How to recover data from a hard drive?

[DannyMan]

My old PC is an all in one HP 22-b013w. Couldn't use it due to the computer repair screen of death and I was pretty much too worried to attempt any recovery at all.

[Murdoch]

I am forever saying to my customers - first rule of tech, never have only one copy of anything you do not want to lose because sooner or later you will lose it. Nothing is invincible, everything fails, and you're not going to get a warning shot. It's just going to go. I have seen brand new high quality flash drives fail in 10 minutes due to manufacturing defects, I have seen original drives from old late 90s beige box desktops working flawlessly. Even when I sell someone a new laptop or desktop, or replace their drive or whatever, no one leaves my store without a fully automatic backup system. Not backing up isn't just tempting fate, it's kicking fate in the nuts and daring it to chase you. If you can't do it manually regularly, look at something like Google Drive. It's dirt cheap, automatic, and off-site.

There's no one size fits all answer to this question, because you haven't really given any specifics, and it's going to depend on what you feel capable and confident doing. The bluescreen could be caused by an issue with the drive. Looking at the machine specs, it's an Atom running 4GB and an older mechanical HD, assuming it's had no work done on it before. My symapthies, the performance must have been painful. Slowing down and eventual failure of such drives is not an if, it's when. Even if it's not the culprit for your BSOD, it's going to be worn out and slow and potentially not far from failure anyway.

 

Data recovery from a mechanical hard drive has better odds of being successful as it's usually areas of intense usage (ie: the OS files) that go bad first. There's two possible routes.

1. If you are capable and confident, take the drive out. It's probably a laptop style 2.5 inch hard drive; all-in-ones from that time period on usually are. You can buy cases online that you can pop the drive in and connect it to a computer like it's an external drive.
2. Get a Linux live USB, boot the computer off that, access the drive, and copy the data to another external storage device.

If you do not feel confident with either option, save it for a qualified tech for assessment. If it is still a mechanical drive, and issues with it are what is causing the BSOD, any misguided activity by you could potentially push the drive to further and potentially catastrophic failure. The rule with any drive that has the slightest question mark over it's stability is the next and only thing that should happen is data recovery.

[ducon]

I saved a Windows PC with recuva (yes, I paid).

[Murdoch]

1 hour ago, ducon said:

I saved a Windows PC with recuva (yes, I paid).

 

Might not be needed. The file areas have a good chance of being intact.

[smeghammer]

https://www.ufsexplorer.com/

 

This saved my arse when a HDD got corrupted. Was not free, but not particularly expensive. As @Murdoch says, you will likely need to put he drive in a caddy/boot from a USB stick.

[DannyMan]

I'm just going to physically remove the hard drive then, it never failed.

[Murdoch]

43 minutes ago, DannyMan said:

I'm just going to physically remove the hard drive then, it never failed.

 

What was the exact bsod?

[DannyMan]

1 hour ago, Murdoch said:

 

What was the exact bsod?

Really sure it's just the automatic repair screen of death, dumbarse me caused it by changing something in the registry

[LoatharMDPhD]

Rossman Repair Group. Austin TX

[LoatharMDPhD]

16 hours ago, Murdoch said:

2. Get a Linux live USB, boot the computer off that, access the drive, and copy the data to another external storage device.
 

// Oh GRUB. why have you failed me again?!?....

[LoatharMDPhD]

 

Edited October 18, 2023 by LoatharMDPhD

[OniriA]

19 minutes ago, LoatharMDPhD said:

Rossman Repair Group. Austin TX

 

I ain't goin' to fly to no Texas for that shit bruh.

 

I'm shure a technically inclined Dutch guy would help me out just fine over where I am.

Edited October 18, 2023 by OniriA

[LoatharMDPhD]

1 minute ago, OniriA said:

 

I ain't goin' to no Texas for that shit bruh.

 

I'm shure a technically inclined Dutch guy would help me out just fine over where I am.

// if only there were a way to take the 2 ounce mouse, put her in an envelope and mail it to texas...

[OniriA]

Ain't no way I'ma pay for that shit.

 

I could get my drive fixed 10 times over for that price I reckon'.

[Murdoch]

29 minutes ago, LoatharMDPhD said:

Horrifying videos

 

Randomly telling people to bust open their hard drives is really catastrophically bad advice. The second it's exposed to the open environment, you risk compromising it. These things are bloody sensitive, and any dust or airborne crap can cause problems. That's why professional recovery outfits use clean rooms. This kind of thing should be the absolutely last ditch, "I can't afford professional data recovery and I really need this data and have explored all other avenues" move, not the first. The other avenues being either copy off via Linux live USB or removing the drive and attaching with a dock/enclosure, or if those options prove the data is corrupted a software based data recovery attempt like Recuva.

 

1 hour ago, DannyMan said:

Really sure it's just the automatic repair screen of death, dumbarse me caused it by changing something in the registry

 

Right, so your data is probably still intact. Have you checked if there's any system restore points you could roll back to? If there's not, you should be able to reinstall Windows 10. Just don't delete the partition. The setup will set aside the old installation and create a new one. Everything will be under a folder called windows.old. You should only do this if you are confident a drive crash wasn't the culprit cause as I said, any activity might further push it towards complete failure.

Even if the drive dying didn't cause this, it's already had quite a lot of usage and probably running like ass. Windows 10 has no business on a mechanical HD anyway; it's much more demanding of drive performance. If I were you, I would grab a fresh SSD, clean install Windows, then copy the files onto the SSD via a dock. An Atom CPU is never going to be good by any stretch, but an SSD will take the edge off the pain. Then set up a good backup system.

[DannyMan]

45 minutes ago, Murdoch said:

Have you checked if there's any system restore points you could roll back to?

I did but it took so long and later failed, so back to square one.

[DannyMan]

I guess all I needed to do is to carefully extract the hard drive from my old PC and then get a SATA adapter.

[Murdoch]

Just now, DannyMan said:

I guess all I needed to do is to carefully extract the hard drive from my old PC and then get a SATA adapter.

 

I really think, especially given the lack of backup and the System Restore failure, that the drive needs to be considered a lost cause. So yeah, get an SSD in there, clean install, and copy your data across. Do nothing else to the old drive to try and limit potential further damage.

[Flytrap]

2 hours ago, LoatharMDPhD said:

 

If you're asking people how to get data off your drive dont EVER open it up!

Trust me on this, do NOT! This is for experts only, if you need to ask someone how to do it, stay outside of it, and leave the inside alone.

As for data recovery, either send it to experts, like Rossmann's, or drive savers, or, boot into an OS on a different drive, a live flashdrive, whatever, and try to copy the data to another drive and then verify if your data is actually intact. Look at it, are the pictures corrupted, do your games launch? That kinda thing.

[Flytrap]

11 hours ago, DannyMan said:

I guess all I needed to do is to carefully extract the hard drive from my old PC and then get a SATA adapter.

 

11 hours ago, Murdoch said:

 

I really think, especially given the lack of backup and the System Restore failure, that the drive needs to be considered a lost cause. So yeah, get an SSD in there, clean install, and copy your data across. Do nothing else to the old drive to try and limit potential further damage.

As murdoch said. Try to not shake or jiggle the drive much. Hard drives cant stand even the smallest amount of vibrations, shock, you name it.

As for a 'SATA adapter' you are probably talking about an external dock, which, certainly comes in handy, however at the end of the day it doesnt matter if the drive is physically in your computer connected with a SATA cable, or in a dock connected through USB.

What matters is that you dont boot off of it, get a different hard drive, ssd, install windows or linux to a flashdrive, whatever you want really, you just need to boot into an operating system thats on a different drive and then copy everything in your hard drive, to another place.

If you have a lot of things on your hard drive, get a new drive that can store atleast that much data, you'll probably not be able to fit all of that stuff onto a flashdrive. Thats an option for booting mainly.

Edited October 19, 2023 by Flytrap

[LoatharMDPhD]

59 minutes ago, Flytrap said:

As for data recovery, either send it to experts, like Rossmann's, or drive savers, or, boot into an OS on a different drive, a live flashdrive, whatever, and try to copy the data to another drive and then verify if your data is actually intact. Look at it, are the pictures corrupted, do your games launch? That kinda thing.

// next time get a RAID array like i should have

[Murdoch]

4 minutes ago, LoatharMDPhD said:

// next time get a RAID array like i should have

 

Or just use online backup because it's cheap, automatic, and also offsite. So even if your house goes up in flames or gets robbed, you don't lose your stuff.

Edited October 19, 2023 by Murdoch

[DannyMan]

I'm not intending to reuse my hard drive, just wanted to save my stuff.

[Flytrap]

6 hours ago, DannyMan said:

I'm not intending to reuse my hard drive, just wanted to save my stuff.

Thats alright, but you should still not open it up because thats not how you should be saving data. Not to mention that the moment you open it the drive is considered dead and you wont be able to recover your data at that point.

Hard drives are extremely precise mechanical contraptions, and even a speck of dust will kill it. Even if you cant see the dust on the surface, trust me, its there. There's a very good reason why only expert technicians with 'clean rooms' can recover data safely from an opened drive.

[Flytrap]

9 hours ago, LoatharMDPhD said:

// next time get a RAID array like i should have

 

9 hours ago, Murdoch said:

 

Or just use online backup because it's cheap, automatic, and also offsite. So even if your house goes up in flames or gets robbed, you don't lose your stuff.

Obligatory 'raid is not a backup!'

[DannyMan]

So I should just take it to a data saving expert?

[Mr. Freeze]

Yes. If you don't know what you're doing, leave it to the pros. 

[DannyMan]

Alright, time to scratch myself attempting to recover and just leave it to the experts instead. Thanks to everyone giving me info and advice.

[Flytrap]

5 hours ago, DannyMan said:

Alright, time to scratch myself attempting to recover and just leave it to the experts instead. Thanks to everyone giving me info and advice.

Admittedly i missed why you need data recovery in the first place, how is it broken? Because if you bricked your OS but the drive is fine, you could just boot into an OS installed on a different drive and then just copy all of your data.

 

[Murdoch]

1 hour ago, Flytrap said:

Admittedly i missed why you need data recovery in the first place, how is it broken? Because if you bricked your OS but the drive is fine, you could just boot into an OS installed on a different drive and then just copy all of your data.

 

 

The exact nature of the problem probably got lost in the melee of this thread, thrown off by the horrifying videos that other guy posted about opening the drives.

There's no direct evidence the drive is definitely compromised. The age of it, and that the system restore failed, does suggest it's possible. It's possible both issues are to blame. The registry hack caused the initial problem, but then the system restore failed because the restore points are in an area of the drive Windows cannot read.

@DannyMan, if you want, here's one last thing you can try. Again, only do this if you are experienced opening up computers, particularly all in ones. They can be a bit of a pain in the ass, and the wrong move in the wrong place can cause damage. It's possible to accidentally sever a cable if you're not careful. Some of the modern ones are really bad (woo having to put pressure on the LCD to open it, fun!) but 2016 era ones are usually not so dickish. Remove the drive, chuck in your new SSD, reinstall Windows. Order a suitable dock or enclosure, and connect the old drive to the computer.

Mechanical drives are very much like engines. They get worn out and inefficient as they age, and you can hear it if you listen closely. Connect the drive, and see how quickly it loads, and if the drive sounds laboured or the noise sounds rough. If it comes up in Windows reasonably promptly and without complaint, there's a good chance you can copy stuff without too much drama. It will ask you to override permissions when you go into your Users folder, just tell it to go ahead. This can take some time, even on a healthy drive, especially if you have a lot of files.

But yeah, if you have the slightest doubt of pulling this off, don't do it. Don't want you making things worse. Get a professional to help. They will be doing pretty much what I described so there's no harm in you trying if you think you can. They won't resort to more advanced methods unless the drive doesn't load cleanly at first.

Edited October 19, 2023 by Murdoch