Background:

Out of nowhere I began to be hit with CRC errors using vmware in Windows 7 resulting in a BSOD about 10 minutes later. Following the BSOD Windows 7 would hang on booting. HDD is recognised by computer as a slave but gives i/o errors when attempting to access any partitions. Windows XP takes an age to load when drive is attached and will crash if attempting to hot swap. Did some research and discovered the FW problem so updated the FW on the drive to SD1A but the problems still remained and now there were SMART errors.

Quick scan using HDD tune and getdataback reports that every block is damaged (using a USB caddy). HDD tune does not even seem capable of retrieving health info. There is nothing unusual about the noise from the HDD and it appears to be spinning up fine.

When I first tried using a usb caddy I was able to access folders and files within 3/4 of my partitions for about 5 minutes but was unable to transfer them. I got round this by using teracopy to attempt to transfer a number of files all of which failed then I restarted the caddy and clicked copy while the HDD loaded which worked at copying the files which aren't even corrupted. I now cannot access the folders to do this and was unable to access my back up partition at all with all my key data on however it does appear that the data itself seems ok.

This unfortunately does not appear to be a BSY or LBA issue but what I would guess is a head failure. Can anybody offer me any advice in regards to next steps in terms of DR? Would it be possible to clone the drive in non-windows environment? I doubt I can afford pro-DR fees as I only finished Uni a few months ago but what kind of costs for DR would I be looking?

I'm not asking to be spoonfed but if anybody has seen this issue before and has a DR solution, could you point me in the right direction?

Sidenote: I am possibly the most unlucky person when it comes to backing up. I usually back everything up but another of my hard drives started to fail a few weeks ago so I sent it off for replacement. I had got it back and intended to reinstall it the same day this one decided to fail without any warning. I had also borrowed my partners usb stick with all her work for the last year on it to transfer some large files and backed it up on this drive, within 10 minutes (literally) of backing it up the drive went kaput. Tried recovering the data from USB stick but most of it is lost. I am a very popular individual.

Cheers.

your only option is to use pro services. If the heads are not completely shot, the disk can be cloned using specialist hardware/software. This equipment is more expensive than pro services. Based on your description of the problem I would guess the fee's would be £150 - £500. It's time to start saving and apply for a credit card, parting with money is the only way you will get your data back.

Contact PCIMAGE on this forum, he is in the UK and will be able to help you.