Harddrive No Longer Functional

[akasixcon]

"E:\ Is not accessible

The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable."

It seems as if my 750 GB Western Digital Drive has failed miserably! I've had it for about 3 years now negating any attribution to the "hard drive being old" failing. My question is, is it still recoverable?

I am a professional photographer and the photographs on that drive is irreplaceable. What are some signs that I could use? I could possibly just leave that harddrive and then purchase a new one.

 

[iFargle]

Recuva - Undelete, Unerase, File and Disk Recovery - Free Download does pretty well for me. If I were you I'd buy another hard drive and try to copy the contents of that one over to the new one, if recoverable at all.

 

[Joe C]

Here's some info for your reading pleasure
HowStuffWorks "How To Recover Lost Data from Your Hard Drive"

In some instances the freezer trick does work, especially on drives that get very hot and quit, giving a hard rap on the side of the drive might break something that's jammed up but do not plan on ever using the drive again if that even works, if it does get your data asap and be thankful.
Seriously consider getting a back up drive for future storage options

 

[Celery]

So your drive is partitioned? If it still boots to Windows go to Disk Management and check if E: is online.

 

[Murphyslaw]

Recuva - Undelete, Unerase, File and Disk Recovery - Free Download does pretty well for me. If I were you I'd buy another hard drive and try to copy the contents of that one over to the new one, if recoverable at all.

I love recuva, works so well! Though on a 750gb, it will take forever to scan!

Sidenote, if you're a professional photographer, then why dont you have an External hard drive to Back up your files?!

 

[akasixcon]

Recuva - Undelete, Unerase, File and Disk Recovery - Free Download does pretty well for me. If I were you I'd buy another hard drive and try to copy the contents of that one over to the new one, if recoverable at all.

Hey iFargle,
I'm aware of that software! I can't believe I didn't even think of it.

Just to clarify, the harddrive itself is viewable / recognized by Windows. When you go to disk management it shows it's capacity. The problem is that the harddrive seems to be unallocated, like it gives you an option to "Format" it.

Here's some info for your reading pleasure
HowStuffWorks "How To Recover Lost Data from Your Hard Drive"

In some instances the freezer trick does work, especially on drives that get very hot and quit, giving a hard rap on the side of the drive might break something that's jammed up but do not plan on ever using the drive again if that even works, if it does get your data asap and be thankful.
Seriously consider getting a back up drive for future storage options

I've tried this before and with no success!

So your drive is partitioned? If it still boots to Windows go to Disk Management and check if E: is online.

Yup! It's online. Just needs to be formatted. Increased chance of recover-ability?

I love recuva, works so well! Though on a 750gb, it will take forever to scan!

Sidenote, if you're a professional photographer, then why dont you have an External hard drive to Back up your files?!

I also had a mixup between my Western Digital 750 gb and 2 tb Black Cavier. It's the 2TB that's in trouble! Yikes.

I use internal drives so it's faster! Is there a better solution for external harddrives? Like a drobo?