OT - My harddrive update + question
For those of you who remember, I had a hard drive that gave out on me a few weeks back. I finally got a chance to take a look at it, and I think I may be in luck.
Specifically, I first tried hooking it up as a external USB drive using a hard drive enclosure I picked up at Best Buy.
(Note to anyone who's in a similar position - make sure you figure out if you're dealing with a PATA/EIDE drive, which is the "old" connection that I was used to, or the newer SATA drive. I didn't even know the distinction and thus had to make two trips to Best Buy).
That didn't work, as it thought the drive was unformatted and couldn't read it. So I tried to move to the second step - connecting it as a slave. Unfortunately, I only have a single desktop at my disposal, and it uses SATA. Thus, I couldn't even slave my old hard drive to it.
Luckily, GetDataBack can be performed over the USB port, too. It just takes much longer. So, I downloaded the software, and left it running for about 24 hours. One problem I had with the software is that it gives a pop-up message when it encounters an error, but doesn't continue working until you click "IGNORE." So, in other words, I had to check up on the software constantly.
When it finally finished, I was able to view the majority of my files. GetDataBack let's you preview your files before purchasing the software key. I found that to be awesome - I'm glad to pay the $80 after seeing that a lot of my files were recovered.
And, I have a question for anyone that's got some experience with this. In addition to my files, I had a program on that hard drive to which I no longer have the CD + Key. Is there any way to find the license key through GetDataBack? Or a different approach? The program is an expensive one, though I no longer use it for work and thus could live without it...
December 23rd, 2009 at 2:16 PM ^
but if it's been around for any amount of time, and if its a fairly popular program, then there's probably a keygenerator somewhere on the information superhighway by now.
December 23rd, 2009 at 3:59 PM ^
Not because I have ethics or anything, but because I always end up with tons of spyware and trojans when I go looking for keygens.
December 23rd, 2009 at 2:18 PM ^
I would probably see if the registry was completely recovered and go snooping around in that for the key.
December 23rd, 2009 at 2:20 PM ^
This post is way above me, but my only advice would be to search forums to find a valid key or somehow find a crack for it.
December 23rd, 2009 at 2:59 PM ^
I don't know if this will work or not, but if you registered your program, the manufacturer may be able to help you with that. It worked for me with Norton (or McAfee, can't remember which one it was).
December 23rd, 2009 at 3:14 PM ^
Is your corrupt drive good enough to create a disk image? (If you can get files off it, it may well be). If so, I would recommend trying to make an image of the old drive using a program like Casper or Macrium Reflect (both with a free trial period good enough for a one-off image creation). You can then restore the image to your new HDD and boot from there (and maybe fix corrupt sectors with chkdisk /f). Restoring the image means you wouldn't have to reinstall your software, etc.
December 23rd, 2009 at 3:57 PM ^
I was able to get a ton of data back, but the files are, in some cases, disorganized and unnamed. But I've tons and tons of files off of it already.
I would like to try to create an image and then load that onto a new hard drive. I'll try out one of those free programs you suggested.
QUESTION! I would need to purchase a new hard drive to load this image onto. I don't want to purchase one unless I am fairly confident that the HD image will work. How can I assess my chances?
December 23rd, 2009 at 3:46 PM ^
the best data recovery software i have used is called "recuva"... from the same ppl who make ccleaner. Their defragger is also pretty darn good, "defraggler".
Best of all, its free. Which is about the only price I am willing to pay for software
December 23rd, 2009 at 5:45 PM ^
Another possible way to recover files would be to boot off a Linux live CD (you'd have to go into your BIOS at startup and change it to boot from CD/DVD drive before HD). You might be able to see files on the HD and copy them.
December 23rd, 2009 at 5:48 PM ^
I think (emphasize uncertainty) that if you can create the image - that is, the aforementioned programs don't report a fatal error while creating the image - it will be functional when restored to the new drive.
It is possible that when you first boot from the new image, it will have errors that will require you to have the OS installation disk handy for repairs. ("Repair" is usually an option when you boot from an OS install disk).
Maybe you have an old computer lying around that you can steal an HDD from for testing purposes? Your reluctance to purchase a new drive is justified, as there is no guarantee it will work.
December 23rd, 2009 at 7:05 PM ^
After recovering all my important files and creating a HD image, I might just use the busted HD and see if it can still get the image on it. If the busted HD can still run (and I don't think it had any physical damages) then it stands to reason that the same image would run on a new HD. Does that make sense?
December 23rd, 2009 at 8:02 PM ^
Bull,
Try to contact the maker of the software. Let them know the situation. Hopefully you had to register it when you installed. They are usually pretty helpful. You can recover the key in the registry with the proper software. I think I mentioned FTK by Access Data. Like I said before it will do the first 5,000 files as a demo. I use the full (very expensive) version every day and recover passwords ect. I have seen the software keys in the registry as well. If you do replace the hdd I prefer Seagate myself. If I were you, I would contact the maker of your software first. If you try to copy paste the old software files to the new hdd it will not work. Good luck and Merry Christmas. Also, you can get a new IDE hdd pretty cheap these days. Sounds like you have at least bad sectors and if they are in the boot area no good. Hard drives are not made like they used to be. If my lab gets a shipment of 50 I bet 3 are shit right out of the box.
December 23rd, 2009 at 10:00 PM ^
Thanks for your tips, Redwing. I did in fact just purchase a 500GB Seagate external back up drive. I would like your opinion on my plan to backup my data:
I have a 500GB desktop and a 40GB notebook that will need to be backed up. Between them, I'd say there's about 20-30GBs of data that absolutely needs to be backed up. Anything on top of that is gravy.
My plan is to create a virtual drive on the 500GB desktop. This drive will be accessible through the network, and thus the 40GB notebook will save all its important data to that network drive. Then, the external Seagate (connected to the desktop) will regularly back up the files on that network drive.
Is that a good approach, or is it better to create images of the harddrives? I have little experience using HD images, so I don't know how long they take to make, and how much space they require (is it even possible to fit images of the 500GB and the 40GB on a 500GB drive?)
Thanks again!