HDD or OS failed, need to recover data

Hi,

I'm not sure what has failed, HDD or OS, but we really need to recover important data, and I'd be grateful if you could help. I'm writing on behalf of my brother, it's his laptop/HDD that needs to be restored/recovered.

It's a Sony Vaio VGN-AW110J laptop running Windows Vista Home Premium.

The system used to get stuck when moving a picture from desktop into a folder, and a Restart would get the computer working again. The problem with moving pictures into a folder persisted for some time, maybe a couple of months. Kaspersky and IObit Malware Fighter were run several times, no threats were found.

So once, when the system got "frozen" again, my brother was in a hurry and put the computer to Sleep instead of Restarting it, hoping it would be back to normal upon "waking up."

When he tried to turn it on again, it just wouldn't start. Nothing he tried has worked so far. The OS seems to be missing, it's not listed anywhere in any options when booted with F8.

He has put the HDD into an enclosure and connected it to an HP computer running Win 8. As soon as the USB is connected, the HDD starts working/spinning, a progress bar is displayed on the screen, it seems as if the Win 8 were trying to find data on it. This progress bar gets to about 96-97% and then stops forever.

At this point, all we can do is to Safely Remove the drive. First time, the Safely Remove worked. The second time, it would say the Program was being used so it wouldn't allow to remove the disc safely. So he waited to catch a moment when the disc stopped spinning, and removed the USB cable.

For info, the HDD is listed in the BIOS as Disc 2, and it's showing 320GB of space.

He has run the Kaspersky Rescue Disc, no viruses were found, but neither the C drive was listed. There was an "sda2" in the list, instead.

We are considering two things now.

1. Run the MiniTool Partition Wizard I found mentioned in another thread here (where the OP had a very similar problem, but it remained unsolved, it seems).
2. Run the MiniTool Power Data Recovery software on the Win 8 computer with the HDD connected to it through the enclosure.

Do you think it makes sense to try Option 1 before attempting Option 2?

Do you think Option 2 may work, considering the HDD would seemingly try to load but failed? What was the disc/drive trying to do when showing the progress bar?

Thanks.

 

Greetings, Leucine, and welcome to MajorGeeks.

I would try Option #2 first - I may be wrong but it just seems that any operation involving drive partitioning stands a better chance of losing/destruction of data.

That "sda2" reference is interesting. You might try booting the machine to a live Linux distro to see if the drive can be accessed - if so, then you may be able to transfer any important data to a flash drive.

Also: you don't happen to have the Microsoft Vista installation disk handy, do you?

Be patient: MajorGeeks is staffed mainly by volunteers so sometimes it takes a while to get the ball rolling. I'm sure other MGs will jump in soon with suggestions.

 

For info: if the data in question is critical then there are dedicated recovery options available. Both DriveSavers and Ontrack offer free estimates.

 

If you were running MiniTool from the CD, it runs in Linux like Caliban mentioned hence the "SDA2" nomenclature. Linux doesn't apply drive letters like Windows does and MiniTool Partition Wizard doesn't let you recover individual files. Since you've had a taste of Linux, I'm recommending you get UBCD (Ultimate Boot CD), burn it to a CDRW as there are periodic updates and run the bootable CD. There are numerous utilities for disk and file manipulation on it.

 

Caliban, thank you for the warm welcome!

I wonder if the Data Recovery software will work, considering the disc starts spinning and it doesn't really stop, with the progress bar showing on the screen. Actually, it does stop spinning but only for a short moment.

It seems no but we may get it. Do you think we need it at this stage?

I'll look into DriveSavers and Ontrack, thank you.

 

Thank you for your reply, mdonah! We have not run MiniTool yet, don't have the disc yet as we're not sure we're going to need the software.

We saw the "sda2" when running Kaspersky Rescue Disc.

Going to look into the UBCD that you mentioned, thank you.

 

I've got 2 questions at this point.

Which Data Recovery Software is best if the C drive seems to be non-retrievable?

Did I get it right that the UBCD will help diagnose what's wrong, whether the problem is only a missing OS or a corrupt HD?

Thanks.

 

I'm sorry, English is not my native language. I just noticed the word "dedicated" in your reply. I wonder if this answers the 1st question in my previous post. So DriveSavers and Ontrack are better than MiniTool Data Recovery in our case?

 

Apologies for the misunderstanding. I used the word "dedicated" (wrongly, perhaps) to mean that they are data recovery laboratories; that's their specialty. Clean rooms, platter removal, MRIs, Huntron-type trackers for finding faults in the drive electronics, etc.

The data recovery programs (several of which are offered in the software section) may indeed have a tough time retrieving any data if the drive cannot be recognized by Windows - or by any other operating system, for that matter. The biggest problem I see with the recovery utilities is the possibility that they might cause more harm than good, especially if the data is extremely important. You have to make the decision as to which route to take.

Since you can boot to optical media try the UBCD and also try the Windows disk - you might be able to get to some sort of recovery console. Either one might give us some further info to work with.

 

Confused... I looked through the "Tools currently included with the Ultimate Boot CD" chart at the UBCD website and I'm overwhelmed I really don't understand what we're going to do with this disc. Sorry, you're dealing with quite non-geeks

And I'd like to resurrect a question I had in my OP: Do you think Option 2 may work, considering the HDD would seemingly try to load but failed? What was the disc/drive trying to do when showing the progress bar?

Thanks.

 

Once i faced same situation while my hard drive was corrupted then using Kernel for Windows Data Recovery Software, i recovered all my data instantly so i will suggest you to go for it.

 

syncmaster57, could you, please, go into more detail? How did you access your corrupted HDD? How can I use a Data Recovery software on an HDD which seems to be unavailable/irretrievable?

Thanks.

 

Good morning.

I am not passing judgement on the Kernel for Windows Data Recovery Software, but from what I can tell the free Demo version of the software does not allow you to save any found data.

Have you tried booting to a Linux disk or trying the MiniTool Power Data Recovery (your "Option 2")? If so what were the results?

 

Good morning, Caliban!

We have not tried anything yet, as we're still trying to understand what to do.

We've been waiting for answers to questions in my post #10 This forum's rules do not encourage bumping a thread, so I just waited.

Meanwhile, I posted on another forum, and was told that no data recovery software may work if the HDD cannot be found.

Trying to figure out what to do with the UBCD tools, I mean, which tool should be used from those listed under "/HDD/ Diagnosis" at http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

 

Since your primary goal is to recover data I would run the PhotoRec software contained in the UBCD - from what I understand PhotoRec attempts to recover any data (not just images) and does it very well.

That could turn out to be true - at least, data recovery software that we're used to running. The recovery labs I linked to earlier use advanced forensics techniques that we 'normal users' are not privy to - if your data is vital then I would certainly consider contacting DriveSavers and/or Ontrack. If nothing else you could get an idea of how much a recovery ticket might cost.

 

I connect my hard drive to another computer as a slave drive and then scan it using Kernel for Windows Data Recovery Software. I purchased full version of the data recovery software because the demo version only previews the lost data, you can't save it. I used 'Extensive Scan' mode and got all my lost data and save it to new location on my computer.