How to recover data from a faulty hard drive?

Question

I have a HP laptop with windows 10 on it's hard disk. I clicked on a recently obtained file then:

# windows explorer got stuck

# tried opening task manager to kill windows explorer ; blue screen with qr code appears with message "your pc ran into an error..."

# laptop restarts with BIOS interface saying it can't find Bootable device

# pressed f2 from the displayed options to do a hard drive test ; no hard drive detected.

# removed battery and put it back after pressing the power button.

# a BIOS interface with CMOS battery reset prompt appeared ; PC went on and off.

# Restarts ; OS boots up and gets stuck at user sign in

# shuts down itself and permanently gets all looped between the BIOS interface saying it can't find Bootable device and me pressing the power button.

Here's what I tried:

# googling the problem; learnt the file I clicked on must have had a Trojan and probably deleted OS files even though I had an anti virus that kept mute as it occured.

# opened the device and plugged the hard disk to another machine via a hard drive case adaptor.

# saw my files but could not access my User folder due to permissions. I googled again ; changed permission properties of the folder to SYSTEM but it failed after a while.

# tried a couple of times but failed ; the last trial had the other machine dieing due to low power

# I suppose the operation couldn't finish ; I got another machine again : this time only the recovery partition of the drive was accessible, the main partition only had its icon displayed with no usage/size tile next to it.

# clicked on it no response but a green loading bar at the top of the file explorer which took to long each time with a prompt suggesting I should format the drive.

# connected the hard disk via the adaptor to my PC externally(via its USB) ; goes on an off while trying to boot from the hard disk.

# Suddenly "fixing drive" appears automatically under the HP boot up icon ; PC looses power upon hard disk repair. battery fell off.

Connected the drive back. Now its not being detected at all, it's light doesn't blink at all but it shows up also it doesn't spin/make any vibrations. I tried connecting it to other machines the sound windows makes when a usb device is connected doesn't even come up. It's as if nothing is connected but the hard drive is on.

Please How do I fix this, I don't want to loose my data.

Answer 1

IMMEDIATELY STOP trying to do anything with it yourself!!!

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but...

It sounds like your issue is a lot worse than a corrupt file system. The drive hardware is failing. The symptoms you're seeing look "all over the place" because the drive misbehaves in different ways at different times.

If you can't live without the data that's on it, (I say again) stop trying to do anything with it yourself. Reason: for certain types of problems (like head crashes, or other damage to the recording surface(s)), further attempts by you will only make the problem worse.

"Tests" by ordinary computer repair people and shops? Same thing. If the first thing they want to do is plug the drive into something and try it, don't let them.

Take it to a recovery service that is qualified to do board swaps, platter swaps, and other actual repair of the drive. Expect to pay from $300 to $1000 to get your data back.

Otherwise, just get a new drive, restore from whatever backups you have, and/or install a new copy of the OS and start over.

Here's a good video (not mine, haha) that goes over various types of drive failures and how a good recovery shop fixes them - if possible.