Recovering Dropped HDD

[liam62]

Hi folks,
I have an iomega 1TB external which my fabulous wife dropped while playing music from it. I thought it was for the bin as I couldn't see it in windows but now after a bit of playing around with it I can access it through windows disk manager. When I say access it I mean I can create a partition on it through disk manager but this still gives me some hope that the files can be recovered.

It does sound a little bit rough when it starts up first but it spins up and is recognised as an external device (I get the 'Ding Dong' sound in windows) and it stays spinning but just wont show up in explorer.

I've tried giving it a gentle knock, accessing it with Linux, using files recovery software but no joy. I was also trying to use the ultimate boot cd but because I dont have an original windows cd it wont let me create one.

I'm a little bit stuck so if anyone has any ideas or know of a program that will allow me access the files so I can back them up I would be hugely in your debt!!

thanks,
liam

[mikeL]

I've always been a big fan of SpinRite, My only concern is the noise when it starts up. However the $89.00 dollar price tag would need to be considered, but the software is pretty awesome.

[glc]

Remove the drive from the case and connect it as an internal drive.