Hard Drive Recovery

Question

I'm attempting to recover a hard drive, which may or may not be possible. It shows up in the BIOS, and in Windows Drive Management, but unloaded and cannot be loaded due to CRC failure. I tried mounting it in Linux, but it does not appear in 'dev' but will appear in both mnt and media, but as an empty folder. Finally, I tried using SpinRite, but it just stays on the "Discovering mass storage hardware" screen, as I assume it cannot find the drive.

I even went as far as trying the freeze trick, but alas, I am here. Any advice is appreciated.

Answer 1

I'd try freezing it for a longer period. Some people say freezing it for 20 minutes works, others say freezing it for a DAY might be more effective. Be very careful of condensation when you do this!

But yeah, it sounds like your hard drive is borked - when it comes to the point where SpinRite won't even see it, it's pretty much dead. If you're DESPERATE for the data on the drive, you can try a data recovery service, but that will cost you a lot of money.