How can I recover my hard drive?
This is a situation that every tech support person has faced or will face at least once: a failed
hard drive.
In this particular case, a user was getting errors like “disk 0 error” and “invalid drive specification.”
Here were the other facts in the case:
• The data wasn’t backed up.
• The problem came out of nowhere.
• The user had accessed Setup and tried to manually enter the settings for the drive type when
“Auto” didn’t work.
• There was no startup disk made by this machine.
Reviving a drive like that one—even if only long enough to copy its data before you throw the
drive in the garbage—is a tough challenge.
When this document was first compiled back in 2001 data recovery was (and still is
for many) a very expensive option.
While the Freeze it, Hit it, and Drop it options are still experimented with by some, the current
size and sensitivity of the newer larger hard drives makes these options extremely risky
and definitely NOT recommended for hard drives with a capacity that’s greater than 1
gig. And even then some of the operation suggested here should be approached with caution.
Getting it wrong by trying to save some money will only end up costing you more if you then
decide to pass on your hard drive to a data recovery company…
If your hard drive does work and you are attempting to recover a FAT or NTFS file
system, then this FREE step by step guide could help you get back your lost files.
