We have had a drive at work crash and cannot get back up in running. Put the dribve into another PC and that PC is unable to read the drive either. Does anyone have an idea if there is a program or a way to retrieve the info on the drive. It was left up to the manager of that department to do the back ups but failed to do them. He has lost his entire customer database and programs in which to do his job. The software needed needs to be reinstalled by the company and may put the department behnd by a couple of days. If anyone could possible help in this matter it would be greatly appreciated.

Depends on how far gone the data is. Since it is probably still physically on the disk, it should not be too much of a problem for specialised companies to retrieve the data. However, that is very costly.

But if the hardware (controller) has failed, then there is no software fix. Is the disk still recognised in the BIOS? Does it make funky sounds on bootup? Or does it not even spin up?

[Edit] Also ask the manager what kind of filesystems were on the disk: FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, or even an Unix format like Ext2?

fat 32 system and the disk does spin up. so hopefully i will be able to get it back

Fat32? Good... Check if the BIOS recognises the drive as present (if it does not, you probably have a controller failure, you can contact the harddrive vendor for a drive of exactly the same type and transfer the controller card to fix things then).

If the BIOS recognises the drive as present, check if it turns up in the Windows Device Manager (or system manager). If it turns up there, it's probably a fucked up filesystem. If that is the case I do have a program that could correct it.

The program in question retrieves file data from the harddisk without using the FAT tables and filesystem info. Takes quite a while since it does not have any references, but it should work. The requirements: A computer with the screwed harddisk, and a good one (where the recovered data can be stored). This program refuses to restore the old disk by writing to it, so you can only COPY the old data to a new destination.
Procedure:
Try and get a blank, new harddisk to put it on (you'd need a comp with 2 extra temporary disks, the broken one and the blank one, and a third one where the operating system is installed on, along with the recovery tool)
The program will attempt to access the corrupted disk and retrieve a list of files that can be recovered. This will probably include long-since deleted files, so check which files are the original ones. (Deleted files are not actually deleted, simply marked as "can be overwritten". If that has not been done yet, they are wholly recoverable).
Select the correct versions for retrieval, and copy them to the fresh harddisk.

There's no telling if the data will be consistant, but there's a good chance it will be. But check... Also there is no telling if the program will at all succeed in accessing the harddisk.
I recommend Win98 as the operating system for retrieval, since it allows direct hardware access, which Win2K/XP does not.

I ended up downloading the Ontrack Filerecovery professional and took a look at it late last night. Unfortunately it is at my PC at home and not one here. I am not sure if it will work to well and when i just tried it out a bit last night it noticed every drive on my IDE chains. At present i am not aware if the drive shows up in the bios as i am unable to get into it at present time. Also i didn't have much time last night to take a look and see if it showed in the system table for devices. I brought to work a recovery disk from said program, tiny linux incase and a windows 98 boot disc. As for the one program you are referring to, it doesn't look it will work out to well for me since we do not have another drive in the dealership that i could use for what you have proposed. What i might have to do is have them reinstall all the software they had on the old drive and see if i can at least recover some of the files they had on the old one so that they haven't completely lost their entire customer database

One other thing, is what program is it you have referred to that you use? At the moment i am hoping the Ontrack one will work well enough for me at the moment and that in future i would be able to try the one that you have. Thanks for the info as well as you have proven to be one helpful individual over alot of other people that i know in the computer industry. Take it easy and talk to you lata

I'm referring to a discontinued piece of software known as "Drive Rescue". As for installing anything on the defective disk: DON'T! You'll reduce ANY chance you have to recover data from that disk to zilch if you start writing to it!

As for a new harddrive: You will need a new one anyhow to replace the defective one (you're not actually going to reuse hardware that has failed are you?) so use that one to install the data on...

If you can arrange me to get a terminal session to the computer that is going to preform that procedure (using VNC or some other remote console software) I could oversee the proceedings...

I do not plan on using the defective drive once i am able to get the information off of it. Though it maybe that i have to move the stuff from the defective drive to the new one in the pc. If it comes to the point where i have to get you to help me out that way i will take the drive home and install it on the PC i have at home in which you can help me out on that if you have XP. Thenb again i think do have VNC installed on that asw ell as i have had to use it to help someone else out with an issue they had on their computer. Either way i hope that i don't need to get that far i just need to get the customer database off of it and anything else they need to get. Again if i need that much help from you, thanks i'll l;et you know. BTW have ou ever heard or used the Ontrack Recovery professional Recovery?