Hard Drive Stopped Working

I guess its pointless asking if you have a backup of your data? Something to think about doing on a regular basis once you've overcome this problem. That said;

I would start by removing the hard drive and placing it into a USB Hard Drive Dock (Something similar to this) hooked up to another computer to see if you can get the data off the drive that way. If you don't have a dock, try connecting the drive internally to another machine as a slave. Copy your data from it that way.

Let me know if you need more detailed instructions.

Hope that's helpful.

Regards, Andrew

Thank you.  I actually do have a backup but whatever corrupted the Windows also corrupted the backup.  I took the drive out and placed it in another computer and it is trying to do a repair, but just sitting.  How do I connect it to another machine as a slave?

@Davis

Yes, I am up for the task.  That is how extremely important this is.

You can use something like Macrium Reflect Free or Acronis True Image 2019 to make a clone of the drive that Davis is talking about Salonge.

Download either one, install to any other PC and create a bootable rescue recovery CD or USB device. Use the Cloning function provided to make an exact clone of the disk to another hard drive. Alternatively, create a "sector-by-sector" image of the failed drive. That will safeguard your original HD while you work on the clone.

Hope that's helpful.

Regards, Andrew

I actually need one folder off of the drive.

I actually need one folder off of the drive.

You should be able to get it by doing what I suggested earlier. Hook the drive up as a slave to another computer.

If the drive has a corrupted file system, then you may need to use Recovery Software like the following to recover your data.

EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard

I've used the above recovery software many times and it's a very good product.

However, the advice Davis gave you is very sound. If the drive is damaged, it's best to Clone the drive to another one just in case it dies completely and to the point where it won't spin up and perform the recovery work on the cloned drive. It's really up to you if you want to go the additional step or not to protect yourself from accidentally doing more damage to the drive.

In general, if a drive is failing, cloning it gives the highest chances of recovering whatever you may desire; but, because NTFS splatters data all over the drive, you do, in general, need to clone the whole thing.
An alternative might be to try getdataback ( https://www.runtime.org/data-recovery-software.htm ) which I have used for about fifteen years now and you only need to pay ($79.00) after you have seen what it can recover.
The big issue is that, unless you think the drive got banged, they tend to fail fairly rapidly and every hour it is on reduces your chances of recovery.

is this the OS drive that is failing?  or the external one?  
anyway, if a HDD  disk has problems, i usuallu runthe drive manufacturers short diag on it, to Ensure it operates ok.
then, if still problems, i use HDDregenerator to fix it  http://www.dposoft.net/hdd.html      

here's how i handle disk problems :  https://www.experts-exchange.com/Storage/Hard_Drives/A_3000-The-bad-hard-disk-problem.html

Thank you all for your assistance.  I was able to use a little of what everyone suggested and was able to get my data off of the drive.  Like I suspected it was a bad sector affecting Windows.  What I ended up doing was to take out the drive and slave it to another computer.  Using a Windows disk I ran a repair on the drive, when that didn't work.  I started the command prompt and was able to do a chkdsk.  It fixed it enough that it now boots and I can pull my data off.  I plan to reformat the drive and put the data back, get a good backup and hopefully this nightmare is over until the next one.

Again thank you again and everyone that helped, gave me suggestions will get credit.

Thank you all for your assistance.  I was able to use a little of what everyone suggested and was able to get my data off of the drive.  Like I suspected it was a bad sector affecting Windows.  What I ended up doing was to take out the drive and slave it to another computer.  Using a Windows disk I ran a repair on the drive, when that didn't work.  I started the command prompt and was able to do a chkdsk.  It fixed it enough that it now boots and I can pull my data off.  I plan to reformat the drive and put the data back, get a good backup and hopefully this nightmare is over until the next one.

Again thank you again and everyone that helped, gave me suggestions will get credit.

Great to hear you're sorted Salonge. Just on this comment though.

I plan to reformat the drive and put the data back, get a good backup and hopefully this nightmare is over until the next one.

When you do a format, don't use the "Quick Format" option. Untick that and do a full format instead. It will take longer, but will also mark any bad sectors as unusable.

Regards, Andrew

Thank you.  I will.