Can files be recovered on a bad Hard drive?

I am working on a Dell 8250. The HD appears to be bad and I am wondering if there is anyway to get any of the files off of it? When i plug the HD into my computer as a SLAVE, when the boot devices pop up lke this.

(My HD)Primary master- Maxtor ......
(HD from Dell)Primary Slave- Seagate .......
and soforth

I have seen many bad HD's before, but it is just funny because, it actually sees the HD there. When I go into the BIOS. It sees the boot sectors of the HD, and the size of the HD, but as the computer is booting is wil say something like .

Primary slave failed or something.

And So i choose to press F1 to continue. My computer will boot with the "BAD" drive as Slave, and once I go to "My Computer". It does not see the Bad HD. So if this is in fact a bad HD, is there anyway I can get info off of it? I already know the answer but i promised I would ask he experts.
Thanks for any help

 

Can you use an Ultimate Boot CD to test the drive?

If you are on a Windows OS, then you can right-click on "My Computer", choose "Manage" and go to the "Disk Management" area on the left. This should list the drive and you may be able to assign a drive letter.

 

Thsnks for the reply. I will try this as soon as I get home later. When I go into the Bios with the Bad Hd plugged into slave, It recognizes the HD as slave, but while it is booting it says something like failed to boot or something. I will try the manage after while.

 

Ok, well the manage didn't work. Anyone ever heard about the "freezer" method? Or has anyone ever tested it? I googled, "hard drive in freezer" and on most of the occasions that people said that it worked, 9 out of 10 people said the HD was making the all to framiliar "clicking" noise. But in my case, the HD is making no noises, and it is funny cause the computer and HD in one of the post is the EXACT same computer, and same HD, as the one I am playing with. I am just wanting to know if anyone has ever tested the theory. Hey this would be a good episode for "Mythbuster"!! Take a look at the site...
http://geeksaresexy.blogspot.com/2006/01/freeze-your-hard-drive-to-recover-data.html
Now the first image seen after scrolling down, is what is happening to the computer
press F1 to boot F2 to enter setup

 

thanks for the help guys. I will give the USB a try before freezing it.