Well happened to me just friday night...

Bought a 500 gig Maxtor Touch 4 almost a year and a half ago..

So after stufffing 294 gigs of DATA from the last 9 years onto this drive 1.5 yrs ago(took me almost a week going from other drives and DvD's to putting on here..

Well i had a C drive failure a year ago so I thought on friday I was having another HD failure so I started dumping my new scenes on the MAXTOR and guess what its the drive that was havin probs...

So anyone know of a free program that gets ur corrupted data from a HD...?

The HD is still usable but for the 294 gigs..Says its corrupted...

I lost all my scenes of NEW...

I have most of the 294 gigs on DvD's..but anything since I lost...

might have even lost these scenes I did in Bryce...

See links
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=514258

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1837476

Try this:

don't boot it from Windows.

Boot from a different drive, or if you don't have one, boot a live CD of Linux. Then see if you can access the drive, some specific folders and files etc... Try Ubuntu or other Linux distros.

I'll be happy to try to recover the data myself if I can have the drive for a week. I have a USB connector that can be attached to hard drives. Essentially you take the drive out if it's internal, and I connect that thingy, and power it, and see the drive through USB as a removable disk. Might just be possible for me to see it under WIndows or Linux. Other OS that also has strong support for other disk formats is BeOS, whatever the newest name for it is. I think Purplus.com sells it.

email me at admin/at/thebest3d/dot/com if you want to send me the drive for attempting to copy the files. I'm in Southern California (San Diego) and will be in Pomona at the LA Computer Fair June 19-21

-Philip

Thats what a friend told me just an hour ago...

He said I can boot linux from a floopy and run it...

Oh man if I can get this back I swear i wont Backup on one drive but 2 and only 1 will be hooked to a puter...

Its freakin weird...I can put files on and off the drive BUT those 294 gigs...

Hope to have the new projects back asap...

Thanks for all the help folks..

Phillip if I have to I will take u up on it....

ouch
I faithfully back up to dvd..2x.  I have more than once had dvd's fail. and hopefully #2 wont fail...but, I say faithfully, just found that I didnt back up my download of camtasia5.  Thank god that I can copy all the files over and all it does is ask for the serial.

luck
BT

Quote - ouch
I faithfully back up to dvd..2x.  I have more than once had dvd's fail. and hopefully #2 wont fail...but, I say faithfully, just found that I didnt back up my download of camtasia5.  Thank god that I can copy all the files over and all it does is ask for the serial.

luck
BT

Ya...

I have programs on this drive that are no longer available...But I still use them every now and then...

Saddest thing is all of those textures I made and all of those new "forests" and the "Shotgun Mod" for dod...Pisses me off to no end that I have lost these files...

But hey we rock in this community and we always will step up and make thangs happen.
So Im sukin it up and if I lost all of my artwork and scenes for the last 1.5 years then that happens...Pray I am that my OLD dvd's still are good and NOT warped from heat...

Prayin big time...

Hey BT...
I switched from DvD's because they are cumbersome...
So I bought the 500 gig HD because Hey it should have been fine slammin that data...

Bad move on my part this time...

lol
I have a 1 gig backup..BUT I also have the files that I can not replace on dvd.  Im anal that way

:P
BT

I recently bought a half-terrabyte portable USB drive, already have 50% of it filled. It's never big enough. However, instead of doing tons of DVDs I still think it's better to use hard drives, as long as you use a second hard drive to back up the other which you use. And keep it cool so as to extend its life.

It's also really easy to 'add' Linux as a new partition to an existing WIndows system. Most Linux distros I've tried lately have good and easy deployment tools to re-partition the drive if there's room without loosing the Windows partition data, just makes it a little smaller so there's 8-16 Gig for the Linux distro. That's if you install the thing. You can also just boot from Linux live CDs.  Pick up a Linux magazine at a nearby bookstore and you'll have latest versions of at least one or two Linux distros. $12 well spent.

have you tried majorgeeks.com? they're often able to help with whats seems to be the most impossible problems.

I can recommend an app. called Second Copy as backup software - it's farly cheap and very easy to use. It doesn't do any fancy things as compressing backups and stuff like that but i does the job of taking the "Second Copy". onto a second hard drive - it has saved my wifes work for 5 years ones. Furthermore it backs up what you evt. delete to another directory in as many versions as you like, which you then in time cán delete if you no longer needs it

/Arne

I've been burning to CD for many a year. just started DVDs, but I keep them in a case made for optical media, in a cool, dry place. So far, most of it's been able to be recalled when needed.

I use the 'idiot's method of backup; forgetting I have downloaded some items 2 or more times before...;)

There are companies that can get the data back, no matter what the problem (On Track is one, out in Oregon or California, I think), but they want serious money (think thousands) to do it.

I work in I.T. so I have the tools necessary to recover data from crashed drives, but it all depends on the severity.  I would recommend do not mess with the drive in anyway till you have a sold method of recovery.  Having said that... here are some good tools for you try.

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/  <--- full of tools that can help you recover your data.

http://myrescue.sourceforge.net/  <--- helps recover data from damaged drive.

2-3 Years is the optimum life of a Hard Drive... yes I know, you can have a drive last 6 or 10 years... but those are becoming a rare thing now a days.

Backing up DVD:  This is what I do.

1. ZIP or RAR (Split To multiple files 50,000 Bytes).
2. Create Parity files of these Zipped or RAR Files. http://www.par2.net/
3. Finaly create a QuickSFV File http://www.quicksfv.org/
4. Create a Folder called Tools and Include the original install files
   for Par2 & QuickSFV and maybe even WinRar or WinZip.
5. Burn Everything onto DVD + Enable Verify when burning.

What the heck is Analog-X64 talking about??? Is he out of he's mind?? :) Maybe.

What the above does is, in the event that the DVD is scratched or goes slightly bad over time.  You can recover your data even with Bits missing because the Parity files will Re-Build what is missing, depending on the extent of the damage.  This may Chew up 5%-10% of the overal Data Capacity but in the end its a safety net.

Buy a NAS Drive... stick 2 x 500 GB Drives or whatever you can afford and schedule the NAS drive to copy data from Disk1 to Disk2 nightly (Do not use Raid 0 or Raid 1).

Analog is wise!
And yes indeed.. do not write to the crashed drive untill after you gave up on trying to repair! Just to prevent over-writing your missing files..

Mine was going to cost me close to $1000 so I said oh well. I lost about 7 years and lots of models and music!

If your drive meets the following criteria I can always do a recovery.

• Drive is not doing the Click of death.
• Drive is detected in Windows.

Cost: 

• Shipping to Canada
• Purchase of new Hard Drive to transfer data to Depending on Size.
• Shipping back to U.S.

Certainly less than $1000.

Figure out how much it would cost to ship your old drive plus new drive to canada and back, and I can do it.

Why would I do this and not charge for it? Well because I'm crazy and I do it for friends and family all the time and for the most part, the process is pretty automatic.