very careful and get all the info about the software you might use. i know how hard is to see years of data being lost in a matter of seconds.

 

Take a look at this article, for a start:

 

http://data-recovery-software-review.toptenreviews.com/

argh that sucks. my dad ended up forking out for a data recovery company to sort out a busted HD. He looked into the DIY option but didn't have much joy.

thanks.. will check that out. yeah i had no idea it was that expensive either, but a while back my gf while finishing her master's thesis (audiovisual work) lost a hard drive and ended up shelling out in the order of six hundred and she got a deal.

I just dropped off an old laptop hard-drive at a friends house. He's got the wires and whatnot to hook it up and retrieve a file for me.

 

See there's one particular picture on there that I want to have blown up and framed.

I'd look into local non-corporate computer places if you have any nearby. A local place here did a diagnostic on my whole machine when I had a drive failure in May for free, and when I decided to just buy a new machine altogether and attempt to retrieve what was lost, they were cool with me bringing in my external drive to bounce everything to. Their rates for retrieval were $75 for anything up to 50GB, $150 for everything above that. Pretty reasonable!

Recuva is great for Flash drives and SD cards, may be worth a try but it seems that your drive has suffered physical damage so it may be quite hard to recover on your own.

Question - does it make unusual noise when powered? Clicking or loud repetitive noises? If so, leave it off - having power to it could damage it further.

 

As a simple first step, try to mount and read it in a linux OS (i.e. use an ubuntu liveCD)

 

If that fails, there is a tool called photorec (designed for photo recovery from flash memory devices but suitable for metal and all filetypes also). There is a linux and windows version.

 

Failing that, if it is really critical to recover the data, get professional services. I've used diskdoctors.com many times and they have a good success ratio. They will also do a free examination of the drive and inform you if and what can be recovered. Downside to these services is cost - can range from $1k-2k and upwards. Depends on what the data is worth to you really.

 

There are tons of software recovery tools out there but i'm not familiar with many of them. You can do some trial and error but I'd be very careful and certainly not try if the drive is behaving oddly in a physical sense. Even if physical damage isn't evident I'd minimize all access to the drive.

nothing is forever. change is the only constant. go with the flow of information.

Spinrite has done me some favours in the past.

You could give TestDisk and PhotoRec a go (both from here http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/ ). Given that they're free hell at least you've got nothing to lose ...

 

EDIT: OK pulsewarrior got there first. Well a seconded recommendation from me then !

i had some luck a few years back with spinrite. also there's a trick with putting it in a freezer inside of a plastic bag but i don't know how that goes, i just know a friend who had luck with it. try googling for that.

Norton Ghost I think it's called. It's the one we use. One of our HD died and Norton Ghost was able to recover most of the work without having to re-install windows.

 

I've heard of people physically removing the platter and replacing it in a new box but it's rather technical.

 

If it's an IDE drive, there's a device called Easy IDE that could help. I think there's a SATA version of it too.

Tick of death. Sayonara. I think I'll go with ms-dos' whimsical quote at this point.

 

But thanks for the suggestions!

Edited July 3, 2010 by TwiddleBot

  On 7/3/2010 at 4:36 PM, hydrozone said:

Norton Ghost I think it's called. It's the one we use. One of our HD died and Norton Ghost was able to recover most of the work without having to re-install windows.

 

I've heard of people physically removing the platter and replacing it in a new box but it's rather technical.

 

If it's an IDE drive, there's a device called Easy IDE that could help. I think there's a SATA version of it too.

 

there are many stupid things ive read on this forum but this almost takes it

I've had good success with the programs GetDataBackForNTFS and GetDataBackForFAT32

 

Their home page

 

They offer a free trial but I would recommend getting a full version from somewhere where you can get software like that and if it works for you then buy a copy.

think i used perhaps the same program as you once and ended up with a shittonne of generic-named files so i had to go through each one manually and find out what it was. took a long time.

 

not exactly my idea of fun. also now that i do technical support for a living, when i get home, fixing my computer is about the last thing i want to do.