laptop drive failed

[DPT]

I have spent the last three days trying to save the data on my laptop. I am a casual computer builder and know a bit, but not much about computers. I have probably spent 12 hours the past few days trying to read and learn about hard drive failures. I've been on utube, read several forums, done google searches, etc. Just so you know I've tried. But if you can at least lead me in the right direction, I have a headache.

I have dell laptop that is four years old. a couple days ago without any warning I got the BSOD, it said my drive was unmountable. I tried rebooting into safe, no help. It goes to windows logo for 5 or 6 seconds, the the BSOD.

I read about recovery console and did the chkdsk, fixboot, and fixmbr none would work, they all said the drive was corrupted.

Today I bought a 2.5 ide usb external enclosure and tried to access it from a working computer. The usb recognizes it and then the drive lights up and spins and after a few minutes it says \$Bitmap file is corrupted and then the whole computer locks up. It never shows up under my computer and if I try to access device manager the computer won't let me. If I disconnct the drive from the usb, the computer just goes back to normal. I have ordered a 2.5 to 3.5 ide adapter to hook it up internally, but I don't know what to do next.

The drive is a hitachi travelstar 60 gb ide drive. The OS on both the laptop and the test computer is xp pro. The data isn't valuable per se, but alot of contacts, calendar info, some documents, email and some pix will be hard to replace. I know I'm asking for free advice, but believe me I've done a bunch of research. If you think its dead I'd rather just quit trying. On the other hand if there's something relatively simple to try... If I'm asking too much just let me know. I've been on many forums in my time as the expert as well as the noob depending on the subject.

[pepe]

Hi

at first glance I would say it could be 2 things:
1. one head is gone, cannot read stable,
2. bad writing caused bad sectors on the surface in the last used files (mostly system files like $Bitmap, $MFT, $LogFile, Pagefile.sys, but the lately written user files can get corrupted also this way).

try scanning the drive in MHDD and post results here.
pepe

[DPT]

how do I do that if the computer cant access the hard drive? When I hook it up to usb it simply doesn't "see" the attached disc. You can hear the disc spinning in the enclosure and after a few minutes the computer says the the the \$Bitmap file is corrupted and I cant see the disc on "my computer". Interestingly if I open the device manager before I attach the broken drive to usb it will list the drive under disc drives, but if I click on it, it won't open the drive properties.

[dobrevjetser]

Attach the drive to a desktop computer as a slave.
Big chance MHDD will recognize it even if windows doesn't see it.

Best regards,

Dobre

[hddguy]

You need to work directly with the HDD connected to another machine, or alternatively download MHDD as a ISO and boot from CD.

[DPT]

Thanks. It will take a few days for the adapter to arrive to connect my 2.5 to 3.5 ide. I appreciate the help.

[DPT]

Ok, I have the adapter and I have the laptop drive attached to the secondary ide channel. It appears as drive F on my computer but if I try to access it I get a \$Bitmap file is corrupt and unreadable message. I tried to run a scan using mhdd in a dos session and it says Drive is not ready and then shortly after that says... This drive does not support LBA mode or not detected.

What do I do now?

[dobrevjetser]

I think you have a firmware and/or head issue with your drive.
Impossible to repair it without expensive tools and proper knowledge.

Dobre

[pepe]

MHDD scan results?

pepe

[DPT]

It wont run the scan so I can't get the results. Maybe I'm doing it wrong since I don't really know what I'm doing. the data isn't valuable enough to spend 100's of dollars, but it is worth some of my time to see if I can recover some of the data. I couldn't care less about the hard drive. I've already replaced the hard drive, reinstalled windows and am recofiguring computer. It would be nice to get my contact and files out of it though. So I will continue to try myself.

I have the laptop drive connected to an adapter and then to an ide cable then into the second ide attachment on the motherboard. In the first ide channel is my main computer hard drive. The drive does appear in the list of drives in the device manager but I cannot open it. It gives me the message "the file or directory /$Bitmap is corrupt, the drive is unreadable. If I then open a dos session, open mhdd, pick the hard drive, and type scan or makelog is says "the drive is not ready" then in a few seconds it says "This drive does not support LBA mode or not detected."

So what do I do now? If the answer is give up that's fine, but I cannot afford to spend alot of money to fix or recover the data. It can all be replaced, just alot of work involved.

Thanks for any help you can give me.

[rchadwick]

It's important to get a good diagnosis. Try MHDD again, from a boot disk.

Based on what you're saying, I'm guessing the drive is still recognized in the BIOS, and as the correct model. If so, it's likely good news for you. There are some things you can try. There is a preferred, safer path which most professionals would follow, but you can probably recover your data with shortcuts and some luck.

Making an image of the drive before you do anything is a really good idea. Search here for imaging software. Some is even free.

Using data recovery software that can pick files off the drive. Again, do a search here. Again, some is even free.

You can try looking at the drive in a Linux environment. A Knoppix disk is an easy way to do this.

MHDD, DR software, and Imaging software will require reading the manuals for proper operation. Remember, you're trading time for money. If you don't want to pay for this, you'll have to work for it, and it will take some time of you're starting close to zero.

If you've given these things a sincere try, and you're not recovering anything, be sure to give more details. How is the drive recognized in the BIOS?

[shahij]

why dont you diagnose properly using MHDD?
then leave the log.......

[DPT]

Thanks. You understand exactly how i feel about this. Its fun to a point to learn new things since I'm interested in computers and I understand that the knowledge people have makes them valuable for the services of data recovery. I'm in no way stating that data recovery professional should tell me how to do this or anything. But I have spent many hours on this and I know will spend many more. I'm taking it on as a challenge. My frustration is I'm not sure if what I'm trying is failing because the disk will not permit the scan to be done OR if i'm just doing it wrong. I've learned from other computer tasks that you have to do things in a specific way or they won't work, so I just want to be sure that the mhdd scan is failing because the drive won't let it and not because I'm just doing it wrong. While I don't really understand the concept of iso images and boot discs I think I will do some reading and give it a try. Since I already have reinstalled my OS on a new hard drive in my notebook I guess I will just remove the hard drives from the PC I'm using and make this notebook the primary hard drive so I don't accidently damage the good hard drives in the computer. Does that sound right? Then once I've figured out how to make the iso on the disc just boot the computer from the cd using the F2 key and see if I can get it to work. In the mean time I will check the Bios and see how it recognizes the hard drive and post the results. Thanks to everyone for their help. I truly appreciate your expertise and I will "pay it forward".

[cgallery]

My frustration is I'm not sure if what I'm trying is failing because the disk will not permit the scan to be done OR if i'm just doing it wrong.

Just get a known-good disk and use MHDD to scan it. Once you see it working, you know what to expect. Then try the problem drive and see what changes.

[rchadwick]

Ditto.

[pepe]

since I never dared to run MHDD in a DOS session, I cannot be 100% sure, so I say for 99 it won't work because windows blocks all IO operations.
U can download the MHDD ISO image and burn it onto a CD, then boot from that. Attach the defective drive as Secondary Master!
then try to access the drive and post logs, screenshots here.
Trying MHDD with a known good drive is a good idea to exclude any other problems.

pepe

[DPT]

Thanks for all the great advice. I really appreciate it. I will try to scan a known good drive to see the results. Hopefully I won't destroy it. I have to read about burning iso images and such to figure out the boot disc stuff, but I will try and see if I can get some results. I'll get back to you with results. I'm also busy trying to reconfigure the laptop that was destroyed. There were alot of settings that I can't remember how I had configured. What a headache. I will never fail to backup regularly again. Thanks so much for taking time to help me.

[DPT]

well I plugged the bad drive in the secondary master again and booted into the bios. It is recognized as my secondary master with the correct model number it says CHS capacity 8422 MB, and maximum LBA capacity 60011 MB. it is a 60gb 2.5 laptop drive. So my question is this. Once I have the iso of mhdd on a disc and boot from my cd plugged into the primary ide channell and the bad drive plugged into the secondary ide channel then I run the scan command right? Where will the results be written too? How can it be saved anywhere if there are no other drives attached?

[DPT]

ok. i managed to learn how to download an isorecorder and copy the iso of mhdd to a disk. (took three tries, I know you all are laughing) Attached bad drive to secondary channel and the cd drive to primary channel and booted from cd (which I also had to learn how to do). Got into program, it recognized drive with correct model number, serial number, and also reported LBA 117, 210, 240. Bios 80H. cache 7877K size 57231 MB

Init Drive done
Building Binary log advlog.bin
Not enough disc space to create log
Have 1,853,440 need 7,419,904

What do I do now?

[Nationwide DR]

you don't need a log. use your memory for scan results. Load MHDD select correct port. type ID then ENTER, type SCAN then Enter. Then CTRL ENTER. If this does not work, type Fu*K then ENTER. MHDD will tell you what it thinks.