harddriverecoverybasics.com

Hard Drive Recovery Tip From: Karl DeGraff

The most successful methods I have used are:

1. Find a computer with the exact same operating system (Win 95, Win 98, etc.) that you can use as a surrogate host. This works best if the secondary IDE channel is unused, allowing the private use of that channel by the ailing drive, and usually eliminating the need of changing jumpers.
2. Go to the drive's manufacturer's Web site (or use a drive parameters database) to get the actual physical drive parameters.
3. Set the surrogate computer's BIOS parameters to expect the ailing drive and turn it off. Auto is the best initial setting. Make sure the second IDE channel is enabled and power management is off, at least for the hard drives.
4. Cable the ailing drive to the surrogate computer's secondary IDE channel using a reasonably long IDE cable (see reason for long cable below).
5. If the drive does not spin during power up when it should (note that some SCSI drives have delayed spin ups), take the drive, hold it in the fingertips of both hands (spider on a mirror style), and rotate the drive's casing around the disk platters inside suddenly (the reason for the long IDE cable). The most effective motion is to prepare by rotating slowly to a starting position where your fingers are turned "up toward" your chest as far as is comfortable for you wrists, then suddenly rotate "down out" from your chest as far as is comfortable, and then immediately snap back to the original position. This technique works by moving the casing with respect to the platters based on the principle of inertia and will often allow a drive with "frozen" bearings to spin up one more time. Do not expect this technique to work twice!
6. If the drive does not spin up, see a drive/data recovery lab that has the ability to disassemble the drive to get at the platters and recover the data from them by using specialized clean room equipment. When performed by a qualified lab, this process is quite successful, but very expensive backups are much cheaper! Choose the right lab, you usually only get one shot...
7. If the computer recognizes the drive, proceed on to recovering the data by any means you desire. Note that since the drive is not the boot drive and host operating system, all of the boot and operating system information are accessibl–e no "in use" files!
8. If the computer does not recognize the drive, especially if set to Auto, go to the BIOS and set the drive parameters to the manufacturer specified values and reboot. If still no recognition, try adjusting the values for sector translation. There are several options for the primary translation type (Normal, LBA, Large, etc.), but please note that there may be other settings that also effect drive communications. These other settings usually have values of Yes/No. Some of these other settings are "large drive" (note there are many different names for this setting), "enhanced mode," and "block mode." The important thing is to try different combinations of any of the settings that effect hard drive communications for the second IDE channel. Hint, make a list of all of the possible combinations and check off each one as you try it.
9. Most important, try not to let anything (e.g., operating system or "fix-it" programs) mess with the disk contents until you have exhausted all other avenues of access. These programs are great, but should be reserved as the first line of defense against software corruption and the last resort for hardware corruption. If your problem is a hardware issue, these programs will usually "finish the job" in terms of denying you the possibility of recovering you data. Only use them AFTER the hardware problem has been corrected.