Yes I should have backed up but please don't say..

[halo27]

Help... Switched comp on today and it made an odd clicking sound. Computer then froze. Upon restarting it took literally 40 min to load up, then said drive d is not formatted, do I want to format... I said no!

I can not get on Internet or view any files or start any programs.

I have a windows xp comp with 2 hardrives in it but am by no way a computer expert! Googling on my iPhone clicking harddrives seems to imply death and complete file loss... This true?

[chainlink]

Sounds rather like one of your hard drives (the data one) has bought the farm, I'd disconnect it and see if the computer starts up as normal in which case you've identified the problem.

[halo27]

If that is the case any to get info off?

[chainlink]

Unlikely unless you're willing to spend a lot of cash. If the machine is booting albeit after a long time I suspect the problems with your D drive are slowing it down.

[chainlink]

There may be some chance if you freeze the drive as some people have managed to get their data off them before they completely die like this but its not a guaranteed fix.

[Werehound Silverfang]

Unless the hard drive is absolutely DEAD, you *can* slave drive it (SATAs don't slave drive anymore iirc, so you'd have to put up with the slowness) and rip files to a safer hard drive.

[halo27]

Ok... Say am a computer n00b were, hard to believe I know how do I do this in words a slow child could understand

[chainlink]

Its not the boot drive by the sound of it although I could be mistaken, did it actually get to Windows or was it saying the drive wasn't formatted in the BIOS screen?

[halo27]

ok thank you for assistance, chain were and golly Have disconnected my d drive and comp is working fine, just cant use the d drive.

so am feeling better (most my info on my c and e drive). I do have some personnal info i would like to get back from this D drive if possible though, golly has said use an external hardrive and free recovery software...

I dont have an external hardrive just a 16 gig flash drive which might be enough for the info i need, any way of doing this? Or doing what Were said and slaving....?

Btw you guys are really stars for helping, greatly appreciated

[tomaan]

Aug 15, 2011 22:41:58 GMT halo27 said:

ok thank you for assistance, chain were and golly Have disconnected my d drive and comp is working fine, just cant use the d drive.

so am feeling better (most my info on my c and e drive). I do have some personnal info i would like to get back from this D drive if possible though, golly has said use an external hardrive and free recovery software...

I dont have an external hardrive just a 16 gig flash drive which might be enough for the info i need, any way of doing this? Or doing what Were said and slaving....?

Btw you guys are really stars for helping, greatly appreciated

You might be able to use a usb drive chassis -- start your computer first and then connect the damaged drive to it. Don't format, of course, then try navigating to the drive.

You may do nothing more than copy invalid/corrupted data but it couldn't hurt.

They run about $50 (USD) at Best Buy:
www.bestbuy.com/site/Computer-Cases-Components/Computer-Cases-Drive-Enclosures/abcat0507006.c?id=abcat0507006

[gandoron]

I've dealt with a lot of corrupted and dead drives. the best is to use the external enclosure, connect it (USB or SATA) to another computer. If the folder structure is intact, pull all the files that you can off. If not, then use a recovery program to recover. There are a number of them, such as Active Undelete, etc.

-G