Recovering Your Data

Unless the physical platters inside the drive are severely damaged, it’s probably possible to recover the data from a bad drive. In extreme cases, you might need to send the drive to a very expensive recovery service that will take the drive apart in a clean room environment and replace the damaged parts, but it can be done. Before you spend that money, try the techniques in this section to read your files with special recovery software. The most important thing to remember when a drive appears to fail is don’t panic. At least, not yet. One way or another, you can probably get your files back.

NOTE: Once again, remember that you will not have to recover as much data from a damaged drive if you make regular and frequent backups.

It’s often easy to confuse a software failure on a hard drive in which Windows can’t read data because of damage to the File Allocation Table (FAT), the boot sector, or other sectors, with a hardware failure caused by a physical or mechanical problem in the drive itself. These problems may include damage to the drive’s motor, circuit board, or to the magnetic platters that actually hold the data. Fortunately, software failures are a lot more common, and it’s a lot less difficult (and a lot less expensive) to recover the data from a disk with software problems. If the drive is making grinding or scraping noises, or if you see signs of burned components on the drive’s circuit board, don’t try to recover the data yourself. Turn the computer off immediately and remove the drive. Any attempt to read data on a physically damaged drive could do even more harm, and it could reduce the chances of reading the surviving data. Retrieving the data from a drive with physical damage is a job for a commercial recovery service.On the other hand, if your computer still recognizes the drive, there’s a very good chance that you can use a specialized data recovery program to copy your files to another drive. If you decide to try using a recovery program, you must connect the damaged drive to the computer running that program. In most cases, you can simply set the jumper on the drive to make it a slave (if there’s an existing slave, disconnect it first), and plug in the power and data cables without fitting the drive into a mounting frame inside the computer’s case. Depending on the exact location, you might want to place the drive on top of a small box or a couple of books next to the computer.

Follow these steps to connect the drive to your computer:

1. Turn off the computer, and unplug the AC power cable from the case.

2. Remove the cover from the case.

3. If there’s a spare IDE connector on the computer’s motherboard (or an SATA connector if you’re connecting a SATA drive), connect a cable from the drive to the motherboard. Set the jumper on the drive to the master position.

4. If both IDE connectors on the motherboard are in use, disconnect the data cable on the CD or DVD drive, and plug that connector into the damaged hard drive. Set the jumper on the hard drive to the same set- ting (master or slave) as the setting on the CD or DVD drive.

5. Connect a spare four-pin power connector to the drive.

6. Reconnect the AC power plug to the computer case.

7. Turn on the computer and immediately enter the BIOS setting menu. On most computers, you can open the BIOS menu by pressing the DELETE key or the F2 key.

You should see an instruction on the screen at the beginning of the POST that tells you which key to use.

8. Go to the BIOS menu that lists the CMOS settings for your drives. Select the drive you just connected to the computer, and use the autodetect feature to configure the settings.

9. If the BIOS does not detect the drive, check the jumper settings. If they are correct but the BIOS still can’t find the drive, close the BIOS utility, turn off the computer, and then remove the drive. You’ll have to send the drive to a recovery service to retrieve your files.

10. If the BIOS detects the drive, save the BIOS settings and let the com- puter restart Windows. Data recovery software is available from several sources. I’ve had very good luck with GetDataBack from Runtime Software (www.runtime.org), but a Google search on “data recovery software” shows several other products that may do the job as well or better. GetDataBack is available as a free down- load that can examine your drive and open individual files, but it requires a one-time payment to create and store copies of the files from the damaged drive on a second hard drive. GetDataBack offers separate versions for drives that use FAT and NTFS file systems.

To learn which system your damaged drive used, open either version of the program and let it scan your system. In this example, all of the drives use NTFS, but the program is GetDataBack for FAT. To read files on these drives, it will be necessary to download and install GetDataBack for NTFS. A good data recovery program can often perform miracles on a drive that appeared to be a lost cause, but it’s not perfect. Some files on a damaged drive may indeed be completely lost, with no hope of recovery. If the data recovery program can create a complete or partial image of the damaged drive, you can use that image to restore your data. If the recovery is successful, it might be possible to reformat the old drive and reuse it, but that’s generally not a good idea. It’s safer to throw away the damaged drive and use a new one instead because there’s a danger that the same problem that caused the original failure could still exist on the drive.

Recovering Data from a Laptop Drive

If the drive in your laptop computer fails, you will almost always have to replace it with a new drive because there’s only enough space inside the computer for a single drive. The best approach is to install the new drive, load Windows from the CD, and then copy your data files from the old drive onto the new one. If you have a backup copy of your data, it’s easy to restore it to the new drive, but if you must retrieve it from the damaged drive, things become more complicated. Because the connectors on a 2.5-inch laptop drive are not the same as the ones on a standard 3.5-inch IDE drive, you will need an adapter to mount the drive in a desktop or tower case, or a kit that converts the drive to a USB device. These adapters and converters are available at large computer retailers or through the Internet.

NOTE It’s even more important to make regular backups of the data stored on your laptop com- puter than on the computer that stays in your office or at home. In addition to the usual hazards of damaged and unreadable hard drives, you will also lose your data if your laptop is lost or stolen. Losing your computer is bad enough, but losing irreplace- able data can turn an expensive nuisance into a major disaster.

IDE cable requires a special adapter.

If Windows can’t read the contents of the damaged drive, try one of the data recovery programs or other methods described earlier in this article. After you restore the data, copy it to the new drive in your laptop through a network or by using a flash drive or a CD to physically move the data from one computer to the other.

Troubleshooting Hard Drives

If the computer does not recognize your hard drive during startup (before Windows loads), it’s likely that one of these settings is not correct:

Jumper settings on the drive Cable connections to the motherboard BIOS settings

Jumpers on ATA Drives

The most common type of hard drive in modern computers uses the IDE or ATA interface with the computer’s motherboard. Both ATA and IDE describe the same type of connection. An IDE interface can support hard drives, CD and DVD drives, and other types of storage media. Other drives might use a SCSI or a SATA interface. Motherboards that use the ATA interface system usually have two IDE connectors, each of which can support two drives. The two connectors may be marked as IDE0 and IDE1, or IDE1 and IDE2, but the BIOS identifies them as the primary channel and secondary channel, or as IDE channel 1 and IDE channel 2. The standard IDE cable has connectors for two drives. The two drives connected to each IDE channel are known as the master and the slave. If only one drive is connected to a channel, it’s the master (unless it’s a Western Digital drive, in which case it’s a “single” drive). You can have a master with no slave, but you can’t have a slave without a master. (This is a technical definition only. We leave the philosophical implications of that sentence to you.) If the boot disk the one that contains the boot sector and the Windows XP operating system files is an IDE drive, it should be the master drive on the primary channel (IDE channel 1). You can use the other channels for either hard drives or other storage media.

NOTE: Western Digital drives use a slightly different jumper system from all of the other manu- facturers; they require different jumper settings for a master drive with a slave on the same channel, and for a single drive. If you’re adding a slave to a channel with an existing Western Digital drive, you must move the jumper on the old drive from the single position to the master position.

To set a drive as either a master or a slave, move the jumpers located on the back of the drive (next to the data and power connectors) to the position shown on the diagram on top of the drive and in the user manual. If you can’t find a diagram, try one of the links from www.ontrack.com/jumperviewer. Depending on the physical location of the drive, you might have to remove the drive from the frame to change a jumper setting. If the BIOS does not detect your new drive, double-check the jumper settings on the drive to make sure that the jumper is connecting the correct pair of pins. If the new drive is set as a master, confirm that the other drive connected to the same data cable is the slave. If the new drive is the slave, confirm that the other drive is the master.

Cable Connections

The cables that connect drives to the computer’s motherboard are another possible source of trouble. If the data and power connectors aren’t firmly attached to the drive, or if a cable has one or more broken wires, the drive won’t work correctly.

ATA Drives

Confirm that the plugs on the cables that connect the drive to the computer’s motherboard (or a driver card plugged into the motherboard) are firmly seated into the mating connectors at both ends. The connectors have molded shells that only allow the connectors to fit in one position, but if there’s a problem, it won’t hurt to make sure that the connector wasn’t forced into the socket incorrectly. If the jumper settings on both IDE drives are correct and the cables are connected properly, but the BIOS still refuses to detect any of the drives connected to an IDE port, it’s possible that the cable is damaged or defective. Turn off the computer and replace the cable. Most new drives come with new cables, so there’s almost certainly at least one spare cable in your accumulation of odd computer parts.

SATA Drives If your BIOS does not detect an SATA drive after you install it, confirm that the data-cable connectors are firmly seated in the mating connectors on the drive and the motherboard, and the power cable connector is seated in the drive. If you’re using an adapter cable between the power supply and the drive, make sure it’s connected to a cable from the power supply.

SCSI Drives

SCSI drives are less common in computers running Windows XP than IDE or SATA drives, but they are often used in network servers and other critical applications. The SCSI interface supports faster data exchange than IDE, but the difference is not always significant, especially on a home computer or one used in a small business. Unlike IDE devices that connect directly to a connector (called a port) on the motherboard (or a plug-in IDE controller card), SCSI devices connect to the controller through a series of daisy-chained cables that might connect several devices in series to a single port (a SCSI bus). Each SCSI port can support either eight or sixteen separate devices on a common channel or bus depending on the SCSI version. One of those devices is the SCSI controller, so the true maximum is either seven or fifteen devices per port. Because the same input/output port supports several devices, each device must have a unique ID number. If the same number is assigned to

others use a thumbwheel or some other type of switch. The documentation supplied with each drive, or the manufacturer’s website should tell you exactly how to set the ID number. At the end of each SCSI bus, the last item in the chain must be a resistor circuit called a terminator. The terminator can be a TERM switch setting on a SCSI device, or a separate plug that connects to the second SCSI connector on the last device in the chain. Again, the drive manual or manufacturer’s website should contain specific instructions for terminating the SCSI bus. The two common causes of problems with a SCSI drive are conflicting ID numbers and an unterminated SCSI bus. If your BIOS fails to detect one or more SCSI drives, confirm that each drive (and the SCSI controller) has a different ID number. At the same time, look at the last device in the chain to confirm that the chain is terminated.

BIOS Settings

Before Windows can exchange data with a hard drive, the computer’s BIOS must detect the drive and identify the drive’s characteristics. The BIOS can automatically recognize the characteristics of almost any drive that you’re likely to install (unless it’s more than six years old), but you do have to instruct the BIOS to go looking for the drive. If the BIOS settings and the drive values don’t match, the computer will either display a (possibly fatal) error message during startup, or it will ignore the drive.To instruct the BIOS to detect the drive, follow these steps:

1. Install the new drive. Make sure the power cable and the data cable are both connected, and the jumper setting (described in the previous section) is correct.

2. Turn on the computer and immediately press the key that opens the BIOS Setup Utility.

3. Move to the screen that includes the IDE and other drive options. This might be in the main menu, in a submenu called Standard CMOS Features, or someplace else in the Setup Utility. Look for a section of the menu that lists either primary and secondary masters and slaves, or two or more IDE channel numbers with masters and slaves.

4. To set the options for a drive, select that drive from the list and open the submenu. You will see a list of options.

5. Follow the instructions on the screen to automatically detect the drive’s characteristics, including the data capacity, the number of cylinders and heads, and other values. In this example, press the ENTER key. Don’t worry if the utility does not show the correct capacity for your new drive. You will fix this when you format the drive.

6. In most cases, the BIOS will obtain the correct values directly from the drive and display them in the submenu. If the autodetect function does not recognize your drive, advance to each line of the menu and enter the correct values by hand (these are the values you copied before you mounted the drive in the case). If the values are not printed on the drive label, look for them on the manufacturer’s website.

7. Follow the instructions on the screen (usually at the bottom or on the right side) to save your changes, and close the BIOS Setup Utility. The computer should restart and load Windows.