How to Completely Recover Documents, Pictures and More Off Your Failing Hard Drive or SmartCard

Nearly every computer user has experienced a crash at one time or another.  Most times your machine fires right back up, but sometimes not.  So what do you do about all your pictures, music, videos and miscellaneous documents you’ve gathered over the years?  Here are a few ways to save your precious data.

(BTW: this wouldn’t be necessary if you regularly backed up your files onto an external hard drive or or burned them onto DVD’s, but you probably haven’t done that).

Whoops! I Deleted Everything, Right?

If you’re a CSI, Law & Order or NCIS fan you’ve seen that data can be retrieved from a hard drive, even if it’s been deleted.  That’s possible because even though you delete a file, it doesn’t actually go away.  Your computer simply moves the file to an area of the drive where it can be overwritten and tells the OS (Operating System) that that space is now available.

But the TV Detective IT Squad has special tools to extract the damning digital evidence, right?  Sure, but so do you and it’s free.  Before I go there, what do you do when your hard drive completely dies and your computer won’t fire up?  Honestly, most of the time it’s just a corrupted system file or portion of your boot sector which can be corrected by running the chkdsk command in a DOS command prompt, but that’s for another tutorial.

The most cost effective way to retrieve your data and even repair the drive is to open up the case, remove the hard drive and plug it into a  another working computer as a slave drive.

A hard drive is a peripheral component and is not OS exclusive, however, in order to retrieve data from a Windows machine, you’ll need to hook the drive up to another Windows computer.

Remove the Failing Drive

1. Power down the computer and unplug the AC from the back.
2. Remove the side of the computer case.
3. Locate the Hard drive and unplug the Power and Data cables from the back of the drive. (Newer computers use SATA connectors, but yours may have the PATA or Parallel connector, there are only two kinds so it’s one or the other)
4. Unscrew or detach the drive from the chassis or case (check your manual for instructions) and remove the drive.

(The power cable pictured is a Moler cable, yours may be the SATA power connector, again there’s only two choices so it’s one or the other)

Most newer computer motherboards have both PATA and SATA connectors, check your hard drive connection and the motherboard connections of the computer you want to use to make sure.

Next, be sure you have the proper cables.  For the SATA drive you can pull the one from your computer and take it with you.  If you have a PATA or Parallel connection you’ll need a PATA ribbon with three connectors like below:

The only possible remaining issue could be the jumper pin settings on the PATA hard drive (SATA drives are preset).  The most common jumper setting is CABLE SELECT (CS).  Jumper settings on both drives should be set to CS.  Otherwise, the drive you’re plugging into should be set to Master and your drive to Slave.

(Check the hard drive manufacturers website for the correct jumper settings for each drive, the image below is an example specifically for this article)

As above, power down, unplug and open up the computer you’re going to hook your drive to, plug in the appropriate cables, put everything back together and fire it up.  There’s no need to replace the side of the computer you’re using, unless it makes the other computer owner feel better, than by all means.

Failing hard drives may have corrupted system files or may not have enough juice to fire up the entire computer, but even slightly damaged drives will register with the other machine, and that’s when you can navigate to the folders where all your stuff resides.

Your drive will show up as E: or F:, depending on that computers set up, it could be anything except C: or D: (in most cases).

Once you find your drive go to - E: (whatever drive letter it is)>Documents and Settings>Owner (or whatever your user name is)>My Documents.  That is the default location for personal data storage, although you may have files on your desktop or other folders you created as well.

Once you have that figured out, start moving your data over.  You can use your friends hard drive, an external drive, a thumb drive or you can burn the files onto a DVD or BluRay disk.

What If…

If the drive registers but doesn’t allow access the drive may be damaged.  In that case, you’ve got a couple options.  The FREE option is to download and install PC Inspector – File Recovery.

PC Inspector is a FREE data recovery program that can not only pull data from a damaged drive, but it also has the ability to retrieve deleted files on your computer.  As mentioned above, when you delete a file it just gets moved to another area and is overwritten.  If the file was deleted recently or not much activity has taken place, there’s an excellent chance that you can completely restore the file.  PC Inspector – File Recovery is awesome.

PC Inspector also has a SmartCard Recovery program that performs the same function for the SmartCards used in digital cameras and other devices.  Digital cameras have been known to re-format a SmartCard for no reason at all, but when that happens you just need to download and install PC Inspector Smart Recovery.  Plug a card reader into your computer, or use the card reader bay, start Smart Recovery, navigate to the card and your pictures magically reappear.  Again an awesome program.

If All Else Fails

If that doesn’t work, there is one more option you can utilize that isn’t free, but it doesn’t cost hundreds either.  The absolute best data recovery, hard drive repair program is called SpinRite.

For a mere $89 (as of this writing) you can save data and repair hard drives over and over again.  I’ve used SpinRite on dozens of drives and have had 100% success in restoring them.  SpinRite will restore corrupted system files, boot sectors and it can even repair physically damaged drives.  Absolutely amazing.

Summary

If you’re cheap (or broke) like me, you may go through the steps above to retrieve your data.  If you’re not interested in cracking open your computer, than SpinRite is definitely the best way to go.   Please leave any questions in the comments section.

Good Luck!

A 3 step process to save your data and clean your computer, once and for all (until the next time).

This tutorial is primarily for Microsoft Windows users, however the FREE software is cross-platform

There are times when all else fails.  You’ve tried everything and none of it worked.  Your computer is so messed up you can’t deal with it anymore and it’s time to do something drastic.  The good news is you don’t have to lose everything to do it.   I wipe my drives clean once a year minimum, sometimes more.

Why…?  Because they get messed up.

No matter how careful you are (and I’m not); drivers, configuration files, shared resources and many of the hundreds of thousands of files needed to run your windows machine are going to get corrupted.  It’s  a fact of life.  Seconds after you bought your computer it became a dinosaur.  Technology is moving forward at a blistering pace and our computers are constantly updating themselves but sometimes with disastrous results.  Or, you may have gotten infected with a virus that will not go away.   Whatever the case, it becomes necessary from time to time to start all over again.

Tools:

Thumb-drive or Flash-drive

An 8 Gigabyte Flash drive can be had at geeks.com for under $25.  A 64 GB Flash Drive (largest they make as of this writing) will run about $150.  I’m always looking for FREE or really cheap.  If you think you’ll use a 64 GB Flash Drive often, go for it.  If your Flash Drive is large enough to store all the data you need, you won’t need to back it up onto a CD/DVD, however, it’s still a good idea to backup your docs on a disk from time to time.  If you store everything in My Documents, you can find out real quick how much you have.

• Right mouse-click on the My Documents folder and click on Properties.

CD or DVD Burner and blank discs

Burning your photos, music and other documents onto a CD or DVD is a great way to backup your data.  I recommend doing it once or twice a year as an individual or monthly if you’re using your computer for business purposes.  If you have a choice between CDs or DVDs, definitely go with DVDs.  DVDs are sturdier in construction and hold up to 4.7 Gigs of data as opposed to 700 Mb on a CD.  Double-sided DVDs can hold 8.5 Gigs.  If you have a Blu-Ray burner, use that.  Blu-Rays hold 25-50 Gigs of data and are built to last.  CDs have about a five year life with moderate use.  Blu-Ray Discs and DVDs can last 15-25 years with moderate use.  If you’re using them solely for backup purposes, they’ll last much longer than that.

Darik’s Boot-n-Nuke

Darik Horn’s FREE software for wiping your hard drive clean.  Download the software here.  If you plan on selling or disposing of a computer, I recommend using DBAN to erase any data first.  When you delete a file on your computer, it doesn’t actually go away.  It’s simply moved to a different location and written over.  If you haven’t deleted that many files, chances are you or whoever gets your computer, can retrieve almost every file ever deleted.  Scary right.

CAUTION!

No really, once this program gets started it’s too late.  The download is an .iso file or disk image file.  It requires a program like Nero Burning Rom, MagicISO or PowerISO to run.  If you don’t have any of those and are digging this FREE thing, you can download ISO RECORDER for XP and Vista and install that first.  Create a boot-able CD and you’re ready to roll.

Then, simply put the disk in the drive and do a restart.  Your system should boot from the CD, but if not, do another restart but watch for a really quick message that tells you which key (f8 usually for Vista – f12 usually for xp) to push to get to the Boot From menu.  Once there choose boot from CD.  Once your computer boots from the CD you’ll see the Linux OS begin to load followed by a prompt asking you to type in one word: autonuke.  Make sure you’re ready, because there’s no turning back after this step.

Depending on the size of your hard drive and speed of your processor this can take anywhere from 2 hours to 2 days.

Windows OS CD or DVD (win2k, XP, Vista)

Most computers you buy today DO NOT come with the operating system (OS) disks.  The disks included are usually driver files for recovery purposes and junk software you don’t need.  In many cases you can request the company to send you the OS disks, but they’ll often charge you for shipping or other fees.  If you have the license, why should you have to pay for the software again?  There are FREE options available, which I will not go into here, but contact me if you’re interested.

Finally the steps

STEP ONE

1. Backup all your data onto a flash drive, CD or DVD.  If possible, copy your entire My Documents folder over.  If your computer is a Dell, HP, Gatway, Compaq or other well known brand go to the manufacturer’s website and download all the necessary drivers for your machine.  If you are changing from Vista to XP or vice-versa, make sure you download the correct drivers.    Make sure you have all the serial numbers for each program you want to reinstall.  If you use Microsoft Office and have no idea what the serial number is, there are FREE programs to retrieve that information.  Check out these:  Belarc Advisor or Magic Jellybean Finder. If you use Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express you’ll need to export your Personal Folders or .pst files and copy that separately.

Outlook Steps:

• Open Outlook, go to File then Import and Export

• Next click on Export to a File

• Click on Personal Folder File

• Make sure to choose the top folder – Personal Folders

• Finally, browse to a location to save the file and rename it to something that means something to you.

Include that .pst file in with all the other docs you’re saving.

STEP TWO

Place the Darik’s Boot-n-Nuke Disk in your CD or DVD drive and restart your computer.

As mentioned above, it’s going to take a while.  The program begins and after 5 or 10 minutes the window will display how much time is left to erase your hard drive.

STEP THREE

Remove the Boot-n-Nuke disk, put your Windows OS disk in and restart your computer.

That’s basically it right?  Sort of…

After Windows installs, each of your programs will need to be re-installed, along with all of the Windows updates and plugins.

Make sure to include all of these when updating your computer:

• Flash Player
  
• Shockwave Player
  
• Java
• Adobe Acrobat
• Windows Media Player

It’s a pain in the butt, I know…

But your newly refreshed computer will buzz along faster than ever and everything will work right, at least until you screw it up again.

peace out.