Hard Disk Failure. Pls help

[christy]

My desktop's hard disk(Seagate 250 GB) failed. It's not booting up and shows I/O error when trying to reinstall windows. I wish to recover 10 GB of data. Please support.

[~rp]

have you tried removing the disk, cleaning connections & connecting back ?
where are you located ?

[christy]

I haven't removed the disk. However detached and attached the connection cables. Now when i try to boot pc, it shows as in the image attached.

[~rp]

^ you can go through that recovery process

[christy]

I tried that. Doesn't lead me anywhere. Stuck with the same page again.

[~rp]

you can try changing the disk slot. does bios show disk details ?

[chhotemiaa]

use a live CD/DVD/Pen Drive to boot or connect your hdd to some other computer as secondary drive.

start the computer and then try to copy data.

[ruby.bhatia]

On a separate machine, download 1.6 GB ISO of Ubuntu Unix to 16 GB Pen Drive, make it bootable using RUFUS software.
Powerup your machine Press F2 or F10 or F12 (Depends, try all to change boot sequence)

Choose Live CD Option, Unix will get installed on Pen Drive & still you'll have some space..
Access your Hard Disk & Copy stuff into Pen Drive.

Worst Case, you will have to use Disk Recovery Tools (DRT).

Remove Hard Disk, Connect it to other machine & run DRT

[fasterboy]

On a separate machine, download 1.6 GB ISO of Ubuntu Unix to 16 GB Pen Drive, make it bootable using RUFUS software.
Powerup your machine Press F2 or F10 or F12 (Depends, try all to change boot sequence)

Choose Live CD Option, Unix will get installed on Pen Drive & still you'll have some space..
Access your Hard Disk & Copy stuff into Pen Drive.

Worst Case, you will have to use Disk Recovery Tools (DRT).

Remove Hard Disk, Connect it to other machine & run DRT

Although this is best process to get backup your data into removable disk from your failing hard disk which had bad sectors yet you have to install new hard disk into your desktop or laptop anyway to keep them usable.

Many time while you booted your system from removable pen drive or optical disk as Live windows PE or Linux, so you could access your local hard disk to take backup of local data into other local disk or pen drive or usb hard drive, it becomes pain in ass while copy-paste process hangs for many hours due to bad sectored hard disk.

In that case, I advise you to

1. install new hard disk into pc.

2. remove old hard disk.

3. Install windows and drivers into new hard disk's c: drive

4. Shut Off your pc and install old bad hard disk as secondary (Like temporary remove your optical drive's sata/pata cable and connect that to old hdd)

5. Now boot your system. Be sure new hard disk connected first sata port as Sata 0 (starts from 0) or 1 and bad hard disk sata 2. So why system always boots up from first sata port Hard Disk. In         case of Pata Port system boots from Primary Master port.

6. If old Hard Disk's Partition as showing as e: drive and showing data inside, Simply select desire data and copy them. Now go to your desktop or other drive of new hard disk (if there is d drive of new hard disk) and paste that.

7. Now leave pc whole night. Never bother if system seems to hanged. After hours It will be copied to new hard disk as much possible.

8. If old hdd's drive and showing with msg "format drive" then you have to use any free data recovery software.

[Kroshkov]

Use a Linux Live Disk to see if you can get the files. If not, you can Open up the hard disk and see what is causing the problem, Just don't touch the disks. Most likely, the head or Motor is getting old which you can either replace or get some bad hard disk and try putting it in. Lots of Youtube videos are available.