I've succeeded in recovering most of my hard drive data. A "few" files were damaged, or their locations "scrambled."
Moi ini file recovered, photos, music, most scripts, etc. The data will be copied to new hard drive, with Windows7 and all programs newly installed.
In case anyone becomes interested in recovering data, here are a few notes, for the situation where the bad drive is no longer recognized by Windows7, but is recognized by the low level bios.
Rule 1, for very valuable data, is to stop using the drive and send it, and lots of $, to professionals. This option was not used.
The longer the drive is used, the worse the drive may become.
Personal recovery attempts require some computer experience and knowledge, and there is a DANGER that using the incorrect hard drive names may result in a good hard drive being overwritten with other data!
Although Ubuntu could have been used, it was not.
It was very convenient to purchase, for $9.95, the Parted Magic tools, as an iso file, and burn it to a DVD.
http://partedmagic.com/
This is a version of Linux, and contains recent copies of the needed software. The computers bios setting is simply adjusted to boot from the DVD.
This brings up a Graphical User Interface, (GUI), where the two programs, DDRescue and TestDisk may be run from a Terminal Command Line, kind of like the old dos programs. DDRescue is NOT the same program as the old program DD and is not the same as DD_Rescue.
Guide #1:
https://www.technibble.com/guide-using-ddrescue-recover-data/ This is an excellent guide. Part 1 explains the names of the hard drives.
It is very important to properly identify the hard drives, in order to copy From the bad drive, to a new drive, or an image file.
Every time the computer is rebooted to the DVD, the names CHANGED. I think sd stands for system device.
The names of the hard drives, (or a solid state drive, or a USB hard drive, or USB thumbdrive), are /dev/sda, /dev/sdb, /dev/sdc, dev/sdd, etcetera.
If present, /dev/sda1 stands for partition one of /dev/sda, and sda2 stands for partition two, etc.
Guide #2:
http://html5.litten.com/windows-file-recovery-series-part-4-recover-files-from-a-bad-hard-drive/ is another excellent guide.
Well, I wrote up some more rough notes of the trials and tribulations encountered, but the Guides cover the procedures, so I elected not to post them, as
there are so many little details to cover. Also read the reason for putting a hard drive in a freezer, on the web. It is to shrink bearings,
to improve rotation, (of motor+), if the "lubricant" is bad. This was not done.
- Brian
