Member Avatar for mcfarden

hi my hard drive has stopped working! i think there was a powersurge and
ther is serious data corruption. what can i do to get my work off my hard drive.

Please reply

Andy

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by Thong_Ispector

Dani AI

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For : quick, practical triage and a safe recovery workflow that builds on the replies from and without repeating specifics already posted.

Stop further risky activity and document what the drive is doing (no spin, repeated clicks, intermittent detection). Photograph the drive label and note model/serial before disconnecting anything. Try simple hardware checks first: swap the data and power cables, try a different port or a different PC/USB adapter — this can rule out a cabling or PSU problem without touching the platters. Do not open the drive or try ad-hoc fixes like freezing unless you understand the risks.

If the disk is at least detected by another system, make a sector-level image immediately and work from that image. The standard tool for this is GNU ddrescue; perform a quick first pass that copies good sectors, then run retry passes for bad sectors. Example workflow:

ddrescue -f -n /dev/sdb /mnt/recovery/disk-image.img /mnt/recovery/ddrescue.log
ddrescue -d -r3 /dev/sdb /mnt/recovery/disk-image.img /mnt/recovery/ddrescue.log

Use an external drive with free space larger than the failed drive for the image. After you have an image, run recovery tools against the image — not the original device.

To analyze health and run non-destructive tests, check SMART with smartctl:

smartctl -a /dev/sdb

For partition and file recovery on an image consider TestDisk, and for file carving try PhotoRec. Links: GNU ddrescue, TestDisk/PhotoRec, smartmontools.

If the drive makes mechanical noises or is not detected at all, that points to hardware failure and may require a clean-room lab. As indicated, professional recovery can be costly — check your warranty and weigh the data value before shipping the drive.

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Member Avatar for jwenting

Little if it's really dead.
There are companies that can retrieve (or try to) the data for you but those services cost thousands of dollars/Euros at least.

If the drive is still under warranty the best you can do is try to get a warranty replacement for it. Contact your drive manufacturer.
They might even be able to repair it if the damage is minor but often that's not feasible.

Member Avatar for Thong_Ispector

Since you have internet access I would suggest you get a copy of Knoppix LiveCD.

It is a free download. It will boot from the CD and run entirely in RAM and never touch your hard drive. (Very important that you do not install or write to this disk)

With Knoppix you can boot up, and selectively try to recover your programs. Often just the OS is corrupt, or the program you were running or accessing when the problem occurred are corrupt.

You can save your work to floppy, or burn it to a CD with the included software. It helps if you have an old CD Drive to boot knoppix if you intend to burn things to CD.

If you do not have broadband for the 650 meg download you can spend 20 on the book Knoppix Hacks and the CD is included. Not the very latest version but close enough to save your info.

Good luck,
Come back after you try this and we can go from there.

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