Any assistance or Direction is appriciated!

Laptop 1 HP DV6440
Laptop 2 HP DV9000
Hard Drive: Fugitsu M#MHW2160BH 140G
OS: Vista on all
Data to be recovered: Office doc's, excel, word, outlook .pst & Pictures

Issue: Laptop 1 drive fail; Error msg - Unable to read disc_
Cause: Unknown
Situation; Working fine, on table. Froze - Hot booted - Never worked again...
Hp delivered a new drive. Removed old, installed and configured new drive in Laptop 1 all's well. End of Laptop 1

Now: Old drive in hand - All family pics locked inside! No backup. (Yes, it'll never happen again)
~What's been done?
1st) We took it to a few locals (geek squad, tiger etc.) They could not see the drive when hooked up to their system.

2nd) Local IT resources; I have a DV9000 Laptop 2 with two slots for HDD. The old drive was inserted into slot two and the machine scrolled trough the files on the disc then through some wizard created a partition for the second drive.

3rd) tried to run the disc test and there was an immediate fail.

_Removed Disc from machine in fear:

Any suggestions on how to proceed? Once exhausted we will pay a service if need be. I just hate to loose control.

Hello,

This drive have some serious problem.
But i can not determine wich is it exactly.
Anyway, the unskilled testing, and any attempt to more precise determine the problem, can cause more, bigger problems.

So, i suggest, if your data is really important, try to find a really pro, and pay for the service....
This is the best and safe way.

If you choose another way, and you want to put your data into more risk, try to find the answer for the BIOS can find the bad drive?
The OS can see the partition on the disk manager?

WARNING! Any attempt to spin up the drive with possible surface damage, will dramatically decrease the chance of successfully recover!

Where are you based?

Regards,
Janos

Hello Janos,

We're in Chicago, IL. US.

Q/A Yes- BIOS can find the bad drive and the OS can see the partition on the disk manager. However, when the drive is tested in the BIOS it fails immediatly.

there may be head stuck.. or media surface error, or bad sector , anything could be, not possible to say exactly without assessment directly.

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The OS can see the partition.
The head stuck is closed out.
But anyway, all can be excluding the head stuck.

Regards,
Janos

sorry to say, head stuck, i meant that surface error at the starting may be.

_________________
__________
There is no substitute for education and experience
THANK YOU
SHAHI
shahi.mahbub@gmail.com

Yes, We feel it would be a bad sector in the start of the drive - Is there anyway to move past this sector? I/We don't feel it's phisical error or "damaged" disc but more of a directory or path error. Are there any other testing choices, options or procedures from within Vista or the BIOS or perhaps running it through another OS we can try prior to shipping this out?

My guess is surface error. I wouldn't trust a diagnosis by GS. Drive could be locked by BIOS PW. I'm not sure what test is failing in the BIOS, but it might just be a SMART test, which will be pretty much immediate, and can fail, even if the drive somewhat works. Advice:

1) Don't keep the drive on more than required.
2) Image the drive to another drive.
3) Once imaged, you may just be able to read the data fine.

If you can't image it with free tools, you may need more expensive tools, and you may be better off sending it to someone.

Hi Familyguy,
I would think your drive are about to give up, and the error you get in Bios during Hddtest are probably the S.M.A.R.T reporting errors and stops...to prevent it to getting worse.

Go out and buy a adapter for your laptop drive (2.5" to 3.5") and hook up it to a Pc and run a program called "Get Data Back" Demo are avaiable here: http://www.runtime.org/ be sure to download the right program....there are for FAT and NTFS.

Or even better ask one of the Locals you've been in touch with erlier and ask them to do a sector by sector image....and you can play with that one instead...more safe.

Best Wishes

Bosse

rchadwick.... you beat me this time, but only for a sec or two

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Thank you both..

I'm having your post's reviewed by someone a little more intune than myself. Again. I can't say enough how much we appriciate your input.

Shawn

Ok, The curiousity was - when the drive is installed in the HP DV9000 (In the secondary hard drive slot) a directory was created with Program files (empty). By the wizzard. It shows up however, it's not spinning. I'm guessing this is because the BIOS is not telling it to spin. I.e. nothing is being written or taken from it, so it has no reason to spin. The drive, when installed shows up as a patitioned (F) drive with empty system folders.

Yes - When tested via BIOS it fails Immediately. (SMART). I'll look into your link now...Thank you again.

I wote for surface problems, and the BIOS reports only the "RAW READ ERROR RATE" (SMART value).

I haved one case before, when the customer sad, he really cared about the laptop, used like an egg.
But after i open the drive, i can see two sharp lines on the top platter's upper side.

This is because the customer strongly hold the notebook with one hand, and pushed the bottom lid and with it, the hdd's upper lid to the surface.

It is hard to say exactly, it is not damaged....

If you have surface damage, the imaging process maybe will kill your drive, and your chance.

Regards,
Janos

If the drive is not spinning, the "head stuck" option is comes up again!
Are you sure?

Janos

@ Familyguy

I have one relatively safe idea!

Try to find a program, wich can read out the SMART table for as!
This requires a really little up time from the hdd, and can show me some light about the problem....

Regards,
Janos

Sure, No, I'm not sure. It was spinning when the files were cycling through in a .dir format while the new directory was created. Would it spin as a secondary/slave drive when not being accessed?

It depends on the BIOS / OS settings.
Both can happens.

But i suggest to don't try to write anything to the patient drive, because you will destroy the chance with it!

Janos

Thank you all for your advice. I think I'm done...I'll reserch 3rd. party options over the weekend and figure out where I'm sending this. too valuable to mess with.

Again, I appriciate your assistance and direction. I will likley attept to locate a local vendor to Chicago, IL. US prior to shipping out of state/country. I'll write back withe results.

Again, Thank you.

Shawn