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General discussion

Data recovery?

May 16, 2009 10:59AM PDT

I have an internal hard drive that, I'm pretty sure, isn't wanting to be read. It happens to have all my music on it too, and I have no backups of it (I just wanted to note that this happens two days after ordering a new WD, such is my luck). I know the chances are slim but I was wondering if I have any options in terms of data recovery. It's not an extremely old hard drive, and I bought it three years after the one that came with this computer, which is still working.

The circumstances that it happened are a bit odd, maybe coincidental. I replaced an old soundcard with a new one, and when I started up it didn't immediately say that is had not found the hard drive; rather, it gave me some ATA errors that I can no longer remember, and wouldn't let me boot. Tried it in a recovery kernel, worked fine, but of course there was no NTFS file system there. For some reason I've gotten the error on bootup three times out of five. So...

Barring data recovery, is there any way I can figure out what has gone wrong. And lastly, is there any chance of me being able to send it somewhere to get it fixed (though I don't want to do that). Any answers would help.

Discussion is locked

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when you say...
May 18, 2009 8:32AM PDT

"...I'm pretty sure, isn't wanting to be read" outside of the problem you mentioned, there isn't any sort of hard drive clicking is there? certainly seems like the issue is caused by the soundcard. id definitely check into it more before doing data recovery - it can be quite expensive. had to to that for a hard drive of mine - used these guys, http://www.flashbackdata.com, but im in austin.

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oops :|
May 18, 2009 8:34AM PDT
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Firmware transfer solution
May 2, 2011 1:45PM PDT

Many people do not realize their hard drives are hardware, too. There is a PCB ( printed circuit board) that can be cloned that may help your OS read and access the drive. I used these guys and was extremely happy:

http://www.onepcbsolution.com/

Just follosw their simple instructions and you'll be pleased.

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Another pcb shop recommended
Jun 30, 2011 6:16PM PDT