I use GetDataBack for this and it works well
Thanks for the tips. I was not sure if I could still make a usb with boot files work or not, I will give that a try first. I have tried on SW avenue already, so my confidence is lower there, but I may try another or two of those suggested as well.
As far as chkdsk goes, I have used that successfully in the past when I had a different problem with a hard drive, so that was one of my early go to efforts. perhaps in error, we will see.
Every try to power up that drive is killing it. Only way to recover data is send it to recovery data centre since it is mechanical failure.
Mike
I would personally try putting Ubuntu live on a USB drive, and then retrieve the data from there.
@sbslider, I had the exact same problem as you, and by doing the method above, I was able to get all of the important data back.
Chances are you did even more damage to the drive by running chkdsk for several days or running recovery software.
I recommend backing your data up on external drives and in the cloud. I know it’s probably too late for you now, but I would think about in the future.
+1 Always
That’s what I did with a friend’s laptop. Only needed a single directory-tree of pix, and I managed to get most of them, albeit slowly. Everything else was expendable. 
The cloud is always a great idea since any backups stored in the same location as the PC are both likely to be taken out at the same time in the event of a fire, etc. I use Google Drive for my cloud backups but I always zip and encrypt the files I store there. Since disk drives are cheap now I also clone my hard drives periodically and physically store them elsewhere.
If you are really desperate, you can give these guys a try. I did, but unfortunately my drive (actually my friends drive) was too far gone. All it cost me was shipping to them. They sent it back.
Everything I backup on google drive is via a Mac encrypted image. I trust Google as far as I can throw them. Other than that, I use Carbon Copy to back everything up on external drives once a week.
Decide the value of the contents in terms of time and money. If the data isn’t easily replaceable and you want it;
Use a professional recovery service, costs the most, most reliable.
DIY I would start by buying a couple external cases and a good larger sized drive to put stuff on. Google the brand and specific model of the drive with a keyword like recovery or fail etc and see if others have had a similar problem. I did this with a Seagate drive and found that it was a common failure and Seagate would do the recovery free.
Consider buying one of the pro recovery products, I think I used Seagate recovery or rescue, something like that.
Okay, here’s what I do… mostly. Yeah, yeah, sometimes I fall behind.
Anything I have on a peecee that I don’t want to potentially evaporate into the æther in case the drive takes a dump, or Windows starts acting as the malware it really is, I stick onto an external usb drive, as my first line of defense.
After “cleaning” the data (renaming consistently, getting rid of crapfiles, etc.), I’ll dump the contents to a NAS.
You can have 2 wifi routers, one for everyday browsing and connecting your “in-house network” to wifi and the outside world, etc., and another for data-only use. NASes connected to that 2nd router, keep them and the router powered up only when you want to put/get something to that 2nd network. Saves wear’n’tear while you work the usb drives in the interim.
Don’t broadcast its SSID if you don’t want it advertised to every yayhoo in range, make it wired-access-only if you want, whatever. Disable wifi access. However secure you want to make it.
If you don’t mind spending the bux, mirror each NAS with another NAS, to be kept offsite. Every now and again, hook it up and sync up master/slave NASes. RAID is nice in case one drive in an array takes a dump, but if the whole NAS gets fried at once (lightning strike, fire, whatever), you’re SOL.
That’s also a good time to take inventory of everything you got: pix, movies, music, saved webpages, whatever. Just take a recursive directory listing into a text file at least, so you can search through it, even when nothing’s hooked up.
Basically, whatever system you want, whether basic or elaborate, is better’n just leaving all your crap on a peecee which’d croke and take alllllllll your precious goodies with it.
You can try buying a used hard drive exactly like the one you have off ebay or wherever you can find one. Find the sticker on the drive that has the model number. Do a search and find a used working drive. Take both drives apart and place your data disk into the new(used) drive. If the data is still there it should work like new. If it will not boot because of corrupt data, Plug it into a computer that will except 2 drives and pull the data off to the working computer drive. The working computer will see it as just a drive like plugging in a usb stick.
The data if not corrupt is still on the disk, you just need to read it. This is exactly how the pro’s recovery data when the drives destroyed (Not the disk) or quits working. When the drive motor or other parts fail the drive quits working but every single piece of data is still on the disk. Replace the motor or bad parts and the drive is perfectly fine. That’s the reason I suggested finding a used working drive exactly like yours and exchange the disk out. If you don’t feel comfortable doing this take it to a professional and let them switch the disk out. It should all still be there you just need to read it.
My 2 cents.
Yep, but the freezer is faster.
Little Bro’s 2004 VAIO started crapping out on him some years back. It was the HD going and I put it in the freezer for 10, 15, 20 minutes and after a few attempts, got it working enough to snatch all of his family pictures off of it, which I burned to a CD-ROM off the same laptop.
He said I could have it, since he was buying another one.
Bought the HD off of Ebay and things were good for a few years, but it’s slow as molasses now and ready for the dumpster.
Chris
Hello, I have had such an HDD problem, Acronis® True Image ™ WD Edition helped me a lot, it is important to have a WD HDD connected to the motherboard, for Acronis® True Image ™ WD Edition to work properly. The HDD cloning is very fast with the program, the target HDD should be bigger than the source Hdd.
I had a 240GB HDD cloned to a new HDD in 10 minutes with the Acronis® True Image ™ WD Edition.
If the HDD gets too hot, ice spray can do a good job, but little use of the spray and permanently checking the HDD temperature with a laser thermometer will then cool the HDD above 50 degrees Celsius (122 ° F) with the ice spray, but only for a short time Spray intervals and spray only the metal sides, not the electronic components.
Well, if your hard drive is giving such a high noise it means it can die anytime. I advise you to take a complete backup of your valuable data to avoid data loss.
For ‘I am guessing the only way to get the data is to send the drive to someone and pony up some $’, it could be expensive for anyone as Data Recovery Company charge more for Services as compared to Data Recovery Software.
In your case for data recovery, I advise you to go for Stellar Data Recovery for Windows. It will help you in retrieving your lost or deleted data.
For your convenience, I can share a product link with you: https://www.stellarinfo.com/windows-data-recovery-professional.php
Go through this page and analyse it before purchasing the tool.
Hope it will also work for you.
Good Luck!
Repeating my previous advice, google the brand and exact model number with either fail or recover etc as a keyword and see what is suggested for your specific drive. Some respond to time in the freezer, some work with a board swap from a known good same model drive, some don’t as the boards encrypt data on the platters unique to some code on the each board. Given a choice recovery software from the drive manufacturer may work best.
Note, “most” recovery software will create something of a mess of files that will take some manual sorting out as fragments of deleted or moved files will be recovered along with “good” files and things may lose there folder hierarchy and be in one big folder.
Or you may throw a tweet at him on @powellstellar
You (we) may(be) even get a BLF discount :innocent:
Boot ubuntu into a usb drive and install a program called testdisk. It worked awesome for me even when windows couldnt see the drive at all. Good luck