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kristain
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Friday March 12, 2010
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Jun 20, 2010 at 04:48 AM
Jun 20, 2010 at 04:48 AM
When your hard drive crashes, it's a scary thing. But in most cases, in spite of appearances, your data is still intact. To destroy all of the data on a hard drive permanently generally requires nine or more passes with a "drive wipe" program, and/or boring several holes through the hard drive with a drill press. Some of your data may be gone for good, but a number of hard drive recovery methods can retrieve the overwhelming majority of it. You can recover hard drive data in most cases.
Pay attention to what your computer tells you when it tries to use the hard drive. If you see a stark screen telling you the hard drive is "missing," the problem may be as simple as a loosened cable. Power down, open the system unit case, unplug, and then re-connect the drive's data and power cables. Hard drive crash recovery is sometimes that simple.
If the error message says the "MBR" is "missing" or "operating system not found" then the hard drive is working but the Master Boot Record has gotten corrupted. It happens for any number of reasons; a passing cosmic ray can corrupt data stored on magnetic media. All you have to do is rebuild the MBR.
The MBR is the first file that your computer reads when it's turned on or re-booted. It's a tiny file stored in the first physical sector of your hard drive. It tells the BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) where to find the operating system (Windows, Linux, Mac OS, etc.) and other information necessary to booting up your system. If the MBR is damaged, you're stuck until it is rebuilt. See my companion article Fix MBR for help with that task. It's not as geeky as it sounds, and it can save you the time, trouble and expense of replacing a hard drive.
Pay attention to what your computer tells you when it tries to use the hard drive. If you see a stark screen telling you the hard drive is "missing," the problem may be as simple as a loosened cable. Power down, open the system unit case, unplug, and then re-connect the drive's data and power cables. Hard drive crash recovery is sometimes that simple.
If the error message says the "MBR" is "missing" or "operating system not found" then the hard drive is working but the Master Boot Record has gotten corrupted. It happens for any number of reasons; a passing cosmic ray can corrupt data stored on magnetic media. All you have to do is rebuild the MBR.
The MBR is the first file that your computer reads when it's turned on or re-booted. It's a tiny file stored in the first physical sector of your hard drive. It tells the BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) where to find the operating system (Windows, Linux, Mac OS, etc.) and other information necessary to booting up your system. If the MBR is damaged, you're stuck until it is rebuilt. See my companion article Fix MBR for help with that task. It's not as geeky as it sounds, and it can save you the time, trouble and expense of replacing a hard drive.
Jun 20, 2010 at 11:31 AM