My Western Digital External Hard Drive recently stopped working and started giving a clicking noise. Western Digital says that I need to send it to an authorized data recovery center for the warranty to not be void. However, I am in Sri Lanka and have no method of sending the drive.  It gets recognized by Windows Disk Manger (partially). The first time, it asked me to create a partition table, with MBP or GUID as the options (or something to that extent). Once I select OK, it gives me an error telling that an I/O error occurred. I could not get a screenshot. When I try to recreate the error, it doesn't appear. Now it just shows that it is an Unknown and Uninitialized Drive.  My question is this: Is there any way to recover the data by using something like a magnetic reader on top of the drive so that it doesn't need to be opened, which would void the warranty.  I backed-up my data to the cloud storage provider, Box, using Box Sync and a symbolic link, but when the drive stopped working Box Sync automatically deleted the files half way before I could stop it. Is there any way to recover this data?  According to an answer at  , the problem might be related to "The actuator arm (or whatever controls it).  I appreciate any help ASAP on solving this problem.
123725
I have an HP server with a two-year-old 174 GB hard disk. Suddenly, the server cannot boot from hard disk. The drive makes noises (tic tic tic) and the server says the hard drive should be replaced.  I opened the front cover of the server and noticed the red LED of the hard disk is illuminated.  That hard disk holds very important data. Is there any way to recover the data from it?
28835
What is the best way to access a laptop's hard drive to recover data (assuming there is still intact data) when the OS (Windows XP) won't boot?  EDIT: I've tried booting from a disc, but that failed as well.
73241
I cloned a non Advanced Format drive (W7 64bit) to a new hard drive (Seagate) that was AF, the software I used supposedly does not support 4k very well (Todo Backup Free 3.5).   Is there a Windows utility to check alignment? I know of the Western Digital tool but not sure if it works on Seagate brand drives. If the partitions are not aligned, Am I better to clean install W7 64bit or do the partition alignment procedure? If so, Why?   It seems to be running fine so far. From what I have read Seagate drives use  technology to help with misaligned partitions on the fly, might explain why it runs well for me, but would still like to have the partitions aligned properly.  EDIT: Here is the diskpart output for my disk partitions  DISKPART&gt; list partition    Partition ###  Type              Size     Offset   -------------  ----------------  -------  -------   Partition 1    Primary            188 MB    31 KB    Partition 2    Primary            698 GB   188 MB
69965
A few days ago I was in a middle of copying or cutting folders and data to my external hard drive and it was corrupted.  I have tried to locate the lost information on Test Disk but I have now lost it because it has already been over written. The file is 0. 0. copy and completed.  I have now only have the image.dd file. How can I restore this to it's normal folders and files without losing the names? Many thanks.
25152
I have an NTFS formatted USB Hard drive that has my personal files backup. Today I mounted the drive to an Oracle Linux system and copied a regular file using the below command (please see below commands). By mistake I used the device file /dev/sdb1 during copy.  mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sdb1 /sample cp file1 /dev/sdb1   After this I unmounted the drive and connected to Windows system. Now Windows system complains that the drive need to be formatted and/or corrupted.  My question is: can we recover this drive without losing any personal data? How can I view the files available on this drive? Just mounting back to Linux system will show the files?
38182
I've experienced some freaky data loss in Windows 7 &amp; tried to recover the files. (.) The work data is safe but I also decided to copy everything missing back into Windows directory &amp; rebooted thinking that the recovery mode would be a better option for rolling back to a restore point. Shockingly, the only options System Restore gave me were from November 2010 (2.5 years old) despite many updates &amp; installs since. I thought that only the dates were corrupted but when I scanned for software to be affected by the roll-back, the list included everything installed since then. On top of that, something got screwed up in the OS and I can't boot even into Safe Mode - the system BSODs supposedly on compbatt.sys (which I've already tried to copy from the original distro).  Since I have many settings not saved, I don't want to perform a clean install of the OS. The problem is that the install disc keeps on telling me that upgrade can be performed only from the fully-booted system and not from the recovery mode. This is very annoying because all previous versions of Windows could be upgraded from DOS or PE.  Thus, the question is: how can I fix my OS without formatting the drive if it's not bootable &amp; System Restore is broken?
81018
I have "zero filled" (complete wiped) an external hard disk using dd, and from what I have heard: people said you should at least "zero fill" 3 times to be sure that the data are really wiped and no one can recover anything.  So I decided to scan the disk once again after I've zero filled the disk. I was expecting the disk to still have some random binary left. It turned out that it has only a few sequential bytes in the very beginning. This is probably the file structure type and other headers stuff. Other than that, it's all zeros and nothing else.  So if we have to recover any file from a zero filled disk, ...how? From what I've heard, even you zero fill the disk, you should still have some data left. ...or could dd really completely annihilate all data?
50145
I've searched through several questions but didn't quite find anyone treating mine.  So, I have a 1TB external hard drive I use for backup purposes with only 1 NTFS partition. Today using DiskPart I formated that partition by mistake (who would have thought the disc count started in 0 and not in 1). The complete command I used was:  format recommended override quick label=Windows   So I performed a quick format, and from which I've read after a quick format it's possible to recover the data stored there. Anyway, as soon as I realized it wasn't the partition I wanted to format the one I specified I removed the access to my external drive to minimize possible damages.  Now, the MFT is the metadata part where the file name, creation date, access permissions and contents are registered; and it's mirrored too (so there's a copy of it somewhere in the disk). What I don't know is if a quick format erases that MFT mirror too, I hope not.  I'm running a program to recover files on it but I'll have to save the files to another location (once it's finished scanning, ~12 hours from now) and I don't quite have over 900GB of free storage where to put the data.  I would like to know if there's a program or procedure by which I could restore the old MFT in-place and have all the data that used to be in there accessible once again.  Any help or light you could shed on how to proceed or what programs to use is really appreciated.
92544
I have opened Disks program today and noticed that there is FAILING in the Assessment column for the SMART status.     What does this error mean? Is it serious problem?  I have Lenovo G50-45 laptop, disk is SEAGATE ST1000LM014-SSHD-8GB(LVD3) 1TB SSHD with 8GB NAND Flash (original disk in this latop).  Update 2017-09-24:  The disk has died yesterday. 1 year and 3 months have passed since 1st hint of problem. About 4 months ago I had few issues with it not booting, but I was able to make another clean install. Since yesterday the disk is non-responsive. As this was long expected I had backup of all important data.(!) The disk was about 2 years old, so that was quite premature death.
52398
I am trying to recover data from a bad Seagate 1TB hard drive in a 2010 iMac. One day the iMac wouldn't boot (stuck at gray screen on startup). I removed the hard drive from the iMac and connected it to a MacBook using a 3.5" HDD to USB adapter. The hard drive wouldn't mount but it did display in Disk Utility that that there were 2 partitions on the disk. I tried to run Disk Warrior and it showed thousands of errors but still wouldn't mount. At this time the hard drive only show one partition in Disk Utility. Next I tried putting the hard drive in a desktop PC and running Spin Rite - which then gave me several division overflow errors (even with running Spin Rite with a newer version of DOS). The SMART status on the drive reports that the drive has had failures and HD Tune referenced the drive had once hit 59 degrees celsius. Disk Utility gives me the following message when running a pair: Error: Disk Utility can’t repair this disk. Back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your backed-up files.  Overall, the hard drive spins up and sounds OK - there are no clicking noises but the hard drive won't mount and displays as a light gray "Macintosh HD" in disk utility. Any tips or advice on how to recover data on this drive would be greatly appreciated! Are there any other tools I can try before calling it quits on this drive?
95645
I have a blank hard drive. I also have a Windows 7 system image backed up on an external hard drive. I don't have a system repair disk (SRD) and also don't have Windows 7 disk. I only have the recovery disks that came with my laptop. There is no option in the recovery disk to restore from a system image. So, I am forced to use the old stuff in the recovery disk.   I have few questions:    Can I restore my system from an image on a USB based HDD, without any SRD? Can I create an SRD in a windows 8 system for a windows 7 system? I know this might sound strange, but what if an SRD is just a collection of backup utilities? If no microsoft based answer is there, then is there any commercial software which can do this instead?   I don't even have access to an original Windows 7 disk right now. So, that option is ruled out too.
16083
what exactly happened:  I have a Seagate 1 TB external hard disk.It was working fine till now.The problem started when I plugged it in my android phone and then back in my pc then simply it does not showup anywhere and :  It does not appear in file explorer   It does not appear in disk management   It is not listed in Diskpart command   It only appears in Device Manager under disk drives   It does not appear in BIOS  only makes sound when plugged and unplugged.  disk spins and light is also showing.   . What I already tried:   updated usb drivers.  used new cable also.  plugged in another pc  usb mass storage is also enabled in BIOS  no issue in any usb port  Anything else i can do?
71372
I'm too spoiled by Windows utilities that take a digital snapshot of your entire drive, which you can then restore from in the event of a drive crash.  (e.g. like Time Machine for Mac OS X).  Is there a similar way of doing this in Linux?
31181
The first 7GB of a 500GB NTFS partiton was accidentally overwritten with another file. Is it possible to recover some of the data in the remaining 493 GB of the NTFS volume? The partition table is intact. The executed command was:  dd if=file of=/dev/sdc1   Thanks  Edit: My question is different. I overwrite first 7GB of NTFS partition. Other question mostly deals with hardware failures or bad sectors.
116859
Recently something went wrong with my external WD passport. It is not accesible anymore in Win 7 and the type is now currently RAW. I recovered all the data so formatting it is no issue.  I tried formatting it with windows but it seems to be unable to do so. Does anyone have any suggestions how I am able to get this RAW drive back to NTFS or FAT or whatever.. as long as it works.  Thank you in advance
5708
I had 500GB portable hard drive. it fell from the table and when i joined it was not showing any data and asked me to format it. i did format. Then again it was not functioning properly so i had to quick format it again.  Now i had lots of data in it. Is there any software which can recover my files and folders with same structure as original
24210
I've seen a lot of hard drives with only a few bad (unrecoverable) sectors (as indicated by SMART). Of course the proper thing to do with a bad drive is replace it, as there's a good chance of the drive crashing completely in the near future; I'm aware of that. However, in the interim, or for those who don't want to spend $70 to save data they don't value highly anyway (sigh, non-technical people), or just to get some use out of old hardware instead of throwing it away, I'm wondering if there's a way to identify where the unrecoverable sectors are ("where" meaning numerically, from 0 to the number of sectors on the drive), so I could stick a blank partition in that general area. Yes, this would involve low-level-formatting the drive and reinstalling the OS, of course.  So:  Would partitioning around unrecoverable sectors even be a workable way of reducing the disk of losing data?  If so, is there a way to find the location of these unrecoverable sectors?