Maxtor HDD data recovery

[MonkeyBusiness]

Hi. So my sister's computer has crashed and was sent to a local computer shop for the repair. The shopkeeper simply replaces a new HDD and removes the originally Maxtor in it saying that the HDD is faulty and has tried every possible means to access the Maxtor drive and backup into the new HDD. But what he has done is not enough.
I brought the repaired computer back to my sister and she yelled saying that that is not just all of her data, although the computer has a new HDD and OS fully operational. To her, data is more critical.

I have tried asking the shopkeeper to recover the files but he said thats all he could do. Just a reference to the web, I have noticed a number of professional data recovery advertisements and I wonder if the state of my sister's Maxtor HDD can be salvaged.

The Maxtor HDD, to what I guess, has bad sectors so only certain parts can be accessed or retrived.

Would you suggest me to, bring it to Maxtor service center or just anyone out there who cliams knowing how to fix to do the job?

 

[Alvin.C]

Hello,

Did the shopkeeper tell you what steps he took in trying to recover the data?

If not already attempted, the first step would be to check and fix errors on the disk using the chkdsk command in command prompt. The following article explains how to do this: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315265 . You'll need to connect the maxtor hard drive to the computer either by slaving it alongside the new hard drive, or by using an external hard drive enclosure.

If that fails, there are numerous data recovery software available. Probably the best out there is SpinRite. It's not free, but it is wideley renowned for recovering data from seemingly dead hard drives. What's more, it has a 30 day guarantee.[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif,MS Sans Serif][/FONT]