Wiped hard drive!!

A friend of mine called me for help. He booted up his computer this morning and got a message saying (operatingsystem not found!!) I knew from him that he downloaded something from a site called (Lime Wire) think it's some free sharing site :S well!! I don't what he got but he got it!! next morning nothing was there!! I tried to boot it in the evening and I got no error... just a black screen.

I took his PC and my main goal was to get his data back. I hooked up the HDD to a USB-to-IDE. It made a lot of funny noises mainly spinning the disks but no clicking and clanging. It hardly got read by a vista OS. but there was nothing there! absolutly nothing. I opened computer > manage > storage and it showed me that both partitions in the HDD are healthy but a 100% free space for both. I think the HDD is fried and I have to get a new HDD but the main issue is to get the data Back. I tried to plug the HDD to another XP machine this time. made the funny noises again, it was recognized for a second but then it failed to read it.

I know the things he downloaded might have caused the issue but I'm curious to know what exactly might have happened to zip all every single bit of it!

The second thing, is there anyway I can get the data back? I heard "Final Data" is a good program to retrieve lost data but I've never used it before. Can anyone advice if this is a good software or if there is a better recommendation before I go out and purchase it?

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

 

Free recovery applications:

1) Recuva
2) PCI File Recovery
3) Restoration
4) Free Undelete (NTFS only)
5) Softperfect File Recovery
6) ADRC Data Recovery Tools
7) Undelete Plus
8) Data Recovery
9) Recover Files
10) DriveRescue
11) Ultimate Data Recovery
12) Disk Investigator

For commercial ones, GetDataBack or Ontrack EasyRecovery Pro are the best I've used.

 

Thanks elvandil, any of those is vista compatible? before I try downloading them

 

They should all work on Vista. I tried (with some limited success) to order them from best to worst. But you may have luck with any of them, so worth a try.

 

Well... started with the first one... i'll give it a try and see hopefully it works.

 

Just FYI. They vary according to the results they give. Some are better at showing file names, while PCI tends just to show "clusters" that makes it very confusing. Just keep trying until you have luck and find one you like. The data has to be there if not erased or overwtritten. but if you have no luck at all, try partition recovery:

Free:

Testdisk Documentation
Testdisk Download
Partition Find & Mount
Free DTIData NTFS Partition Repair Tool

Commercial:

Diskinternals Partition Recovery (Demo)
[email protected] Partition Recovery
Bootmaster Partition Recovery
ZAR Partition Recovery
DIY DataRecovery DiskPatch
Partition Table Doctor

 

Well I guess it's not my lucky day (or actually my friend)... I installed the first one (recuva) but now my PC is unable to read the hard disk anymore so I won't even have a chance to try any at all... The data is not ereased (at least intentionally) and definitely not overwritten. What about those partition recovery programs? would they help in such a case?

 

If the partition is dmamged anyway, you may as well try the recovery programs. They don't touch the data itself, so they should not affect further recovery efforts.

Can you explain a bit what happened with Recuva? These recovery programs don't write to the disk so they should not affect its integrity. Did it disappear from Computer, Disk Management, Device Manager, or what?

 

When I plug the disk, I get a baloon notification saying (the disk is detected and installation of it complete, device is ready). Then before it appears in my computer I get another baloon saying the device failed (doesn't appear in my computer, disk management or device manager)

So the answer is nothing happened with recuva, since I never run it on the disk at all

 

It's beginning to sound like the drive is failing (failed?) and that is what led to the problems he was having originally.

If possible at all:

Free Hard Drive Testing Applications:
HD Tune
HDAT2 (Diagnostics and bad sector recovery)
MHDD Low-level Diagnostics
Bootable Hitachi Drive Fitness Test Floppy or CD Image (works on most drives)

Hard Drive Manufacturers' Diagnostic Utilities Links:
TachTech
BleepingComputer