Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

Alert

HELP ! Strange drive failure

Nov 7, 2011 8:45PM PST

I have this SAMSUNG 400GB PATA drive that spins OK but Windows wants to initialise all the time.

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -
Re: drive failure
Nov 7, 2011 9:04PM PST

It might be interesting if you told what that error message is.

The best way to get your data back is from your backup.
The second best way is by paying a data recovery company. With disks that fail mechanically, as appears to be the case with this one, that's quite expensive.

Kees

- Collapse -
don't know about the data recovery company..
Nov 8, 2011 2:15AM PST

I've just downloaded the Samsung utility test and it passed with flying colors all the tests:

- Collapse -
Re: drive
Nov 8, 2011 3:14AM PST

So it's a perfect drive. But:
- it's unpartitioned (RAW)
- recovery stops after 5 minutes

If you trust that diagnostic, you simply repartition it, loose all your data and hope for the best. But you said you want to recover your data, so maybe that wouldn't be your preferred idea.

All I can offer: try the other recovery programs from http://forums.cnet.com/7723-7588_102-354911.html
Maybe one works. Maybe none work. You'll only know when you try.

Kees