Hello there, about a year ago I had a powercut which appears to have damaged what was then my C drive (an 80Gb Hitachi Deskstar 722580VLAT20). I reinstalled Windows onto an identical but slightly older drive. Only problem was I lost a lot of music files (both mp3s and wavs) and cakewalk projects.

I managed to get Pandora Recovery to read off the disk (it was undetected in the BIOS and in Windows until I formatted it, knowing that with Pandora I'd be able to do a format recovery). All was going well and I seemed to be getting some mp3s and docs back. Then about 2 mins into the procedure, the disk made a noise like a floppy and the whole system began to run VERY slowly, until I deactivated the disk. I also ran the Hitachi tool which told me there may be physical damage to the drive...

Has anyone else had a similar experience to this with any success? I've heard legendary tales of platter transfers (since I have another identical disk which I no longer use) but would consider that a last option as it can be very tricky without a clean room...!

Thanks in advance for any help!
Byron

(I should add that it's IDE not SATA!)

I've got an old seagate 80gb hard drive that slows down my system also. When ever it's plugged in, Windows takes ages to boot and programs load fairly slow. I can hear a scratchy sound when I hold it and move it around too. I have been convinced that some physical damage has been done and that's why the drive is super slow. Could be wrong though.

Not sure if this helps.

Ok, thanks kOrny. Sounds pretty similar to my situation, the scratchy sound and possibility of damage.

Have you had any joy in recovering data?