Anyone know if data can be recovered from a crashed hard drive?

[Vexing]

Get an external USB HDD enclosure:



http://www.anyware.com.au/Browse/0790ca0c02fb424bbc2d28852f91b4a4001ItemDetail.aspx

You can then connect your old HDD via USB and do a full file scan with something fairly reliable, like AVG. This should clean out the infected files and enable you to recover the data you require from the disk.

[Lori]

Vexing has the right idea with the external drive.

The most powerful tool I have been using is Malwarebytes. Free download.

http://download.cnet.com/Malwarebytes-Anti-Malware/3000-8022_4-10804572.html

When you are done, download the Avast Home Free edition. You can register it and use it for free. Comes with free updates like AVG but it does a better job I have found.

http://www.avast.com/eng/download-avast-home.html

[Vexing]

And has a cooler name!

[sd]

I would recommend putting Avast or AVG on there BEFORE you connect the old drive.

[Julie Marie]

I have ESET Suite but will try Avast too.  Then I'll give the HDD enclosure a try.  Is there any chance the virus can get into the new drive?  I'd hate to have to start all over again.

Julie

[Linda]

Hi Julie Marie,
I hope, besides the cump virus thingy, that you are doing well.

I'm not a super techy person, but have some skills as they say. I would research the virus online, get any patches, (on a removable medium) particular to the OS you're running and update them to the primary HDD. After the secondary/crashed drive is connected to the CPU, SCAN AND REMOVE any threats with an AV application which has current protection for the threats you killer virus attacks before you try to explore any data. It seems like good AV info has been mentioned previously.

I've never treated a totally crashed drive, but have rescued more than a few friends systems with viruses less malignant than yours sounds. Do you know what name it has?

I hope this helps you some.
I hate cumputahs. 

[Sandy]

I have ESET Suite but will try Avast too.  Then I'll give the HDD enclosure a try.  Is there any chance the virus can get into the new drive?  I'd hate to have to start all over again.

Julie

As long as you do not attempt to start any programs that reside on the infested drive you should be safe.

Just copy the data (not programs) that you want to save off the old drive, demount it and either reformat it or store it in a safe place.

The only way that programs can be started on that drive is if you double click the .exe file in explorer or attempt to start it from a command line prompt.  Your desktop icons and start menu items should not be pointing to anything on the infested drive when it is mounted like that.

Give me a call if you want some help stepping through here once you get the drive into the enclosure.

-Sandy

[Ms Jessica]

I've had boot sector viruses before, the advice about booting off the clean drive is important, make changes to the BIOS first before the system tries to access your drives.  Vex's idea about the external enclosure might enable you to connect up the bad drive without having to worry about corrupting the boot sector of your clean drive. 

For dead drives, I looked into data recovery when mine crashed a while ago.  It was several hundred, not a couple hundred, to recover the data, and totally not worth it.  In the end, I've been using it as a paperweight, and just made do without the files I had lost.  Fortunately not much trouble, some pictures and songs, but nothing to kill myself over.  That's when I started taking Tekla's advice about backing up (and not talking about fight club)
 

[Lori]

I have ESET Suite but will try Avast too.  Then I'll give the HDD enclosure a try.  Is there any chance the virus can get into the new drive?  I'd hate to have to start all over again.

Julie

Just make sure avast is running and updated before plugging in the drive.