Both data HDDs expired today similtaneously. Suggestions?

G'Day 2 internal HDD used for data storage have both collapesd. From disk management only one dat disk is visable as invalid.

I MUST recover the data. The HDD (sick) is only visiable thru partion mgr as 'invalid (no free space)

Any suggestions?

 

It's corrupted. Anytime a hard drive shows up as invalid/unallocated/raw it usually means it's corrupted usually cause by an abnormal shutdown.

A scandisk (with the boxes to fix errors checked) can usually fix this. Also you can do a chkdsk x: /f (x=drive letter of drive) from the run box if you prefer.

If the chkdsk/scandisk can't fix it, there's the free "testdisk" which can fix corrupt drives. Testdisk also has an addon called "photorec" which can recover data from a corrupt drive.

All the data on your drive is recoverable as long as you don't format.

The odds of 2 drives failing at the same time is almost zero unless you had some sort of power surge etc. If you didn't have any power surges or abnormal shutdowns, you might want to check your other hardware to make sure it's good. A bad motherboard will cause input/output errors on hard drives. In one situation I encountered the drive was good no corruption, but the motherboard was bad causing the drive not to be readable, but it's normal to suspect the drive first.

 

The 2 drives both 'fail' when installed on other pc. So maybe the motherboard is innocent?

I'll have a shot at scandisk & chkdsk now. Check back in on me later. This disaster has to have a happy ending. Its two TERRAbyte HDDs. #1 is/was data. #2 was the backup loaded & soon to be re-located in case of disaster.

Gotaa get to work on that scandisk now or tears falling onto this laptop keyboard might short-circuit it too.

 

Have you tried Spinrite?

http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm

It's definitely the best hard drive recovery software out there. If it can be fixed, Spinrite will do it.