Along with my Sony laptop, I recently lost both external hard drives.
All my data not saved on CDs is gone. My laptop question is asked in a
separate question because I don't think they're related.
My question is how to get the data from the hard drives. And if not
possible, please explain why. Can I do this on my own or do I need a
pro?
I installed a new internal hard drive on my dad's computer one day and
couldn't figure out the correct jumper settings to make it a slave
drive so I guessed. Bad mistake. It seemed like it recognized the
drive and gave me some info about the new drive having been installed
and that I would need to restart Windows but I didn't pay much
attention to it. Normal I thought. Well, next thing I know I can't
boot. Little did I realize that I had my external firewire hard drive
(Western Digital 80 Gig) plugged in while doing this and it seemed to
think that the external drive was my C drive and was trying to boot
from it. I really don't remember what happened after that as I was in
extreme panic mode but I unplugged my external drive while the
computer was still on, restarted a buch of times but it seemed to lose
the C drive. In the end, I had to reinstall a fresh copy of Windows
(2000) and to get it back to working order.
Unfortunatly, my external drive wasn't so lucky. I haven't been able
to get into it. I've tried 3 computers but none will recognize it. My
only guess is that the boot sectors were changed somehow.
So for a month I was using my back up Maxtor 80G fire wire hard drive.
Before killing my laptop I saved everything on this drive and so I
counted myself lucky. But the next day when I went to get the data
from it to transfer everything to my dad's drive, it didn't recognize
my external drive. I tried other computers and none can see it. Is
there something in my dad's computer that is changing my boot sectors
in the external drives? Is my dad's computer just a cold-blooded
murderer? Just a coinsidence?
I can live without these drives but I have one very important folder
with data that I would die to get back.
Thanks for any help. |
Clarification of Question by
ladida68-ga
on
13 Jul 2004 19:23 PDT
I?m still a newbie here at Google Answers so I?m not sure if I?m
supposed to respond to comments here or in the comment sections, so
forgive me if this is not correct.
I?m running XP Pro. I?ve tried plugging it in before booting and
after. I sat and watched the red reading light on the drive and didn?t
see it light up. I?ve also watched the cursor to see if it changed as
it normally gives me the hour glass. I did see a flicker of
?recognition? that something happened the last time I tried it on a
computer that it?s never been hooked up to but didn?t see any sign of
life after that.
There was a another question asked that may be of some use to me:
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=321687
Unfortunately, I don?t have my drives with me to play with at the
moment to see if the suggestions would bear any fruit.
ladida68
|
Request for Question Clarification by
techtor-ga
on
14 Jul 2004 02:12 PDT
Hello Ladida68,
I'm just putting an RFC here, so you'll know someone is interested in
your case, though I'm not a keen techie. I guess in the worst case, if
the hard disks with your important folder are truly busted, they could
only be serviced by a data recovery company.
I'm just assuming something happened to your Firewire equipment on
your PC. Is the Firewire it a motherboard-built-in feature? If so,
perhaps you could have disabled it during the time you were losing the
C drive. See if other firewire devices can be used on your PC to rule
this out. See if a BIOS setting has to be altered to get the Firewire
working correctly.
Is the Maxtor hard drive the same thing as the one you unplugged in
panic? But anyway, I assume that if you plugged it out while it was
on, since it was accessing files, it may have affected software in the
HD's components. Probably what happened was the same thing as a BIOS
flashing that suddenly got cut, like in a power failure, so the BIOS
would be dead. Have you looked at Maxtor or other manufacturing sites
for information on your problem?
|
Clarification of Question by
ladida68-ga
on
14 Jul 2004 19:25 PDT
Hi techtor
?Is the firewire a motherboard-built-in feature?? I?m not sure what
you mean by that. On my dad?s two computers that I tried after they
died they both use firewire cards that I installed a year or two ago.
On my Sony laptop I used to use the internal firewire that came with
it but that died last year so I got an adaptor and used the card slot
after that.
On the Sony I didn?t see anything about an external drive or firewire
in the BIOS. On my dad?s computers I didn?t check so something could
be there. But I won?t be able to check for another week or two as I?m
on the road. I know I should have waited to ask this question until I
could try things suggested but I?ll be out of the country soon after
that and would like to give it to somebody in Thailand. But back to
the point, I did try using my external firewire CDRW player and that
did work. Does this rule that out?
The Maxtor is not the one I unplugged in panic. That?s why I?m so
confused how this could have happened with it. It was an innocent
bystander. My dad?s computer has been working fine (as far as I could
tell) for a month and then Bam. Instant death.
And as far as I can remember, there was nothing actually being written
to the drive when I unplugged the Western Digital drive. But I can
understand how unplugging it at a critical moment could have messed it
up either way.
I?ll give the manufacturers website another shot but I couldn?t find
anything useful in either one of them when I tried last time.
|
