Harddrive Crash :'(

[Masa-Buster]

The harddrive on my main computer which is my laptop, somehow got hit at some point causing the impact sensor to go off, at least that's what I think it is. When I turn it on, it beeps about 5 or 6 times, and when i go into the BIOS it doesn't recognize the harddrive at all. Just wondering if there's a way to get my data back or i should just buy a new harddrive and just get everything back.

Thoughts ?

[hotdog963al]

I'd take the disk out of the laptop and plug it directly into a desktop PC via SATA, then put it to my ear and listen for clicking noises.

I don't recommend trying it, but my brother's Xbox 360 HDD got kicked down some wooden stairs once and it was clicking. After deciding it was pretty much a gonner anyway, I held it upside down, opened it up, and with a screwdriver, flicked the heads back into their default retracted position. Managed to recover everything except for whatever was on the impact damaged sector!

If you can get it to mount on another PC, but the filesystem is nuked, you can use GetDataBack to scour the disk for files and recover them. It's saved my bacon a few times: http://www.runtime.org/data-recovery-software.htm

Also: Back-up in future!

[Hellbringer616]

As Hotdog said, can you hear ticking from the drive? If it's ticking then it's pretty much a goner, You COULD do what Hotdog said and take it apart, However, if ONE SINGLE SPEC of dust gets in there, it can ruin the drive. (though if it's ruined then i suppose there is no worries eh?)

Have you tried to pull it out and reseat it? If the laptop was dropped maybe the drive pulled loose, not as common with todays laptops, But 05 and back it can happen.

If you have a SATA drive and pull it out and connect it to a new PC, can the other PC read it? could be the impact damaged the motherboard, not the drive.

And again to quote Hotdog, if it's something you can't live without, BACK IT UP. hard drive failure is a real thing people don't think about.

[Masa-Buster]

No clicking just beeping from the speakers, i'll look around for a SATA I should have one that i used like 2 years ago put it into a box, and i've reseated it and used my uncle's HDD to check if maybe the pins got busted or something just in case and it works fine. I'll try the SATA idea tomorrow night :3

[Hellbringer616]

Wouldn't be from the speakers, it would be from the device its self.
If there are pins on the drive its an ide drive. You'd need a special cable to use that in a normal pc.

[nfitc1]

You could get an external HDD enclosure. That way you could connect whichever type you have to a USB or 1394 port. You can get some pretty cheap from Newegg. Stay away from the macally PHR-250A though. I had one of those for a long time, but I never got it to work in Win7. The specs say it should work, but Win7 has no driver for the controller chip in the enclosure. At least, it didn't a year ago.