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My aunt and Uncles computer got RIDDLED with viruses and Spyware so badly it could not come back from the depths.. so I had to reformat... taking care to back everything up onto a hard drive i had, about... 5 gigs of stuff I think it was.. most importantly their Digi Cam pics....
I copied the stuff to the 2nd hard drive and unplugged it so I could format and install windows... now.. I came tonight to move files back onto the fresh WinXP pro install and the F'ing hard drive is doing the click of death.....how the FEK am I gonna get the info from this hard drive.... they have pics of my aunts father who passed away less then a year ago that they'd like to keep.... I hope to hell they backed the pictures up... but I don't think they did *sob* it's a Fireball 3 40 gig ata/133 drive LBA: 80293248

when I start the comp up and have the drive hooked up as a 2ndary master it reads it but then says the 2ndary master drive failed and sits there at the Bios boot up page... If I enter the bios and check the settings the drive is listed but when I check the settings on that specific drive it shows no info for it... no capacity no sectors/heads...

what can I do... if I gotta send this thing off then by god I'll pay the 400 bills for it... I need those files... please help

YGPM

Keep trying to boot with the bad 2nd drive connected. Sooner or later it may initialize, then you can grab the files.

See this post for some other tricks: http://www.pcabusers.net/forums/showthr ... adid=34665

I had an old one give up the ghost but - i tried all this stuff and eventually got it to spin up in a vertical position - cable connection up -

This is why I back up important files to CD-R/DVD-R weekly... maybe they need to start doing the same thing...?

I know how ya feel.. damn..and I suppose you don't even want to ask them about it...
Best of luck to ya Barrett!

i'll call ya when ya get off work!
-
Jordan

Only thing I can suggest, since you in a little bit of a pickle.

Take the drive you have installed stuff too, and put it into another system and run a recovery on it with some software designed to do just that. Check DC for related files if you need them, I got them. Yeah, you lost whatever you wrote over installing the new operating system, but at least you might be able to recover some of your valuable info from the free space left on the drive.

there is also the freezer trick. Toss it in a freezer ziplock bag and leave it in the freezer for an hour or 2. then run it over to the system and see if you can recover the files then. it works on ocasion. a rare ocasion.

Greg

FRAP: BIOS isn't recognizing it. Probably a jammed head or seized spindle. A recovery app won't help until he can get BIOS to recognize it.

Originally posted by FlyingPenguin
FRAP: BIOS isn't recognizing it. Probably a jammed head or seized spindle. A recovery app won't help until he can get BIOS to recognize it.

Nonono, not the bad drive, the good drive he copied the data from. The one he erased and reinstalled windows on for his aunt and uncle. Take that drive and run the software on it. he will be able to recover files off of it as long as he didn't write over the space yet.

I have no solution as to the bad drive, you guys already gave a few suggestioons as far as that.

AH, misunderstood. Yeah, that's an option.

I agree with nexus_7, the freezer trick does work ... at least it did the trick for me once with a clicking WD.

yeah i think frapsters is the most viable option. give it a shot. If it doesnt work then try the freezer trick.

thanks for the ideas guys, I have some free time to fiddle with the drive today so I will let you know if I make any leeway with this problem...

thanks again for the ideas!!

I agree 100% with the freezer trick.