is it possible to recover the contents and fix a hard drive?

Question

1. it can be seen at cmos setup but cannot be seen at os boot

whats the best solution for this i have so many files to recover on this disk

Answer 1

Hi. Your best bet is to add a new harddrive and set it as master (MA jumper on the back). Put your old drive as slave (SL jumper on the back). Reinstall the OS and the old drive should show up as the D drive, or maybe another if you have CD or DVD drives installed. Boot from the new drive and copy from the old drive. Good luck!

Answer 2

First try to use the hard drive in another computer to see if you can copy the files from the damaged drive to a good one.

Assuming the hard drive can not be accessed at all:

This usually requires the service of a data recovery company and can get very very expensive. These companies use the same technologies the FBI would use to extract data from a suspects hard drive. They can even get data off of drives that have been damaged by fire, punctures, and scratches.

Here are a couple companies that offer these services.
http://www.ontrack.com/
http://www.diskdoctors.com/

Answer 3

Remove the hard drive. Insert it into a new computer and have either a back up solution (DVD/CD/ USB Flash Drive) Or another hard drive/ external hard drive and copy only important files and programs.

Make sure the BIOs wont boot it, Windows should recognize it (If you're running XP). It should be name drive "D:/" if its the only other Hard drive in your computer. If you want to fix a drive that won't spin, you're up a river without a paddle, and if you want to retrieve data off of it, you're in a worse spot. Maybe a Geek Squad tech can help you.

Answer 4

Use Knoppix

http://www.knoppix.org/