Is my hard drive shot? :(

I had Windows installed on a 30gb WD. Just recently, I started up the comp and it said windows didn't boot properly on last boot. It prompts for last known good config, safe mode ect....
Any option I press, the XP boot logo/screen appears, loads for a moment, then a BSOD flashes for an half of an instant and the comp reboots.... I tried to repair windows, but it didn't detect an installation, which it should.

I moved the hard drive to a different comp w/ win XP, and it detected it just fine, but it didn't detect windows on bootup at all. On my good hard drive's windows, the *corrupt* hd was "not formatted". Also, i noticed it was 100% free, even though it should be reading about 30%.

Is my hard drive shot? I'd hate to have to vote for WD in the poll for worst hard drives...

Also, the good copy of windows wanted to to a scandisk on the hard drive the first time i put it in... is this a bad omen, like windows detecting a bad drive or something?

If it is shot, is there ANYTHING or ANY WAY to retrieve ANY info off of it?*whimper*

thanks

Yes you can retrieve the data. (Your hard drive is dead) Usually the hard drives will work once in a while, leave the drive on a shelf for a few days(I think someone said something about a freezer?? Don't quote me) and try again. Worst comes to worst you can always take your drive to a clean room and have them put the platters in a different hard drive.

Just kidding, this is expensive, and I'm not talking like a few hundred dollars.

so you think letting it sit will help??
its worth a shot....

It's not necessarily a dead hard drive. The improper shutdown could have just wrecked your partition table, making the drive seem unformatted as there's no information for Windows to tell where anything is.

If you have another PC or hard drive that you can get an installation on, try that and use the "damaged" drive as a slave. There are plenty of recovery tools out there that may be able to salvage most/all of what was on it. Just be ready to invest some time...these programs can take quite a while. I believe I've used Easy Recovery Pro and PowerQuest Lost & Found in the past. Don't remember which of these worked the best, but I retrieved data after a format using them. They are not free, however, as most won't be.

If the drive is dead, as stated above, be prepared to shuck out some major bucks for a pro to do it. They will probably charge you a flat fee with no guarantees of how much can be recovered too, if anything.

Don't put the drive in a freezer though. Last thing you need is the moisture getting to the internals of that drive.

so you think if i format the drive and then use a repair utility, i can get some info back?

I do have another comp, and i tried it as the slave drive. Thats the one that ran scandisk. It came up with so many errors, i couldn't keep count.

I'd try again and skip scan disk. Install the recovery program on the other PC and run it from there.

If scan disk is finding surface errors then the hard drive may be bad afterall. Worth one more try though.

Doing a format and reinstalling would be my final option.

you would try what again Jon? try reading with the good copy of windows?

Yes. Stick it in the other PC and skip the scandisk this time. Then try a recovery program.

Most will give you a demo that will read everything, but not allow you to recover it. If it finds what you want, you can then choose to buy it if you wish.