hard drive recovery

[manhattanprjkt83]

Ok this is a total geek request for help...

I know there is a bunch of pretty tech savvy guys on here so i have a question about hard drive recovery. About 5 years ago i had a Maxtor external crash on me and i lost a ton of pictures and crap that i would love to have back. I learned my lesson way back and set up redundant Lacie drives that back each other up.

I am about to transfer my empire from PC to Mac and before doing so i want to ask the question if anyone knows any recovery programs/tactics that i can use to grab the data. No idea if i did a format on this drive, but i have heard stories that data is still around regardless of format.

What is the story with that? Is there anything out there that can help me restore? Thanks in advance.

_Bill

[jonKranked]

depends on how it crashed. there are companies that will do last resort data recovery, in which they open the hard drive casing in the proper environment and attempt to recover whatever data they can from the platters. this costs a couple grand though...

[narlus]

wrong forum...the right geeks hang out there.

[manhattanprjkt83]

ergh, it is worth about 3 hours of my time...

any other geeks?

[eaterofdog]

If the drive is still working, you could download one of the photo recovery programs intended for memory cards. Most will work on a hard drive. Look for "photo recovery memory card" or similar in thegoogle and you will find lots of free and pay options.

I think the important thing to check is that the utility does not write to the drive. So if it does not work, you can try another.

Whether this will work depends if you just had directory corruption (should work) or a physical hard drive problem (buh bye.)

[binary visions]

You can try File Scavenger:

http://www.quetek.com/prod02.htm

GetDataBack is another option (I think narlus has used this):

http://www.runtime.org/

Frankly, I'd just try several demos of file recovery programs. Most of the demos won't fully recover your data, but they'll let you see if it's recoverable. If it is, you can decide if paying for the program is worth it.

[strangeland2]

Not to high jack but its sort of along the same lines.

I pulled my old hard drive out of an old comp and was trying to transfer everything to the new comp. Apparently I had my profile password protected but when I hook up the old hard drive there is no option to enter a password. It just keeps telling me im not authorized or some mess.

Will those file scavanger programs work or is there a way to over ride my passwords? I do know the passwords I just dont know how to enter them.

[viper2pt0]

Not to high jack but its sort of along the same lines.

I pulled my old hard drive out of an old comp and was trying to transfer everything to the new comp. Apparently I had my profile password protected but when I hook up the old hard drive there is no option to enter a password. It just keeps telling me im not authorized or some mess.

Will those file scavanger programs work or is there a way to over ride my passwords? I do know the passwords I just dont know how to enter them.

You just need to take ownership of the drive in your new computer.
To Do This (assuming your on windows xp):
1) Control panel, Folder Options
2) View Tab, Scroll all the way to the bottom, uncheck "Simple File Sharing". This will give you advanced security settings.
3) Right click the drive in My computer, go to properties, security
4) Click on the advanced button down at the bottom, then the ownership tab
5) Make yourself the owner. This will give you access to all the files. (Will take a while to change the ownership on everything)

[SK6]

You can try File Scavenger:

http://www.quetek.com/prod02.htm

GetDataBack is another option (I think narlus has used this):

http://www.runtime.org/

Frankly, I'd just try several demos of file recovery programs. Most of the demos won't fully recover your data, but they'll let you see if it's recoverable. If it is, you can decide if paying for the program is worth it.

File Scavenger has been highly successful for this type of recovery. I accidentally formated an external drive, and had NO problems recovering the data I was after.

Luckily now, I have access to eNcase, and that gets EVERYTHING back.....and I do mean everything....

[binary visions]

I'm guessing that three months later he either got it back or doesn't care anymore :clue:

:D

[SK6]

But the information listed in the thread is still current and useful. Just sayin is all. ;)