[Masonx77]

Okay so here is my situation, After many attempts to fix what was wrong with my computer and some professional help we've discovered that the Hard Drive is dead I have very important data on it, like stuff for college and career data. Is there a way to extract data from a dead drive? It's a Hitachi Deckstar T7K500 320GB SATA2 7200RPM.. Please help!

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If the drive is not seen in the bios then there is probably no way besides professional recovery services. This can be very costly and there is no guarantee they will be able to recover all the data.
You can try to hook the drive up in a working system as a slave drive and see if you can access it then.
You can put the drive in a external enclosure and try to access it on a working system.
You can put the drive back in your system and use a Linux live cd to see if the drive can be accessed. and then be able to backup the data you need.
None of the above mentioned ways is in any way a guarantee of working.
If the drive is totally dead then the only option is professional recovery.

[rshaffer61]

If the drive is not seen in the bios then there is probably no way besides professional recovery services. This can be very costly and there is no guarantee they will be able to recover all the data.
You can try to hook the drive up in a working system as a slave drive and see if you can access it then.
You can put the drive in a external enclosure and try to access it on a working system.
You can put the drive back in your system and use a Linux live cd to see if the drive can be accessed. and then be able to backup the data you need.
None of the above mentioned ways is in any way a guarantee of working.
If the drive is totally dead then the only option is professional recovery.

[Masonx77]

Thanks for the info man, I'm guessing my only option is professional services Because I've tried setting it as a slave and it still caused the computer to not access windows at all. It's sad but I guess I have to start over from scratch Thanks anyways though.

[rshaffer61]

You are welcome and I'm sorry that I have to be the bearer of bad news.
I would suggest doing backups of your data just because of this.
I will include the directions for that just for future references.
Good luck and please let us know how everything turns out.

What I would suggest you do is to Backup your Data Files.
For this I would suggest using a External Hard Drive Enclosure. This will allow you to keep your Important Data safe and Separated from the main system in case of problems. The cost for this kind of Backup System has come down a lot. I would suggest a 500 Gig capacity for your needs. Since you will only be Backing Up Data Files Only this should be sufficient to do that for you. Follow the next two links to see examples of the price you will be looking at.
• HERE
• HERE

I suggest going to Microsofts Backup Tutorial and follow the steps to do a Backup to a External Drive and also it will guide you on how to do a Scheduled Backup even at night.

Another way you can do a Backup is by using DVD’s. This method is just as effective and can be done using the same steps as above.

[Kemasa]

If you can find the same exact model disk drive with the same exact firmware, you might be able to change the logic board on the drive and see if it works. Sometimes versions with different firmware will work, but not always.