How to Do Hard Drive Recovery Using Free Data Utility
Data is the most important inside your computer, hardware failure can be fixed by replacing parts, and applications can also be reinstalled. But data is the most value asset of your PC. There are times your hard drive will die, hard drives normally last few years, some last longer. Therefore, it’s always a good idea to backup your data before you lose them.
This tutorial is not like the pro who can recover everything of your hard drive no matter if it’s damaged or any other kind of disaster. If you hear the clicking sound of the drive, you should start to backup your data right away before it dies
If you don’t hear the noisy sounds such as whirring, clicking or buzzing, there is a good chance you can recover your hard drive. Most of the times your hard drive just missing the MBR (master boot record) or it’s damaged, and there are free utilities to fix it and can recovery your hard drive.
Just follow some of these methods to have your hard drive recovered:
- Step 1
First thing we need to examine if the hard drive is healthy: Does it show up on BIOS? The F2 key for most brand computers will get you into BIOS settings. The BIOS will have a summary of your computer hardware info.
- Step 2
If your computer has enough space inside, you can hook up the hard drive as a secondary drive. But if it’s your system drive, then you need to find another computer and hook it up as a secondary drive. Or you might need to buy an USB hard drive adaptor (can work on SATA, PATA or even laptop drives).
- Step 3
Once you hook up the hard drive as a secondary drive or slave drive, boot up the PC and right click on My Computer, then choose Manage, next click on Disk Manage. It should list all the hard drive information including the formats and status. If you highlight the hard drive and can get the properties of it, most likely the hard drive is in good condition and you can browse it and copy the data to anther drive.
- Step 4
If the drive does not show up in step 3, most likely the MBR is messed up and needed to repair. If you have the Windows XP handy, boot it up and when it loads to the Welcome to Setup screen, press R to repair a Windows XP Installation using Recovery Console. Then type in: fixmbr
- Step 5
There are also many free software to recover hard drive crashes, a good one worth to use is Knoppix – a free bootable Linux runs independently that does not need to load drivers. Another good one is HDD Regenerator – The HDD Regenerator can repair damaged hard disks without affecting or changing existing data.
- Step 6
Another good trick to try if the hard drive has mechanical failure: Put it into freezer couple hours or overnight let it cool down then plug it back to your computer to see if it shows up or works maybe few minutes and dies down again. Many people have success with this method. Worth to try if you think your hard drive dies.
http://www.ehow.com/how_5913588_do-recovery-using-data-utility.html
