Hi

Just after any tips for a HDD data recovery

I have been on holiday for two weeks, whilst away I prepaerd a presentation offline and now the HDD seems to have died.

It’s a MSATA SSD, I have removed the drive and hooked it up to a PC via a dock but it’s not appearing in My Computer

Any ideas ?

Absolutely terrible timing 🙁
If another computer doesn’t even see the drive when docked, i’m afraid there’s probably not a lot you can do about it without sending it off to be professionally recovered ($$$).

Cue sanctimonious posts about “just restore it from backup… you *did* back it up, right?”

But i’m not like that, no siree.

I feel your pain.

If it’s not recognised by a computer your options are limited. When it is plugged into the machine is it recognised in the BIOS? What about in Windows disk manager? A disk can sometimes be seen there but not in Windows Explorer. If that is the case you may be able to recover data with the right software.

If not there are a few companies out there offering recovery services, but in my experience they are not usually cheap – but that is subjective depending on what you have lost I suppose.

If another computer doesn’t even see the drive when docked, i’m afraid there’s probably not a lot you can do about it without sending it off to be professionally recovered ($$$).

Err if you mean the computers BIOS, then yep true, if you mean windows doesn’t see it.. Not so much.
Might have changed with Win 8 but I doubt it.. Windows is rubbish at seeing/accessing drives with issues. Download a self contained Linux recovery disc (Knobbix used to be good) & boot up with that, & see if the drive is accessible

Just go to your back up. Problem solved.

try hirens boot cd

What brand is the drive?

The drive is not seen in the bios, it’s also not seen by windows explorer when docked, yes yes I should have done a back up no one to blame but myself, it’s just unfortunate to timing as my drive backs up when I conect to my network.

I shall try a few of the suggestions, (thanks) as for a recovery service its prob not worth it as I can likley reproduce the work cheaper and quicker, very frustrating though …bye bye bank holiday

Edit:
I’m not sure on the brand, it’s a MSATA solid state stick from a Sony vaio so it not mechanical failure

Huh.

I only ask because there was a manufacturer who’s drives were astonishingly unreliable and maybe there would be some experience about that online.

When SSDs die they tend to go completely, sometimes you’ll get a little warning such as windows reporting no bootable device then magically reappearing after a reboot, but a lot of the time just kaput, whereas a traditional mechanical drive usually suffers a long drawn out death with plenty of opportunity for backup or recovery.

Was that OCZ Gofaster?

I think so.

Tell you what, if the only thing that’s changed since you last used the machine is the date and perhaps an update, look for installed updates and go back to when it last worked, If still no joy, try setting the date and time manually in the past.

May not fix it, but it’s easy stuff to try.

I’m not sure if it’s still the case but they had an agreement with Intel to use the very latest firmware before anyone including Intel were using it, it meant you were on the bleeding edge of performance but you were also a mass market beta tester/test pilot.

Does it appear in disk manager (right click Computer, Manage)?

Try recuva.

If it is not appearing in the BIOS then it suggests that there is something really quite wrong with it, probably the controller. Your disk may well be toast. That is, of course, assuming that you put it in an internal SATA port. If it’s being used via an extrnal USB port, then the BIOS doesn’t really come into it.

You could try downloading Helix3 (linux based forensics distro) and seeing what that says, but I think maybe you should prepare for the wurst.

Try ZAR zero assumption recovery I’ve had some success with this on otherwise borked (never to work again) ssds. It doesn’t rely on the os/bios being able to read. The free version did enough for me.

Sometimes my SSD plays up. After a power cut the BIOS doesn’t see it, and complains about no boot drives visible, so no Windows. I have to go into the BIOS and change the settings for the drive. I’m not sure if the SSD changes or if it’s the BIOS, but I make the change and the drive is visible, and it boots.
Maybe worth changing the BIOS settings (I think I change type=SATA to IDE, then back again)