Forum Discussion
How to recover data from a dead hard drive on Windows 11?
I had a similar problem with my hard drive before. It was completely unrecognizable with all the data inside. I tried many methods, such as restarting and changing interfaces, but none of them worked. Later, someone on a forum recommended Aisessoft Data Recovery, which I used and successfully recovered the data.
I get it here (worked for me):
https://www.zdnett.com/recover-data-from-a-dead-hard-drive
If you haven't found a solution yet, you can try this tool. I hope it can help you!
Using command line tools to recover files from a dead hard drive is a more advanced method that requires some technical background. This method is usually used when the hard drive is not completely damaged, but the data cannot be accessed through normal means. Here are a few command line based recovery tools and how to use them:
Using Linux's ddrescue tool
If your hard drive is physically damaged but some areas are still readable, you can use the ddrescue tool in Linux. This tool will try to clone the data from the readable part to another healthy hard drive.
Steps:
1. Boot your computer using a Linux Live CD or USB.
2. Install the ddrescue tool, which can be installed by running the command sudo apt-get install gddrescue (on Debian based distributions).
3. Connect an external hard drive large enough to hold the recovered data.
Use the command sudo ddrescue -d /dev/sdX /dev/sdY rescue.log to start the recovery process, where /dev/sdX is the damaged hard drive and /dev/sdY is the healthy hard drive where the data is saved.
The command parameters here are explained as follows:
- sudo: Administrator privileges are required to run the command.
- ddrescue: Call the ddrescue tool.
- -d: Direct disk access mode, which helps to bypass some read errors.
- /dev/sdX: Damaged hard disk device file, X should be replaced by the actual device identifier (such as sda).
- /dev/sdY: Target hard disk device file, used to save the recovered data, Y should be replaced by the actual device identifier (such as sdb).
- rescue.log: The log file used by the ddrescue tool to record the details of the recovery process so that it can be restored again when necessary without repeatedly reading the recovered part.
Use this command to try to recover data from a damaged hard drive to another hard drive. Before using, make sure to correctly identify your source and target hard drives to avoid data being overwritten by mistake.