External HDD Issue

[RuschGaming]

Hi guys im in need of advice/help from anyone that can help.

 

I have a hdd of my dad ( old WD my book 1tb ) he used this like crazy for his non profit projects.  and his drive doesnt show up anymore. so i took it with me to see if i can get anything out of it. but all windows is showing me "RAW DISK" needs formatting. which is weird, the hard drive is filled almost 90% give or take. Is there someone that had maybe the same or similar issues and got it fixed?

 

Ideas that i have but im not sure if it could work:

 

1. Make a virtual linux machine and see what information it can get out? 

2. Use a hdd recovery program? (if so which one is the best to get?)

3. cloning it to another hard drive, and then check if i can recover it?

 

Reason why i havent done anything is cause i only have one chance to do this right and im afraid to screw things up. I have also checked these data recovery companies but their prices are so high (650 euros) thats like more then half my paycheck  so thats a no go .

 

but yeah so yeah i hope someone can help me to the right pad or offer any advice. 

Thanks in advance.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Send it to a data recovery service and dont' touch it.

 

If you cant do that, Use ddrescue to make a copy of the drive. Then use photo rec or recuvera to try to get files from the image.

[RuschGaming]

15 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Send it to a data recovery service and dont' touch it.

 

If you cant do that, Use ddrescue to make a copy of the drive. Then use photo rec or recuvera to try to get files from the image.

ok thanks for the fast reply!

 

image as in the one you cloned through ddrescue, or actually the image of the hdd thats having issues?

 

Edit: 

Do you mean recuva from piriform? 

[Electronics Wizardy]

22 minutes ago, RuschGaming said:

ok thanks for the fast reply!

 

image as in the one you cloned through ddrescue, or actually the image of the hdd thats having issues?

 

Edit: 

Do you mean recuva from piriform? 

image of the drive. 

 

 

Once you have a image, try all the software you can, just make a copy of the image(don't touch the orginal image).

 

 

[RuschGaming]

Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

image of the drive. 

 

 

Once you have a image, try all the software you can, just make a copy of the image(don't touch the orginal image).

 

 

alright thanks for the help going to try that out, appreciate it man!

[RuschGaming]

28 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

image of the drive. 

 

 

Once you have a image, try all the software you can, just make a copy of the image(don't touch the orginal image).

 

 

Forgot to ask you something. 

 

When the image is made how can i use that image? is there a virtual hdd program for this?

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, RuschGaming said:

Forgot to ask you something. 

 

When the image is made how can i use that image? is there a virtual hdd program for this?

 You can mount the img. Also most recovery programs will recover the files from the image.

[RuschGaming]

alright finally have an update, DDRescue is doing its thing cloning the data to another clean hdd. 

But while it was busy i found out the source hdd has some issues and i dont know why its showing this. 

 

Basically the source hdd is showing Size 1TB  3 partitions 1 free space 150gigs partition 2 835gigs partition 3 356gigs. Any advice on what i can do about this or what does this tell me?

[RuschGaming]

Update great news finally manage to get all the data off the raw harddrive, just 1 failed file out of the 250000+ files. 

 

On 12/10/2016 at 11:40 PM, Electronics Wizardy said:

 You can mount the img. Also most recovery programs will recover the files from the image.

 

Thank you @Electronics Wizardy for the big help on this!