HDD crashed. Hard drive recovery possible?

bibi

Hey folks, hoping to get some advice here.
I’ve got a Windows PC with an SSD as the system drive and a 1TB Seagate HDD that I use as a general file keeper. Yesterday, that HDD suddenly crashed. It stopped showing up in File Explorer at all. I rebooted it several times.
I’ve been reading a ton online including hard drive data recovery guides on this site but I still want to ask directly’ has anyone here recovered files from a drive like this? What worked for you?
Most of the stuff on it isn’t critical, mostly a file dump of music, installers, randon photos I also have backed up to the cloud. But there are a couple of things on there that are basically irreplaceable.
So… what’s my best move right now? Is it worth to DIY, or should I stop touching it and look into recovery services?
Appreciate any honest input from people who’ve been through it.

HopeInSleep

I think just about everyone here has dealt with a hard drive crash in some form, myself included.
There’s not quite enough info to say what your best move is here. First thing you need to check is whether the drive is even being detected by the system. Open Disk Management. See if your HDD shows up there(even if it says Unallocated or has no drive letter, that still gives us something to work with)
If it doesn’t show up at all, then it could be a physical connection issue: bad cable, loose port, or even a failed board (not super likely but still). Try a different SATA por, cable, or external dock if you have one lying around.

SocialImpactCoder

OP, we need more info. Nobody here’s clairvoyant.
What exactly happened when the drive “crashed”? Did you get an error? Did it freeze your system?
Any weird sounds clicking? Also, have you tried anything already different cable, another PC, anything?
All of that matters a lot when we’re talking about corrupted hard drive recovery.
Sometimes it’s just a logical issue, and recovery tools can help. You basically scan the drive with something like Disk Drill, Recuva, PhotoRec and pull your stuff out if the data’s still intact.
Other times though… it’s dying hardware. when that’s the case, the more you mess with it, the worse it gets. Best move then is to stop touching it and hand it off to a lab. But fair warning - be ready to break open the piggy bank. It expensive.

CuriousCamel

Try chkdsk. I used it before on my old HDD when it wasn’t showing up right and it fixed it.
Just opene CommandPrompt and type chkdsk “drive letter”: /f

DanyOrtega89

CuriousCamel CHKDSK is bad advice in this case.. Take a look at this thread and this Reddit thread, plenty of folks lost data running it.

bibi

@HopeInSleep I just checked Disk Management, the drive is therr, but it says RAW, no drive letter either.
@SocialImpactCoder I didn’t hear anything weird from it. No clicking. But to be honest, the drive’s kinda old, so I don’t really know what might’ve happened. I did have a power outage recently though, so maybe that messed something up? Not 100% sure if the drive was active at the time.

SocialImpactCoder

bibi if it’s showing up in Disk Management and not making any strange noises, then you’re probably dealing with a corrupted file system, not hardware failure (yet).
The safest way to recover a corrupted hard drive without making it worse is to avoid messing with it. Don’t format iit and DON’T run CHKDSK like someone else suggested earlier. CHKDSK can sometimes make things worse.Instead, scan it with recovery software. Disk Drill is my current favorite. It has built-in SMART monitoring, so you can check if your HDD is healthy, and it also supports disk imaging. This one lets you make a full byte for byte copy of the drive and scan that instead of the original. Way safer, especially if the drive is unstable. The free version recovers up to 500 mb. If you want to pull all your files off the image, you’ll need to upgrade to the Pro version. But tools with features like these usually aren’t totally free anyway.

DanyOrtega89

@bibi You ca also use Recuva or PhotoRec, both can work just fine for HDD data recovery. Both are 100% free, and for a lot of basic cases, they’re decent enough.
Just one thing to keep in mind PhotoRec doesn’t recover your original folder structure or filenames. It’ll dump everything it finds into a big pile, so sorting through it afterward can be a pain. That’s really the main downside.

SocialImpactCoder

DanyOrtega89 you’re off about Recuva. It can’t recover files from the hard drive in OP’s case because it requires a working partition to operate. If the drive shows up as raw(no file system), Recuva won’t detect anything to scan.
This is straight from their official community, you might want to check it out

bibi

DanyOrtega89 Oh, Photorecs a no-go for me. I can live without the folder structure, but losing filenames not worth it. I’d never be able to figure out what’s what.

bibi

@SocialImpactCoder thanks, that helps a lot. Appreciate the breakdown. I’ll avoid CHKDSK.

bibi

Just downloaded Disk Drill and turned on SMART monitoring. I made a screegrab:. Am I totally screwed here? Do I need to send this thing to a lab, or is it still safe to try corrupted hard drive recovery at home in my case? 😬

crimsonKing

bibi With that red flag, I’d play it safe. If there’s anything really important on that driveI wouldn’t mess with it any further. Better to take it to a proper data recovery lab now than risk making things worse by poking around.

SocialImpactCoder

@crimsonKing Pff, this? I’ve pulled data off corrupted hard drives in waaaay worse shape than this.
Yes pending sectors isn’t great, but it’s not a death sentence. As long as it’s not clicking or dropping out mid-scan, you’ve still got a shot. Just image the drive first if you can, then scan the image. Worst case, you lose time. No need to rush to a lab for something like this. I mean, recovery software will run you what like $80? It’s your call if you want to pay 5-10x that for a lab, but i think, DIY is more than doable here.

HopeInSleep

Aagree with @SocialImpactCoder on this one.

bibi

@SocialImpactCoder how much free space do I need to make this image? The app says I don’t have enough room.

SocialImpactCoder

bibi you need at least the full size of the drive, so in your case, around 1 TB + a bit of extra room for the image file itself and any overhead . It is a full sector-by-sector copy, so it grabs everything: existing files, deleted ones, empty space, literally every last byte, which is exactly what you want for hard drive data recovery in your case.

bibi

SocialImpactCoder Oh wow, didn’t realize that. My bad, makes sense. Ill see if I can borrow an external drive from a friend tomorrow. I don’t really have anything with that much space right now, just my system drive. Thnaks for now.

bibi

I managed to recover the data from the hard drive!!!!!
I followed this guide (https://www.handyrecovery.com/fix-corrupted-external-hard-drive)
Used Disk Drill to make a disk image and saved it to a 2TB external drive I borrowed. Took a while, but it worked. I honestly debated with myself whether to grab the Pro version and save everything... but in the end, I figured it was time to let go of all the junk I’d hoarded over the years 😅 Most of it I could re-download if I ever really needed it.
So I just pulled around 380MB of important stuff, some docs and scanned papers. The preview + filters helped a ton. I could actually see what was what. After that, I reformatted the drive like the guide showred. And now.. it seems to be working??? I can open it in File Explorer and browse folders no errors or anything.
But I haven’t copied anything new to it yet. Just wanted to check with you all what should I do with it now? Can I keep using this drive or is it too risky?

SocialImpactCoder

bibi Glad you figured it out, man
As for the drive… if I were you, I’d only use it as a low-importance file dump. Stuff you wouldn’t cry over if it vanished, downloaded media, temp backups, so on.
Anything important should go somewhere more reliable (and preferably in multiple places). Cloud + external + local, if you can swing it. Drives that start throwing SMART warnings don’t get better over time.

bibi

SocialImpactCoder That’s what I was thinking too. Thanks again, seriously wouldn’t have made it this far on my own