Hard disk recovery

[Questionbob]

Really need some help here. I have a laptop and the hard disk has got messed up. It started giving some noise and right now I get a message asking me to insert a system disk. Looks like my hard drive has lost its Master boot record.
I have ERD commander software. So I thought that I can use this to boot my system and then transfer data from my hard drive to a network location. But my ERD commander doesnt even recognize the hard drive. It took a lot of time for the software to acess the hard drive. I hope it doesnt take days to get the data out of the hard drive.
Can someone give an expert suggestion what should be done here.
Also I have a hidden folder using encrypted magic folders in there. Will it be possible to recover it too?

 

[Ste]

Your HD is most likly dieing and should not be used any k\lob\ner, you could buy a USB harddrive, and copy information to it if you ever get it booted but, its probably to late, some programs maybe able to get the data off and i they can't there some expensive ways to do it also. if you have an xp disc you could try doing a repair and seeing if that allows you the time to back it up.

 

[Inaris]

Your best bet if you need it is to contact a company like Ontrack. They do data recovery from dying/dead drives. Almost 100% recoverery. they cost 100 to do the analysis, and then it around 1500 give or take for the recovery. all based on amount of work needed to get it back.

Good luck and best wishes...

 

[Ste]

ya like i said expensive, i doubt your data is worth that to you.

 

[microsoftne]

or just pick up an external 2.5 HD case and hook it up to another pc... 99% of the time you can recover the data from it.

 

[Inaris]

the noise part is what makes me suspect a real failure...
and 99% is a little over stating it. Hard disk will ussually either go or have a software problem. Software problems, are repairable, but when it's hardware, it's done. Even the external aproach won't help. if working on the drive from recovery console doesn't show anything good, then it's more likley a hardwre issue. If you can get it up, then you have a small chance, but you also risk making it worse by expanding the damage, when It's hardware. When your disk is making a repeating sound in groups of 3 or 4, it's got a serious issue.
There is actually a page with sounds on it for what a drive sounds like when it's going bad. I'll try to find it for you to reference.
hope you get your data off.

 

[Questionbob]

Thanks for your suggestions. I have kept my hard drive in a freezer now and will be trying to recover data from it tomorrow.
Inaris. If you can find that page I would like to know about it.

 

[Inaris]

Don't let it Freeze. Doing so will cause it to condense when heated, adn that will make water... Bad things... only keep it in there for a little while. 20 minutes is ussually the longest I would recommend, 15 is ussualy enough.

 

[Ste]

if its clicking sounds then the HD is gone.

 

[Inaris]

here are some links to this kind of stuff... I'm still looking...

http://www.engadget.com/entry/5607251058325684/
http://www.via.com.tw/en/downloads/whitepapers/initiatives/quietcomputing/noise_matters.pdf

edit:
well sadly, I can't find the link... If I do, I'll post it here...