I have experienced similar things, and found that instead of the HDD
failing, the Bios somehow got changed to the incorrect settings for the
drive.  The HD (or documentation that came with it) should give you the
sectors, heads, etc. information.  Go to the bios and make sure it's showing
the correct numbers.  In my case, I changed them to match the drive, and it
worked just fine, and still does.  I have no clue why or what changed the
bios.
Ken Hollingsworth

On Sun, Mar 22, 2009 at 11:56 AM, ceares <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Okay, I used the freezer trick along with a usb adapter and got my computer
> to acknowledge my hard drive, but it kept saying it needed to be formatted.
> (files listed as RAW)
>
> I checked around on line for solutions and tried chkdsk, then fixmbr and
> then fixboot. After I did the fixboot the files are listed as FAT but when I
> go to diskmanage it tells me that the hard drive only has 10gbs on it. (at
> top, still shows 33gb at bottom listing)
>
> I tried a data recovery program(testdisk) and got errors like incorrect #
> of heads and incorrect # of sectors. Tried recovery with the testdisk
> program and it said harddrive seemed to be the wrong size and check bios,
> jumpers etc...
>
> Is there still a chance I can recover data off this drive? Am I going about
> it the completely wrong way or am I just spinning my wheels here and should
> give it up for dead?
>
> I can't afford to spend any money on this really by sending it out for data
> recovery or buying expensive software as the data is only valuable on a
> personal level, but if there's anything else I can do, I'm willing to try.
>
>        The NOSPIN Group has added a new feature on our website,
>           web based bulletinboard for questions and answers:
>              Visit our sister website at http://nospin.com
>

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