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Question

My MAIN HDD is not loading anymore (I think)

Aug 31, 2017 9:08AM PDT

I was away from my PC (powered off) for about 30 hours (due to Harvey). I came back, powered it up...and it just crawled. I mean it took a good 30 minutes before Windows finally loaded. Then it struggled to do ANYTHING once in it. I have tried: Power Cycling, Cord Cycling, De-fragmenting (although it wouldn't let me do the affected drive), blowing out the machine, System Reset (it wouldn't let me complete this either). Right now it says that the drive is close to catastrophic failure and it won't even let me go past the BIOS. What is there to do? Is there anything to do?

Discussion is locked

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Clarification Request
Was it in a flooded location?
Sep 2, 2017 7:36PM PDT

The high humidity there could have caused the HDD to fail. They do have a small air hole in them for pressure adjustments.

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Answer
NEVER DEFRAG A FAILING HDD.
Aug 31, 2017 9:13AM PDT

That's a sure fire way to lose all that is on that drive.

So remove the failed drive, replace it with a good one then restore from your last backups. PCs have not reached the point we can go without backups but some try to go without.

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No Backup
Aug 31, 2017 9:15AM PDT

It was my main. I have no access to it. How can I get a backup?

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Backups are made when everything is fine.
Aug 31, 2017 9:29AM PDT

You rarely can get a backup once it fails. But same story about recovery.

Remove the HDD since we can NEVER WRITE TO IT AGAIN! This is the most important step that many new to data recovery fail to do (over and over.)

So a new HDD goes in and the system is restored (factory restore media or what applies to this PC.) Now that the machine is up and working we install RECUVA and attach the failed HDD on a high number SATA port or in some USB case and see if RECUVA can get the user files out.

If that fails, then Drivesavers.com is asked for an estimate. To all. Backups are cheap, recovery is expensive.

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Answer
Do this now
Sep 2, 2017 7:38PM PDT

Either "burn image" of an Linux ISO to a DVD for booting from, or to an flashdrive. It might be easier and quicker to then pull the files from the HDD after booting the the alternate OS. I suggest Linux Mint or Zorin OS.

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Answer
Had the same problem
Sep 4, 2017 2:00AM PDT

my HDD was working great one day and the second day it simply started working extremely sluggish. Copying most important to my doc and jpg files took me 15 minutes (not more than 500MB). My friend working in IT tried many things to make it slighly faster but all in all the HDD is pretty much dead. my HDD failed after 3 years (literally few days after my warranty has expired...)

Next time you install windows, make sure you have some online backup for most important files.