Hard Drive Recovery

Can someone tell me what you feel is the best free hard drive recovery program on Majorgeeks.com is.
Can you tell me what the best shareware program is.
I had an Acer laptop and the hard drive crashed and I had it replaced. Now I need to get a few documents, photos and just my music list off the old hard drive. I have a Thermaltake Dual Hard Drive Docking Station to dock it on. I tried the free Recuva program, but I couldn't or it couldn't find the 3 folders I wanted or needed to find. Thank you. If you can just give your opinion of first the best free program and then paid program on Majorgeeks, thank you

 

Well, actually, I would have suggested Recuva. If that did not work, I would not hold out much hope for anything. You can try Hard Disk Data Recovery, but again, I would not hold your breath. Your only recourse may be a forensic data recovery service, but note that can be very expensive, costing $100s, if not $1000s. I am sure you don't want to hear this, but this is what backup programs are for.

 

Thanks as for Recuva I only used the free program for now. I am just trying to get a few .odt, .pdf, mp3, and .jpg files. didn't think it would be that hard. But thanks will give both a try.

 

Even the free Recuva is good. Make sure you didn't use the startup wizard. Advanced mode offers more chance to get files back. Make sure to select these options for best chance.

 

Yeah and I know about backup programs, I have a hard drive i bought never used, and this Thermaltake Dual Hard Drive Docking Station. And I do occasionally back things up except before things go terribly wrong. Can't get over how hard it is to to find simple files, on another but crashed hard drive.

 

thank you, should i uninstall the program and then reinstall it because i think i did use the wizard. your opinion

 

You don't need to uninstall. When it starts up there will be a check box at the bottom for "do not show this wizard at startup" . Check the box and it should go to the advanced mode where you can select "options" and "advanced" to see the screen I posted. Good luck!

 

well i did that, found out that the hard drive won't open as far as what Recuva says. thanks everyone. will have to do a little more investigating to find out how to open it,thanks everyone

 

Sorry to hear that. If you do find a way, free or paid, do let us know to help me or others later in the same boat.

 

Well, I was unable to get the files that I wanted. When it reads the hard drive, I get a message [\\. HarddiskVolume3] unable to determine system type. Well i will trying to look online for answers. And see what I can do. I don't or can't afford to pay 1,000 or more for things like music file, photos, and things like resumes and some other documents. Well thank you again for all that help at Majorgeeks.

 

I do have one more questions about this, if I repalced the hard drive. But the memory is inside the system, can't one find files within that. I know memory is more of a bridge for hardware, if i said that right even. but is it a possibility?

 

This really should not be a surprise. ALL drives WILL fail - eventually. And it is because recovery can be so difficult that forensic data recovery services are so expensive - and even then, not always possible. If the data is gone, it is gone. And remember too, there are programs to permanently destroy data. Recuva's sister program, CCleaner, has such a "wipe" feature, called "Drive Wiper" that ensures no one can recover data.

So whether by accident, drive failure, or intentional, it is actually very easy to permanently lose data stored on drives.

No. The memory inside the system is your RAM and that is called "volatile" memory. And as noted, volatile memory loses its data as soon as the power is removed - that is, when you shut down the computer, the data in RAM is gone. That's just the nature of RAM.