Anybody have any recommendations for a data recovery tool I should try on my hdd? It crashed and I have some stuff I would really want back.

The hdd is recognized in BIOS but the SMART command fails and is otherwise un-viewable in the OS. I've tried disabling SMART to no real use. I did however manage to get it to run a disk check on my OS install partition, but just one time. The result only showed a couple of KB of bad clusters and since the headers seem to still be somewhat working I'm hopeful I'll manage to get some files back.

And if that doesn't work, can anyone recommend an Europe based Data Recovery company that they've worked with?
Cheers!

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Comfortably Numb

Download a Linux distro and stick it on a flash drive then use that to boot your PC. Linux' disk tools are way more powerful and they will be able to tell you what can be done.

After that - if you can get the disk to work at all - I have a bunch of good recovery tools I can email you if you like.

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"Fire rained from the sky on the day I was born: 10,000 lives I ended before drawing first breath. Do not speak to me of guilt or regret, Jonathan.” - Brayan, The Keepers of the Fire

Saint, what were those apps again?

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M.A.S.K. , is the mighty power that can save the day

acronis disk recovery, pull it of your favorite download source. Make sure the disk you scan for files is not the disk you'll write the found files too.

i'd ddrescue to another drive first and use the other tools on that image

Hmm, that sounds like a great idea ditch. I'll try it tomorrow. And if that fails, I'll try booting with Ubuntu as Howard suggested. Cheers!

edit.
oh, wait, ddrescue is linux based as well.

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Comfortably Numb

Gah, at least your harddrive is still recognized by the bios. I have on that died WHILE i was backing up data to my backup drive, and the data is GONE. And it'll cost $600 to send it to one of those data recovery companies.

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[SpA]cardboard: what you do with your sister is your business