Hard drive crashed. Reformatted. Gotta get my files back!!!!

[cattb]

I have used recovermyfiles. The program worked for me. My experience with recovery programs, they give you free trial, but to recover the lost data the program finds you have to buy the program.

It is possible your boot information became corrupted on your hardrive and therfore could not boot to Windblows OS. I have put in the restore disk (your windows disk) and goto repair and use check disk. I haver also used a program and have  booted off it to get the computer to DOS instead of going to windows and used chkdsk.

[Krusty]

What's that linux distro that's so small it fits on a single bootable CD-ROM?

Knoppix? Is that the name?

Great disc to have on hand just in case. Doesn't harm your drive, doesn't install. Just boots.

[ColTomb]

USRanger, E-Mail sent.

[Chalenge]

If it would have been physically damaged this sometimes allows up for one more spool-up to recover data. Far from terrible. However I missed the part where he managed to reformat the drive (why on earth?) so it's obviously working.

Yes... what you are reacting to is a belief that the hardware controller board is bad which is probably not the case. I believe he had a simple data problem that could have been repaired by Windows Repair. The freezer method you mentioned is a "voodoo" trick to try and mend thermal damage to the electronics which is not a good remedy because hard drives generate so much heat the freezer method would be undone almost immediately and certainly before all the data was recovered. If I am correct that the hardware itself is intact and this is just a matter of a few lost sectors nearly bricking the drive then SpinRite would fix it.

The whole point is though that everyone should be running this program once a month on every drive they have. It really will prevent drives from dying.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Yes... what you are reacting to is a belief that the hardware controller board is bad which is probably not the case. I believe he had a simple data problem that could have been repaired by Windows Repair. The freezer method you mentioned is a "voodoo" trick to try and mend thermal damage to the electronics which is not a good remedy because hard drives generate so much heat the freezer method would be undone almost immediately and certainly before all the data was recovered. If I am correct that the hardware itself is intact and this is just a matter of a few lost sectors nearly bricking the drive then SpinRite would fix it.

The whole point is though that everyone should be running this program once a month on every drive they have. It really will prevent drives from dying.

I watched the spinrite informercial and Gibson doesn't make any claims it will prevent them from dying, you just get an early alert on w h e n. Last time I checked spinrite didn't have data recovery features, now it seems to have. However I really don't like the whole concept of recovering something to the same media that itself caused the problem in the first place. That seems a bit retarded to me.

If a hdd fails on me once before its mtbf it's with most certainty going to fail soon again before rated mtbf. I consider this kind of hardware waste.

Oh and to the original poster: If you really want your data back I hope you're not reading this from your computer that has the formatted drive in it. Every pixel you browse on this UBB is writing over your data

[Chalenge]

No you didnt listen to it at all. Twice in the video he says it will keep your drive from dying. In fact the very first thing Steve Gibson says is "... and long term maintenance too because it will keep your drive from dying."

Sorry Ripley you are (once again) factually wrong.

EDIT: Also specifically mentioned in the video? That data recovery is part of SpinRite.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

No you didnt listen to it at all. Twice in the video he says it will keep your drive from dying. In fact the very first thing Steve Gibson says is "... and long term maintenance too because it will keep your drive from dying."

Sorry Ripley you are (once again) factually wrong.

EDIT: Also specifically mentioned in the video? That data recovery is part of SpinRite.

It will keep your drive from dying unexpected, yes. I'm not factually wrong (again). Also specifically mentioned in my text: now it does have data recovery.

Gibson explained twice in his videos that when you run spinrite you should keep an eye on the error rate which is typical for the hdd model. Normally the errors are corrected by ecc algorithms. But if the error rates start to increase, it's a sign the drive is about to fail.

How often should SpinRite be run for preventive maintenance?

This is mostly a matter of personal taste. For example, how often should you backup your data? However, a general rule of thumb would be that SpinRite should be run every two or three months. Running it more often provides greater safety at the expense of the time consumed. Running it less often provides more opportunity for new problems to go undetected until they become severe. Once every few months should be often enough to catch and detect any early trouble.

Note the absolute lack of promise of fixing the drive and emphasis on early detection.

I think you're confusing 'restoring the drive' to fixing singular bad blocks of a filesystem. The first it can't do simpy for physical wear and tear, the latter it can do by analysing and correcting the filesystem on its broken parts.

[Chalenge]

No Ripley. You are assuming the process would go unimpeded as if the operator were blind to the information the program delivers. Yes if the operator is stupid and doesnt pay attention to the warnings the drive will die. If instead you run the program and see the problems spiking then no the drive will not die because you will purchase a new drive and move your data.

With your method the drive will die and the user is crying wishing he had SpinRite. No other program does what SpinRite does.

Again... wasting time trying to wake you up!

[cattb]

My personal opinion, which means nothing,have a recovery plan for when something goes wrong. Drives are getting cheaper all the time.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

No Ripley. You are assuming the process would go unimpeded as if the operator were blind to the information the program delivers. Yes if the operator is stupid and doesnt pay attention to the warnings the drive will die. If instead you run the program and see the problems spiking then no the drive will not die because you will purchase a new drive and move your data.

With your method the drive will die and the user is crying wishing he had SpinRite. No other program does what SpinRite does.

Again... wasting time trying to wake you up!

So essentially you backed down on your claim on spinrite fixing the drive. The user won't be crying anything if he performs regular backups like everyone should.

I agree with you that spinrite will inform you sooner about failures. Two caveats: You need to perform a process that takes several hours, regularly - and it costs 80 bucks. This time and money is more wisely spent getting an automatic backup system if the user lacks one.

[Chalenge]

No you are misunderstanding. SpinRite will fix Rangers problem. Ranger doesnt have a drive that is broken. What he has is a drive that had trouble booting. Those two are mutually exclusive. This is a problem that SpinRite can fix. Also... if sectors are inaccesible because the OS is failing to read a few bits then absolutely SpinRite will fix it but thats not what Ranger reported. Unfortunately the first thing he did was a mistake and may have cost him quite a bit of data.

So yes you are operating under a false premise. Sorry you cant keep up.

[100Coogn]

I've always used Recuva
I've recovered many files using this free program.  Have to admit that the audio files recovered never quite sound the same, but as far as
my data files, most were recovered and intact.

Good luck Ranger
Coogan

[MrRiplEy[H]]

No you are misunderstanding. SpinRite will fix Rangers problem. Ranger doesnt have a drive that is broken. What he has is a drive that had trouble booting. Those two are mutually exclusive. This is a problem that SpinRite can fix. Also... if sectors are inaccesible because the OS is failing to read a few bits then absolutely SpinRite will fix it but thats not what Ranger reported. Unfortunately the first thing he did was a mistake and may have cost him quite a bit of data.

So yes you are operating under a false premise. Sorry you cant keep up.

If his problem was just a corrupt boot then most likely he would have been able to fix his problem without spinrite, by going to windows recovery console and running fixmbr / fixboot free of charge. Or by reinstalling windows without format, free of charge. Or perhaps simply by running chkdsk /r on rconsole No need for spinrite there and no need to spend 80 bucks.

[cattb]

2cents of opinion that dosn't matter, I would rather take 80.00 instead of buying spinrite or another HD software program and buy a extra HD and use either a full back up, incremental, or a differential backup. ( or ghost, acronis and make a shadow copy)

I would rather make a disaster recovery plan then to sit and run a program to see if my hardrive is going to die, I have to many irons in the fire to sit and analyze my HD. (thats just me though)

I have used chkdsk to fix  corrupt data on the boot, because my computer would not start.
 The problem ended up being memory corrupting my drive.

I am not saying that chkdsk will fix all problems either.

[USRanger]

Thanks for all the info folks.  I now have Spinrite & will give it a whirl this weekend.  As you can see from my lack of posts in this thread (or any other), I'm staying off the pc except for a quick visit to this thread once a day until I fix what can be fixed.