Recover Data from a Damaged Hard Drive Using a Live CD
Last week my hard drive started looking like it might be on its last legs. The built-in diagnostic tool that comes with my HP computer was returning a "BIOHD-8" error, which suggested that my hard drive was not feeling too healthy.
Unfortunately, the last time I backed up my data was about a year ago (I know, I know) so I dusted off my external hard drive, which — click, click, click — also turned out to be dead.
Hoping for a long term solution less prone to mechanical failure I opened an account with the online backup service Mozy and started backing up my data to the cloud. At a rate of around 2GB uploaded a day, it was going to take about a month to do the initial backup.
And then on Friday, with about 10GB of data uploaded, my hard drive failed completely — error message "BIOHD-1" for the record. I tried using the built-in recovery tool on my PC but it was too slow and rudimentary. Fortunately, a little searching brought me to a useful article — 5 Ways to Retrieve Data Off a Crashed Hard Drive.
I'm not usually one for messing about with PC problems. The time spent vs. money saved calculation rarely seems to be worth it. But this time I decided to try the Live CD option that was outlined in the article.
Using my other PC, I downloaded Puppy Linux and burned the ISO file to a disc using ImgBurn. With the CD inserted I restarted the main PC and changed the boot sequence to detect the CD tray first.
This time when the PC restarted it loaded up Puppy Linux. After clicking through a few configurations (the default settings were mostly fine) I found myself faced with my first Linux desktop! Even better, I could see my failed hard drive 'mounted' on the desktop and I could click into it and navigate around it just like using a regular file explorer.
I plugged in my USB flash drive, which was also detected and displayed on the desktop and started copying my files over, ready to be transferred to my remaining working computer. To my surprise, not only did the live CD solution work, it was actually fairly easy.
Posted on: May 16, 2010 | 12 Comments
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12 Comments Posted
Sounds pretty good. I've only ever once had a failed hard drive and managed to recover the files through a third party recovery programme I now forget the name of.
But this option sounds much better.
1. Posted by Evan Skuthorpe on May 17, 2010
I don't know how universally applicable it is to the various reasons a hard drive can fail, but it's nice to have this in the toolbox. Hopefully it would work in most cases.
2. Posted by Christian Watson on May 17, 2010
Well for sure i personally don't know much about data recovery but i guess i will have to try it out this time because my hard drive got damanged and i lost some vital data.Well i was using SafeCopy backup for as my alternative backup.It is an online backup but i love it so much because with SafeCopy,if i lose any files of mine accidentally,i can recover them back by just a few clicks.
3. Posted by Ritah on May 18, 2010
Hey! This is quite useful! My external hard drive just died as well. I'm going to give this a try.
Thanks!
4. Posted by CodeMyConcept on May 24, 2010
I am always afraid of loosing my personal data, thanks for reminding me to do a backup! :D
5. Posted by Web Design on May 26, 2010
Nice article! However, I prefer to use dropox.com for my storage needs.
6. Posted by Allentown Web Design Company on June 07, 2010
Thanks for the advice.And am lucky i always backup all my files and i back them up with SafeCopy online backup.Here they are cheaper and they offer a free unlimited trial version.This is good compared to other online backup solutions.
7. Posted by Britti on June 08, 2010
I actually had this issue a while back. Wish I saw this before :)
8. Posted by Web Design Westchester on June 09, 2010
I actually had this issue a while back. Wish I saw this before :)
9. Posted by Web Design Westchester on June 09, 2010
Interesting solution, i've got a hard drive that's been broken for years I might give this a try on. Thanks
10. Posted by Rob on June 14, 2010
Wow, I wish I would have read this post before I paid a recovery company $400. Never heard of the live CD and have never messed with Linux. Thanks for the info.
11. Posted by Joe from New Jersy Carpet Cleaning on June 22, 2010
Excellent... Corrupted my core windows files failed. I was recovering, and the computer froze. Now the only option was to reformat and install... Hope this works, I'm optimistic since the hard drive is still going.
12. Posted by LostBoy on July 26, 2010