Fried Hard Disc

[Palustris]

We had a power outage while the Computer was closing down. The Hard Drive seems to have been damaged. We have removed it and fitted it into an Icy Box, but still cannot access the Files on it. Is there anything we can do?

[ACtheTROLL]

depends how much you know
first is the disc spinning?
can you see the disc in your file manager
can you see any files at all?

it sounds like the file table is damaged (fat, fat32 or ntfs) - what os you using 'cause ntfs is normally quite resillient?

occasionally a file recovery prog will do the trick .... but they generally work by reading the table .... so if it's gone ... so have your chances

If you know how ... a hex editor (win hex) will allow you to do this .... but it's quite skilled

if the files are valuable .... you can pay a data recovery firm to do the job (approx �70.00) most work on no joy - no pay.

when this is over ... log on to the mfr's website and download their disc utility and you might salvage the disc .... but it's totally destructive ... so beware

[squarebear]

Unfortunately, it sounds like you've just learned the hard way, the importance of making backups.

[Palustris]

Yes the disc is spinning in the Icy Box. You can see that it exists as Disc F The message which appears is something like Cannot Read Disc, so no Files listed at all.
That machine was XP Home.
There was nothing on it worth �70 to be honest.
Thank you for your help.
Will have a look at Win Hex and see what that is like.
If not then I will discard the info on the Disc and see if Formatting it will give me a usable empty Hard Drive.