My Deskstar 75GXP (DTLA-307045) has recently entered its death throes. It's impossible for me to get into it, and even though Device Manager recognises the HD exists - and is "working properly". The icon to the drive does not show up in My Computer, in fact, it's gone from everywhere.

Is there hope for me to retrieve any data from the drive? Is there some software that can do this?

I'm running XP on a 1.4Ghz Athlon, on a KT7A-Raid mobo. The HDD in question only contains data - it's a slave to my C drive which is where I have Windows installed.

D/L the diagnostics program for your HD
Drive diagnostic utilities compendium

Then you could try HDD Regen (one of, if not the best), or Stellar Phoenix, or DriveRescue, or PartitionRecovery

Thanks for that. I'll keep my fingers crossed one of those does the trick!

If HDDRegen doesn't do the trick, then most likely none of the others will. You might as well try with HDDRegen first.

I've used Drive Rescue before, and it worked pretty well...the biggest thing to hope for is that it is a SOFTWARE related issue, and that the actual physical parts of the HD haven't gone bad. If that's the case, it will have ot be taken apart in a clean room and the actual platters (are they still called that) will have to be scanned for data - thousands of dollars for that procedure...

Actually Lowman, I've transfered platters from a dead drive to another HDD carcass many times with pretty decent results. I don't recommend using a drive like this but it can be done to retreive data if all else fails and you have the resources available. This is one of those "last, best hope" things, kind of like Mr. G's "freezer trick"

The best program I have ever used is R-Studio Data Recovery - it ain't free but you'll be suprised how thourough it is.

http://www.r-tt.com/

Good luck!

StormBringer - since work like this usually is done in a clean room, what did you do to help prevent the "innards" from getting dust particles on them? Or does it really matter at that point, since the drive is toast anyway. I've got a dud HD sitting here in a box that's got very valuable data on it, and I'd like to be able to get the data off. DriveSavers wants several thousand

I imagine when transferring the platters into a new drive body (one that works), it probably has to be the same brand and model right?

Active@partition recovery has worked for me every time I've used it. I've been able to fix what were previously unreadable file systems and even deleted / formatted ones.

If you have a corrupted file system due to software problems, then I'd recommend this. If you have a corrupted files due to bad sectors or other physical defects in the drive, you may want to get these things repaired first before you attempt to recovery the partition.

HDD Regenerator will fix bad sectors. It is a very good program.

I think Kernel Recovery for FAT and NTFS software will help you to recover all your files.

I have evaluated many data recovery software but this software gave me almost excellent results.

I used it when my hard disk got crashed and see its a success. I get all my files back.

The DEMO version of this software allows you to preview the recoverable contents and you can check whether the file is recovered correctly or not by double clicking on it.

Thanks
Recovery GURU

if drive is not spinning up
sometimes its the circuit board
need working replacement drive with same board and same firmware version, try that first
make a clean room enviro.
use cleaned latex gloves
need torx drive for screws
need a drive with same firmware on it
very carefully mark a tiny spot match screw postion on platter
remove each disc repeat the mark

replace in same order in new drive
pickup heads are very fragile

cross fingers


thats my story sticken to it
PM for recovery

hi guys..new here..kust wanna ask a similar question to the thread starter...i tried to checkdisk the drive and said that it has one or more unrecoverable problems...is it a hardware problem or just the files? can u guys recommend some tips on how to repair this? or is this drive toast? i used HDDregen before and it has excellent results but the bad sectors always return after some time...thanks guys

plead with hdd manuf. for firmware update
thats about all you can do now
it could be an error in S.M.A.R.T. or a true reading and once firmware logs to much damage drive is done.