Customer Computer here need help ASAP

[roborobs computer repair]

I have a customer's computer in that I'm doing a virus removal on but he wants me to do a backup on. So, I remove the hard drive and plug it into my bench machine and begin the backup process of copying all files over to the backup drive but it has been on now for about 30 mins and is still at 0% I'm not sure what's going on whether it is the hard drive or what? The hard drive is extremely slow when trying to access data and is getting a read error while in the customer's machine but when plugged into the bench machine I can see everything but it is still slower than molasses. Any ideas? The customer is down on vacation and will be leaving Tuesday to go back to Mass.

 

[iisjman07]

Hard drive diagnostics? Check the SMART values and test the surface of the drive. If the drive is functioning fine then I'd try Chkdsk

 

[BDPCR]

Run a drive fitness on that drive to check it for errors and as suggested checkdisk, just be careful of the checkdisk parameters you use. Make sure your workshop pc drive and components are good as well.

 

[shamrin]

Hard drive diagnostics? Check the SMART values and test the surface of the drive. If the drive is functioning fine then I'd try Chkdsk

What he said. You've got two problems, a virus AND a failing hard drive. This happens quite often. The customer puts up with the glitches he sees from the failing hard drive but the virus puts him out of business so in comes the computer.

If the SMART data says you're OK, you might be lucky and just have a messed up file system which Chkdsk /f or Chkdsk /r will fix up for you.

 

[FoolishTech]

Sounds like a bad HDD. I would try to get important data only from the system pronto (if possible), then run a diagnostic on the drive. How are you attempting to retrieve the data from the HDD? Windows explorer? Try Unstoppable Copier, and/or *ahem* DataGrab in D7.

 

[glricht]

Sounds like a bad HD that is not only showing I/O errors, but running really slow. Backing up customer data from a HD that's running slow can sometimes take a LONG time! (Had one a couple months ago that took 10+ hours to backup 10GB of user data! But in the end, I got it all.)

You may have to just wait it out. (Better than the alternative, which is not getting any data at all!)

 

[Xander]

Sounds like a bad HDD. I would try to get important data only from the system pronto (if possible), then run a diagnostic on the drive. How are you attempting to retrieve the data from the HDD? Windows explorer? Try Unstoppable Copier, and/or *ahem* DataGrab in D7.

It's all been said but, like Nick said, try Unstoppable. If the Windows' copy process is stuck on a few files, get the rest and come back for the others after.

 

[roborobs computer repair]

Just tried Unstoppable and got a popup that said zero files copied. and tried D7 and also got an error message there so looks like the hard drive is beyond the great beyond.

Anymore ideas?

 

[BDPCR]

Just tried Unstoppable and got a popup that said zero files copied. and tried D7 and also got an error message there so looks like the hard drive is beyond the great beyond.

Anymore ideas?

Have you checked the smart status or DFT tested the drive, see if you can clone the drive before DFT.

 

[Frick]

While not guaranteed, I have had a lot of success with using HDD Regenerator on drives with bad sectors. Yes it costs money but has been worth it for me many times over.

 

[Styxbound]

You could always try the old freezer trick. Never done it myself but a few people have reported success. Nothing to lose if it's otherwise dead.

 

[PBComputer]

The freeze trick worked for me before, it was enough to do a recovery on the documents.