Could be not reading that drive for a few reasons - ATA level password on the drive, unpatched OS that doesn't support large drives, old BIOS etc. on your computer. You should always be able to get data off very easily, even if you have to take ownership of the files which takes a while.

Unless the drive actually failed of course - but this was after software install?

GetDataBack is kind of the standard if you are in that position. Budget a fair amount of time for it though, my last one was 30 hours, not sure on drive size, wasn't massive.

Is getdataback the best thing to use, or is there a free programme thats just as good?

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Originally posted by Dom
Sounded like your caddie is a little naffed if it's giving your I/O errors and the drive is still working. But get hold of GetDataBack and run it on the drive, you might still be able to pull stuff off it :thumbs:

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Sounded like your caddie is a little naffed if it's giving your I/O errors and the drive is still working. But get hold of GetDataBack and run it on the drive, you might still be able to pull stuff off it :thumbs:

Ended up having to format the drive as repair didnt work :mad:

Still, that'll teach her not to back up her shit.

The three recovery disks I've used in the past have all given the option to install windows only or full format. I'd just read the menus very carefully :)

Just make sure when using the xp disc you don't tell it to format at any point, even try the repair option if you want, I was doubtfull but used it and got it up and running again.

Think Ive both here, will give it a go using the XP disk and then if not will use the recovery one.

Not sure about a recovery disc, that could wipe the drive and just install a copy of a partition.

Would have to make sure it was an XP disc.

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Originally posted by John
Depends if the hard drive is physically broken or not.

If it's just windows all you do is install it without formatting anything, all the data will still be there.

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Depends if the hard drive is physically broken or not.

If it's just windows all you do is install it without formatting anything, all the data will still be there.

My sisters laptop has gone tits up when she did a Windows Update (XP) and now wont load into windows properly (will turn on fine, etc.). Im guessing other than using a recovery disk and starting from scratch their is no way to fix this so the stuff on her HDD will still be there?

I have a HDD caddie here and have tried to attach it to my computer and get the data off it that way, but getting some I/O error - so anyone know whats going on here and give me some ideas as to how to fix this without wiping the HDD - or atleast getting the data first!!

[Edited on 17-06-2008 by Cosmo]