There
is nothing worst than loosing all of your important files, because your
computer won’t boot into windows and it seems that there is no way to get your
files back. For a lot of people this would be devastating, knowing that all of
your pictures, music and important documents are gone.
Well, we can always do an external hard drive recovery to get all your files back,
provided there is nothing mechanically wrong with the drive. One of the reasons
your computer won’t boot into windows is because the boot sector of the hard
drive got damaged, most likely you got some corrupted or missing files.
External Hard Drive Recovery - Ways to Retrieve your Data:
One of the ways I like to tackle this problem is to use what they call a “live cd” for this
I recommend using a Linux distribution, one of my favorites is knoppix 5.0
which is free open source, just go online and do a search for knoppix, download the iso
image and burn it to a cd or dvd, then restart your computer and change the boot
order to dvd, the key you press to access this menu varies depending on your
computer make and model. You press this key the moment the bios menu shows up
on the screen.
Once
your computer loads into knoppix you will see all the drives attached to the
computer, to retrieve the data you can either use a flash memory or an external
hard drive. Just copy and paste from one drive to another. There are a lot of
cases where this technique won’t work because the problem itself it’s not a
software problem, but a hardware problem; now if this is the case the only way
to get your data back is to send it to a hard drive data recovery facility which I
might say it’s not cheap.
This method is similar, but requires a little bit more work and knowledge, let's say that for some reason not only the hard drive, but also the computer itself is not working, in this case using a live cd to recover your files will not work. What I like to do when I encounter this problem is to use a docking station for hard drives, some people like to call it a toaster because it kind of look like one. Just remove the hard drive from the nonworking computer, insert it into the docking station and connect it to a working system, hopefully your computer will see the drive and you'll be able to transfer all your files from one drive to another.
External Hard Drive Recovery - Alternative Option:
This method is similar, but requires a little bit more work and knowledge, let's say that for some reason not only the hard drive, but also the computer itself is not working, in this case using a live cd to recover your files will not work. What I like to do when I encounter this problem is to use a docking station for hard drives, some people like to call it a toaster because it kind of look like one. Just remove the hard drive from the nonworking computer, insert it into the docking station and connect it to a working system, hopefully your computer will see the drive and you'll be able to transfer all your files from one drive to another.
