Does it spin up? Can you make a Live CD/USB and try to read it with sort sort of Linux? (Knoppix?)

Try Spinrite which runs from (Free)DOS

http://www.grc.com/spinrite.htm

I used File Scaveneger when I formatted a drive by mistake. (Well, forgot to back up something)

http://download.cnet.com/File-Scavenger-Data-Recovery-Utility/3000-2094_4-10028488.html

yeah, it spins up, it's just that I can't see the main partition
I'll try File Scavenger, ta

Have had a couple of XP drives not show up properly in Windows 7 but fine on another xp machine, maybe give that a try if ure still struggling.

File Scavenger works but you need to purchase a license to recover files!
any other software, with free recovery?

Try this.
Bit clunky and may not get everything but worked for me a couple of times.
http://www.pcinspector.de/default.htm?language=1

Recuva. On my phone so can't create a link.

Fire up torrent

get this sucker

[url= http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd ]hirens cd[/url]

lots of recovery tools to try.

PC Inspector doesn't work
Recuva doesn't work
File Scavenger is the only thing working at the moment, but at £32 for a license it's a touch expensive

Download [url= http://www.ubuntu.com/desktop/get-ubuntu/download ]Ubuntu[/url] and burn the image to a CD. If you don't have an image burning programme on your computer get imgburn [url= http://www.filehippo.com/download_imgburn/ ]here.[/url]

At boot hit whatever key your computer bios suggests (often F8) to get boot device options, and select the CD drive that the Ubuntu CD you have created is in.

Once booted, go to Places and mount your hard drive. You can then copy files from your old hard drive to a memory stick. Or burn them to another CD/DVD.

Easy as one-two-three, takes half and hour and zero pounds.

cd drive is malfunctioning too...
anyway, Recuva seems to be working now (thanks hopster), just needed a bit more patience(!). I've scanned the drive and all my data is there - just hope it can be recovered later on
they don't make it easy do they?

If all else fails, EBuyer sell data recovery from a 3rd party for around £30 a disk.

I searched round for some free software for ages, and it all seemed like a right faff.

In the end i just paid for FileScavenger and it worked straight away. i've used it several tmies since and pretty pleased with it.

I'm always a bit nervous about downloading software from torrent sites. Great way to get your PC infected! The few things i have downloaded i've run in a virtual machine just in case. But you can't do that for file recovery software.

File Scavenger is the best I've found, just not sure I'll get £30 worth of use out of it.
Tonight's attempts will tell whether I need to.

If you can't burn a CD put it on a USB and boot from that.

What you are trying to do costs £0 all day long.

I've tried booting from CD, a USB stick, a USB HDD but it won't - that was the first thing I tried.

Hi !

I have used a data recovery software last month that is very effective and powerful.It recovers lost data due to damaged,deleted,corrupted,partition,formatted or virus attacked.It is very easy to use and recovers lost data over a single mouse click.You can find it from [url= http://www.recoverlostdata.net ]www.recoverlostdata.net
[/url]

Thanks