hard drive data recovery

[haumana 1,220]

Any chance any of you out there are hobby nerds?

I have a hard drive that doesn't quite work the ways it's supposed to. My computer can detect it, but it doesn't appear on the disk management utility

I've got data that I really want to be able to recover. I suspect it's a mechanical issue rather than a software/file issue. I ran diagnostics, however I keep on getting a 'cable failed error'. I've tried several different cables, and on several different machines. (sigh).

Some times, technology sucks.  :-

:help:

[dgreenh 9]

Was this a bootable drive at one time? 

If you have it installed as the second drive on the cable, do you have the jumpers on it set to Slave. 

If it is the only drive on the cable it should be set to Master.

Look at the connector on the drive and make sure there are not any pins bent over.  You might also look at the pins on the motherboard where the other end of the cable plugs in.

You might give these guys a call http://www.dtidata.com/hard_drive_recovery.htm  They are in Honolulu.  The web site doesn't say what they charge but it is free if they don't recover your data.  They have lots of free software tools on their web site.

[Beardown 0]

http://www.recuva.com/

Recuva (pronounced "recover") is a freeware Windows utility to restore files that have been accidentally deleted from your computer. This includes files emptied from the Recycle bin as well as images and other files that have been deleted by user error from digital camera memory cards or MP3 players. It will even bring back files that have been deleted by bugs, crashes and viruses!

I have used thius and it will amaze you what it will bring back ........try it it may work ..... :you rock: :yes: :woohoo: :why: :well done: :thanks: :snow: :jumping:

[haumana 1,220]

Thanks for the input.

Fortunately or unfortunately the hard drive is a SATA. No jumpers, no pins.

It was the one and only bootable drive. Working one day, not working the next. When I pulled it out and put in another working machine, I could get the drive to post, and it was visible in the device manager, however, when I went to disk management the drive was nowhere to be found.

I tried using Nucleus Kernel NTFS (http://www.nucleustechnologies.com/NTFS-Data-Recovery.html). It detected the drive, but didn't show any partitions so I couldn't use the software to scan the drive to attempt to recover data.

One thing I did notice was that although it sounds and feels like the drive is spinning (no clicking, scratching, or snoring sounds), that it didn't get as hot as other drives do under normal use.

Hopefully I can find a way to recover the data and not break the bank doing it.

Thanks again!