Recovering Dead Drives

      Computer drives being what they are, it is inevitable that yours will fail. The question is what you do when that happens. Much of the answer to that depends on how much of a ‘crisis’ that failure is. A good backup strategy mitigates the issue, but even then you might have data you want recovered. Absent paying expensive professionals there are steps that can be taken.

      Before going further, I’ll repeat/rephrase that last line. If the data is truly essential, ignore the rest of this. Go find one of those expensive professionals who can properly recover the data.

      In a general sense, these steps are all trying to do the same thing: get one last read off the drive. Just trying different methods until one of them (hopefully) works. If multiple work, then it may be worth feeding your recovered files through a duplicate finder. And they all rely on the drive at least spinning up. If it won’t even do that then your options are even more limited.

Steps to try

1. First thing I try is pulling the drive and plugging it into another computer. I usually try this before even turning on the computer. If the description sounds like it is a dead drive, then turning it on to confirm gains nothing.

      If the damage is to Windows, but the partition and underlying file system is more or less intact, then once connected to another computer the files can be accessed. Sometimes it’s slow, as the drive is trying to correct, but often it can still get the data.

2. If that fails, next I try Spinrite. While not the fastest tool in the world, I’ve had reasonable good success from it. I tend to set it up and then leave it running for a few days. Often it doesn’t report fixing anything, but it does. Often enough, on newer hardware, it can’t complete it’s work, but manages to get enough done.

      Unless it reports it can’t run, which does occasionally happen, I try booting off the drive afterwards. More then once it’s fixed things enough to get that one last read off a drive.

3. Then come tools that ignore the file system and try to recover the files directly. Recuva can be used for a variety of other recovery tasks, but can also check dead drives. In cases where the drive doesn’t even report a file system, TestDisk might work as well. Both these tools do essentially the same thing, look at the actual data and not what the system reports. Personally, I find TestDisk is a ‘better’ tool, but Recuva has an easier interface (so I can more comfortably recommend it to others).

And those are all the methods I am aware of, at least at the amateur level. You could always go the professional recovery service, but those tend to cost a decent amount.

Afterwards

      If things have gone well up to this point, you’ve now got a pile of files from your dead drive. Might even have multiples, if you tried copying off after each step. In which case, running a duplicate finder would be prudent. While your at it, scanning for viruses would also be a good idea.

      With that done, all that is left is sorting through the files and getting on with your life. Being glad for what has been saved, even as you are saddened by whatever was lost. As you do that, might also want to ponder your backup strategy and how you could preemptively mitigate your next dead drive.