Disk Spinning but not loading

[zatlath]

Hello all,

I will warn you, I am not a tech expert, so don't hate me if I sound too incompetent. I have a Hitachi HTS545050B9SA00, which was originally in my laptop. The laptop died and I didn't think much of it, as I've gone through a few, and so I pulled the HDD and attempted to recover my files via USB. This is where my problem is.

When connected, my computer will detect two partitions, the first a system reserve (HDD had Windows 7 installed) and another location (h:). I cannot get access to either of these, however. The HDD sounds like it's working, physically. Whenever I try to access the (h:) location, windows explorer crashes.

Any help would be wonderful. I'm not too optimistic, as I know that HDD problems aren't to be laughed at, but I have chunks of un-backed up (I know, I'm a moron) research on it.

Thank you in advance,

Zatlath

[pcimage]

Sounds like bad sectors (or possible a duff head).

Ideally seek pro advice if the data is important, but if it's not really important and accept that you might lose it for good...

1. Clone the drive with a non-windows based sw like "dd_rescue" or "media tools pro"

2. Try mounting the clone (do not let windows run chkdsk) or if it doesn't mount, use something like "getdataback" or "r studio"to extract the data from the clone.

However, if the drive really starts to struggle to read or makes any strange noises then STOP immediately and seek pro assistance.

[harddrivespecialist]

I second Pcimage advice.