Hi all ! Yesterday my 60gig external HD crashed. When running Partition Magic, I had the message :"Partition table is bad". Now, I know it's easy to say that theres nothing else to do but buying another HD but I'm writing this for the few guys who could give me some good tips that could help me out..( there is so much critical stuff in that HD !!! ) I bought "R-STUDIO" ( recovery data program but the HD crashed 10min after I started it) ( BTW, It started to make some "click click click" this morning ) PS: I also removed (yesterday) the HD from its case, and put it as an IDE in my PC. ( no prob ) Thank you for any help !!! Doc

NOTE: I hope I could explain this in french 'cause I'm not sure if everything I wrote is clear enough... Anyways,I guess you'll tell me if it's not.. ;) Doc

If the drive is clicking it is VERY likely a mechanical malfunction. If that is the case there isn’t much you can do about it. There are services that can recover the data for you but they are very expensive. Sandman An Official Microsoft Minion. ÿ

There are companies that you can ship the HD to, they will disassemble and extract the data for you for a hefty fee. That's one option. Absolute last resort (if you don't want to ship it out): You say the disk is 60gig, is the disk still recognized? If so, what size HD is being reported from within Windoze? If only a small portion is being reported, your plattens may have collapsed (only 2-4meg showing) thereby pinching the needle between them. Basic law of physics, "metals contract at low temperatures". As I said this is a last resort, it will only work once and you will only have access to your data for 20 minutes or less. Place the HD in your freezer for approximately 6 hours, have computer completely ready to accept the HD before removing it from the freezer. Install as slave and attempt to copy and paste data from it. _________________________ Computers work with absolute flawless perfection, until the first person touches them!

Hey guys thanx for your fast replies ! Martin, The drive was no longer recognized and was "clickin'". Right after I posted this message, I went to a company I know. They told me exactly what you just said above (the freezer trick)! So they will call me tomorow to let me know if it worked ! I'll let you know for sure :) Thx again !! Doc

Glad to hear it, I have done it twice. Will wait to hear how it went. _________________________ Computers work with absolute flawless perfection, until the first person touches them!

I think you went the long way on this. If the partition table is bad that has little to do with the drive usually. A simple fixmbr might have fixed it or you could just have followed the PM's suggestion to remove partitons and build again. Might have tried any other OS's partition software that might have caused it. What that was saying is the disk geometry was different than what is being reported.