Some computer help

[spiegel06]

Well after my laptop died on my I tried to recover my HD but I cannot get read it. I plugged it in as an external HD and it picks it up as one but cannot see it. First what happen, this HD crashed on me and now I am trying to format it to keep it as a backup external. I tried to go into Disk Management to format and re-partition it and it states that it is "Not Initialized". I tried to initialized it but keeps saying it cannot do it. So I am now asking you all for some aid in this matter.

Ideally I would love to try and save the data on it but I know that most likely I cannot save it. SO I would like to be able to use it again.

Thanks.

[f0xx]

IF your data on it is valuable, take it to a specialized service and they will do what they can.

After that I would suggest to throw that **** away. It has failed you once and it's obviously not healthy, so why bother? The time you are going to spend on recovering your lost stuff (if it can even be recovered) is much more valuable.

PS. The best kind of HDDs are the backed up ones.

[Kyzarius]

never try to use a hdd that has ever experienced failure of that magnitude. retrieve what you can and chunk it, anything else you put on it will most likely be lost.

[jibber]

I agree with those two. I've tried to use a crappy harddrive as backup before and ended in disappointment. Get what you can off that POS, and go sell it for parts, or throw it away. Best thing you can do with it is shoot it with clays.

[The-Nameless]

Before doing anything drastic like pitching it, I suggest paying a couple dollars to get a license for a program called Spinrite. Run that on the damaged drive (it is a boot disc) it will run, and repair anything it is able to, and will tell you definitively what the issue is.

Also a data recovery house is EXPENSIVE, and is not at all guaranteed.