Hard Drive Failure, Asks me if I want to Format

Hey guys, I'm having a problem with my hard drive. I have a 250 GB Maxtor hard drive that I use for backing up files. One day it just ceased to let me into the drive itself, and pops up with a dialogue asking if I want to format it. The hard drive is reported in my BIOS to be there but I just can't access it. Is it possible all the data on it somehow got corrupted or is my disk damaged? I haven't tried formatting yet because a lot of really important stuff is on the drive itself. At first it was doing it to random folders on the drive, asking me to format (the folder I guess, it was really odd) whenever I clicked to open. Eventually the whole drive became inaccessible.

I've tried formatting and going into my desktop and taking the hard drive out and cleaning it of dust and reattaching it without any success. I always have up to date antivirus software so I don't think it was a virus, especially since I don't come into contact with many places you normally get them. If anyone can help me with my situation I'd much appreciate some advice or helpful information. My rig is in my sig if you need that. Thanks.

 

bump

 

What does it say in disk management?
There have been a lot of problems with Maxtor drives lately.
See if Pc Inspector can see the files, if it can you will be able to move the files.
http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/uk/download.htm

 

You said this is a backup drive, right? Don't you have the original copy of the data? If this is your only copy, it's not a "backup" drive.

I'd download the Maxtor disk diagnostics, Maxtor PowerMax 4.23 Bootable CD .ISO image file and run a complete surface scan on the disk to start.

 

Trying what you both said now.

Technically it's not a backup drive, but more of a drive I store things on when I need to format the drive I have my OS installed on. Most of the stuff that was on it I had been meaning to back up to DVD but never got around to it . It's a real pain in the *** because a lot of my own personal music (as in music I've created), documents, and art was on it.

 

Ok right off the bat I got this error message with pc inspector, but I'm scanning now.

 

That's telling you that the first sector on the disk was corrupted. Since the partition table appears to have been trashed, that's not surprising.

 

No go on the recovery software, going to burn the ISO and try it and see what it tells me next.

 

Ok I did a full scan and the test failed and it's telling me my hard drive is failing.

 

OK does not sound good, I posted PC Inspector because it was freeware.
There is better recovery software but you will have to buy it.
What they tend to do is let you download the software and it will tell you if it can recover the data but wont recover until you have purchased it first.
This one has been recommended but I have never tried it myself, I am sure others will recommend alternate sites
http://www.oo-software.com/en/products/oodiskrecovery/

 

Hmm... that site quickly turns to another language when I try to download the software, and everytime I try to change it to english it stays in dutch.

 

Try this and it may or may not work. Stick the drive in a Ziplok bag in the freezer for 4 hours. Then plug it in and boot up and if you can read it copy fast...works for about 1/2 hour if at all.

 

Try this link
http://www.oo-software.com/home/en/download/

 

The freezer?! That's a new one on me.

 

Ok, I tried formating and my disk is empty and I can access it. I downloaded a shareware file recovery tool to search for files that were formatted and it founds LOADS of my stuff. The only problem is that it's nearly 60 bucks to unlock the program to recover the files. Anybody know of a good freeware data recovery software that will work with formatted media that I can use?