I need help as my computer crashed with all my data for a Medical Malpractice case on it.It crashed when I download a file from Belkin to use a transfer cable to back up my files to my deceased wifes new computer. Both are laptops. It never showed up as installed on either computers. I went to downloads a hit run it looked like it installed but never showed up in programs or add and remove. On 1st restart both computers worked but link never. Then both computers crashed. I got my wifes back by doing system restore but mine wouldn't as no restore point which there should have been. I took hard drive out of mine and put it in a case and attached it to my wife's computer and it showed all files there. I tried drag & drop 3 folders with about 70 photo's and it took over 3 hours then crashed with some pictures corrupted. Since then it says to format drive. I scanned drive with Recuva free trial and it found all but 109000 out of 750000. Need advice how to get files or is recuva the best there is.
Recuva is a good start.
It would help to know more about these computers such as their operating systems and roughly how old they are. What made both computers crash though? Do you have any idea?
At the moment you will be feeling quite desperate to sort this out, but please be careful about what advice you follow.
Do you have reliable media to recover these files to? DVD, GDrive, or something similar? It's a pity that you're not in the UK because I really would like to help you with this.
1) Hard Drives crash for many reasons.... It's a fact of computer life and can't be avoided. It is nothing that your did in particuliar that made it crash.
2) There are professional data recopvery companies that can recover data. But it is expensive so the data has to be valuable to justify the cost. I have used a handful of these in the past with good recovery rates.
3) If you want to try and recover your files yourself, understand that there is the risk of overwriting the original disk and decreasing the chances of recovery if you don't know what you are doing..... But we can guide you the best we can if you want to go that route. Recuva is a good start. Spinrite is another good candidate to check the disk.
Sorry Bigpaw/Cimmerian I did this late at night and I thought I had put op system ect but here it is now. My computer with failed drive is a Dell Inspiron 1521 with Windows 7 Professional 64. I never used the recovery Disk when I put Windows 7 on it and only used Dell for M/B drivers ect when I put 7 on here. It is about 4 years old. Ginna's is a Asus X53E with Windows 7 Home Edition 64. Ginna brought this around the end of 2011 and only used it for a few months as she died March 4th 2012. Both machines were running perfectly prior to putting f5u258 the file from Belkin. If I can recover this data I will purchase a 1TB Drive to transfer it to. After some initial suggestions from another site Called Toms Hardware which never worked I disconnected the drive and never tried again.
This was first suggestion "You can try to repair the partition with "chkdsk /r" in windows go to the properties of the disk from my computer and under tools click on error checking".but it never worked leaving disk running over 36hrs it only completed a third of the disk doing 3 files an hour at the end. Another suggestion was "CMD, then type chkdsk X: /f/r (X is the drive letter, yours may be different)" this never worked either as it was still checking disk 3 days later and stopped around 54,000 out of over 750,000 files. I was told to try these programs but they never worked as a lot of files seemed missed. http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec http://download.cnet.com/Zero-Assumption-Recovery/3000. I am now desperate for a solution. Also Bigpaw I too wish I was back in UK as I only moved here in 2003 when I married the greatest lady I have ever known. The American people I have met are great but the laws and the government leave a lot to be desired. If you need any further info please let me know. Colin.
Colin, reading this wrenched at my heart, this situation must be so painful for you.
I've sent a private message to you with some helpful advice.
There is a Disc you can download called 'Ultimate Boot CD' or UBCD. There are some helpful utilities suited to the problem you are experiencing.
If you have BitTorrent installed then it would be quicker to download it using the P2P option by clicking on the link and allowing BitTorrent to start.
If the disk check programs are taking that long then a portion of the disk is bad and the saftware is attempting to correct/read/skip over the bad areas. Not good if the files you needed were on that piece of disk.
If you are trying this on your own, I would suggest any file recovery solution with a trial. GetDataBack is one I have used in the past with great success. Most will offer a trial showing what 'could' be recovered if you bought the software. Good way of knowing if your files are recoverable at all.
IF you are a novice, then you might want to consider a professional data recovery shop.
We're a friendly, industry-focused community of developers, IT pros, digital marketers, and technology enthusiasts meeting, networking, learning, and sharing knowledge.