hello
is there any professional data recovery or harddisk repair company in Lebanon ?
I have a sata hard disk with very important data that I need to restore .
the hard disk spins without any sounds but it is not being seen by system ( bios , external usb , etc )
please advise
I don't think there is such data recovery company in lebanon.
I've been there, 1TB of data lost!

It's very common to be a bad pcb. try to change that first.
check ebay and google it, it should cost like 50-100 or maybe more.
replacing the pcb is very easy, but also it can be not the pcb but other component went bad.
i don't know the model of your drive, but check for the known symptoms and compare them with yours.
it can be also jammed motors...
check hddguru.com it's very informative.
Probably partition gone bad. If that is the case, run Spinrite. Create a bootable usb, boot into the usb, and run the repair tool inside.
Try to ship the motherboard for the hard drive. You can swap the disks inside with the disks of a working drive if you have access to an operating room at a hospital. I have no other help to provide you with. But if you find a recovery center, please contact me as i also have a drive that needs recovering.
If it's not being seen by the bios then it's likely that it's a fault on the drive.

For most drives you can swap the logic board and it will work again, but you need to take the replacement logic board off an exactly similar hard drive. I've done that in the past. I used to know a guy who had a collection of drives to borrow the logic board from but that was like 10 years ago.

I have data recovery software if needed.

If it's a popular model you might be lucky.
I will try to change the pcb on monday .
The bios sees it , the platters spin but i cannot access it .
Tarek wrote The bios sees it , the platters spin but i cannot access it .
If the bios sees it and it spins up then try software recovery first, such as Rstudio.
I can do that myself if you want.
Tarek wroteI will try to change the pcb on monday .
The bios sees it , the platters spin but i cannot access it .
These are very good signs, as @rolf said it's probably a software problem and Rstudio tool is the best recovery software i've used.
It's not that user friendly but you can int tuts on youtube and simple recovery tasks are very straight forward.

Well that if you want to recover data on the hdd, if you want to fix it try searching for X hdd tool (X for manufacturer), you may need a low level format!
how to recover data ? I cannot boot in it nor repair it , I cannot install it as slave in another pc or by a usb adaptor .
Tarek wroteI cannot install it as slave in another pc or by a usb adaptor .
Why is that?
Tarek wroteIt doesnt work
try linux, grab any live cd linux like ubuntu and see if it can detect the drive
Tarek wroteIt doesnt work
Oh that was helpful.

Anyway good luck.
It would really help us if you gave us more info, like what happened to make it unreadable? Was it a physical shock? Liquid poured on it? A software upgrade that went wrong?

What happens when you try to read it from another PC? Yeah, I got it "It doesnt work" but maybe tell us a bit more. I don't know anything about Windows, but aren't there some logs you can monitor and check to give us meaningful errors?

Have you tried attaching the disk to a running Linux system? Some of them specialize in system rescue. I particularly recommend getting started with System Rescue CD. It'll give you enough tools to diagnose your problem, and will boot as a live CD (or a live USB stick) so you don't need to install anything on your system.
if I install the hard disk on a pc to boot from , it cannot read anything and gives the BCD error .
if I connect it to a dock station or enclosure , it gives I/O read error , i cannot initialize it and it shows as empty .
if i try to connect it to a pc as a slave disk , the pc freezes and i get a blue screen .

the bios sees the disk and the disk turns on without strange noises ( i can hear the platters turning ).
if i try to boot from windows 7 to repair , it doesn't see the disk and i cannot use the command to check it .

please advise
Tarek wroteif I install the hard disk on a pc to boot from , it cannot read anything and gives the BCD error .
if I connect it to a dock station or enclosure , it gives I/O read error , i cannot initialize it and it shows as empty .
if i try to connect it to a pc as a slave disk , the pc freezes and i get a blue screen .
Much better, thanks!

Just to be sure, when connecting it "as a slave", are you turning off the PC, connecting the disk to an additional SATA port (the disk is SATA, right?), and then turning it on again, and booting Windows from the "good" disk which was already on the PC, not with the damaged one that you are trying to recover?

Just want to make sure because what you described is strange.
rolf wrote
Tarek wroteif I install the hard disk on a pc to boot from , it cannot read anything and gives the BCD error .
if I connect it to a dock station or enclosure , it gives I/O read error , i cannot initialize it and it shows as empty .
if i try to connect it to a pc as a slave disk , the pc freezes and i get a blue screen .
Much better, thanks!

Just to be sure, when connecting it "as a slave", are you turning off the PC, connecting the disk to an additional SATA port (the disk is SATA, right?), and then turning it on again, and booting Windows from the "good" disk which was already on the PC, not with the damaged one that you are trying to recover?

Just want to make sure because what you described is strange.
yes of course
Tarek wrote
rolf wrote
Tarek wroteif I install the hard disk on a pc to boot from , it cannot read anything and gives the BCD error .
if I connect it to a dock station or enclosure , it gives I/O read error , i cannot initialize it and it shows as empty .
if i try to connect it to a pc as a slave disk , the pc freezes and i get a blue screen .
Much better, thanks!

Just to be sure, when connecting it "as a slave", are you turning off the PC, connecting the disk to an additional SATA port (the disk is SATA, right?), and then turning it on again, and booting Windows from the "good" disk which was already on the PC, not with the damaged one that you are trying to recover?

Just want to make sure because what you described is strange.
yes of course
Then one other thing you can try before replacing the PCB would be Linux, as already mentioned.
You could plug the disk as slave on a computer, then have it boot a Linux live DVD, such as Ubuntu.
Then you can try a tool such as dd_rescue (not preinstalled with Ubuntu). That's a command line tool.
This is the Linux setup that I've used to try to recover data. The data recover was too slow though - but the basic idea is that maybe Linux will be able to recover data from your disk. I don't know why Windows would BSOD when accessing a secondary disk, that's strange.

Of course I can understand your reluctance if you haven't worked with Linux before.

I already have that setup, as I was trying to recover data off a friend's disk. So if you want you can PM me and pass by some day and we can try your disk and see if you'll have more luck on Linux.
I am in africa , please give me the outline and the details on how to do so
@tarek you still didn't mention the model of your drive, there is a possibility that flashing a new firmware can do the trick

on ubuntu you can check these tools: disk utility, gparted, and you can try the r-studio linux version (shareware, i've only tried windoz version)