My PC Doesn’t See My Hard Drive - bakerlond1951

When Wendell tries to boot his Microcomputer, an erroneous belief message announces a phonograph record study error. It's as if his hard force–with three year's meriting of put to work on that–doesn't live.

You could alright have a dead disk drive–or at any rate a very damaged one. Replacing the drive itself is relatively easy, although the current hard drive famine volition raise the cost.

Since I fishy you don't let a backup, recovering the data will equal the indulgent region. Backing up is like flossing–everyone knows they should roll in the hay just a couple of actually bother. And eventually you pay for that oversight.

Only let's see what we can do.

Try booting from a Parted Magic CD or flash ram and see if you can access your files through that. Parted Legerdemain is a live in Linux edition that comes with a tight drive diagnostic program–something that you May see useful. You download Compound Magic in the human body of an .iso file. If you double-click an .iso file, it will expected launching a broadcast that bequeath walk of life you through the process of turning the table of contents of that file into a CD (plainly copying the file to a CD won't piece of work). If such a program doesn't number up, download and install the ISO Recorder for Windows XP and Server 2003 or ISO Recorder for Vista and Windows 7. Then double-clink the .iso file once again.

See The Bootable Maintenance Ostentation Thrust for instructions on putting Parted Magic on a flash drive.

If you sack access the files while spouting PartedMagic, you can easy drag them to an external hard drive blocked into unity of your USB ports.

And if you can't, try Parted Magic's drive diagnostic program, Disk Wellness.

If that doesn't aid, you'll have to buy the farm on to the next step: Removing the hard drive from the computer and attaching it to another computer as a secondary drive (non the one you boot from). You can do this by either installing it as a sec driving force in a desktop PC, or aside using a SATA-USB adapter (they cost about $20) to turn IT into a temporary USB external drive. You'll then cost able-bodied to plug it into unmatched of the other computer's USB ports.

Once it's attached to the otherwise computer, catch if you can access the files. If you can, copy them to another drive.

Your last option is to send the ride to a data retrieval company. The two best-known are Kroll Ontrack and DriveSavers Information Recovery. Does that make them the go-to-meeting choices? Not inevitably. I know of no hardheaded way to test these services, so I can't say that they're whatever wagerer than their lesser-known and less-expensive competitors.

These services are very dearly-won. A successful recovery (and there's atomic number 102 guarantee of success) will cost you hundreds or evening thousands of dollars. Merely frankly, that's the cost of not backing up.

Conducive Editor Lincoln Spector writes about technology and cinema. Email your tech questions to him at answer@pcworld.com , or mail them to a residential area of helpful folk on the PCW Answer Line forum . Follow Lincoln on Twitter , or subscribe to the Answer Line newsletter , e-mailed hebdomadally.