Is it possible to extract Data off a dead Hard drive?

Hi guys, I have a dead hard drive; it says "Non-system disk or disk error ...Boot Failure". I think that happened after I handled the Hard disk, since I might have touched its components upon removal and replacement, so there might have been electrostatic discharge. Everything is plugged in correctly -I checked and rechecked. I had nothing backed up. My question is can I extract the files on it? (I heard of something called RAID, can I use it at this point? Or is there any other possible way to get that Data?) I've had a disk do that to me before; when I reFormatted it it worked again -but I need the Data.
-Please Help, JJ

I've heard of a program that lets you extract data from a ruined hard drive

well if you want to take out the data on the hard drive, this is the way to do it. once you have all the data that you need from the hard drive, proceed to wipe the hard drive by formatting it on the same computer. then put it back in and put you windows cd in and install windows as normal.

ahh sorry about that, i thought you had trouble on the hardware side of things. well firstly, what specific data do you want to recover? photos, videos and other irreplaceable files im assuming, but is there anything else? most if not all items in your program files folder is replaceable and is a good idea to re download anyway because of updates and such, and windows itself shouldnt be recovered anyway. youre basically copying from your hard drive and pasting to a big folder on another hard drive, where the files will stay until your hard drive has been formatted and windows gets reinstalled. once windows is reinstalled, you can put your files back on your hard drive. i suggest that while you install windows, you create a partition big enough to hold windows + 1 or 2 GB, then put everything else on the remainder space. that way, if windows has a problem and you need to format again, youll only be formatting the windows partition, and your other data will remain intact.

these are IDE drive im assuming? the ones with the big grey ribbon data cables? if so, make sure the master is on the end of the cable, and the slave is on the middle. this may sound stupid, but make sure the jumpers are set right as well. if your drives are SATA, with the thin data cables, then let me know.

RAID has several functions. there are different types of RAID. the most common are RAID0 and RAID1. RAID0 is a striping function, where it gets two hard drives and splits data up evenly between the two drives. this results in improved read and write speeds...however, the problem with it is that if one hard drive fails, you lose the data in the other drive, because each bit of data is only half of what it should be, and hence becomes corrupt.

RAID1 is a mirroring tool. it serves as a real time backup. whatever goes on one drive, goes on the other drive. this is useful because if one drive fails, you dont lose the data on the other drive. the data is the same, so you can still use the computer. however, its a good idea to get the failed hard drive replaced ASAP. RAID1 isnt used much in gaming systems because your total space is half of your hard drives (eg, if you have 2 drives in RAID1, you only have 1 hard drives worth of space)

In all RAID arrays, you need to have the same capacity drives for the best results. if your drives have different capacities, then each hard drive will only use a maximum of the smallest hard drives maximum space. for example, a 60 GB and an 80 GB drive will only give you a total of 120 GB. thats like having 2x 60 GB drives. 20 GB is wasted because of the difference in space.

those are the two youll ever need to know, but more information can be found in wikipedia.

Ok, here's the latest: I connected the working Hard drive to the end of the cable as I was told and set it to Master, and then connected the non-working one to the middle of the cable and set it to Slave, so it appeared as Local Disk(E:), except it seems totally whacked: First of all it contains a bunch of files (Hundred or so) whose names are weird symbols and whose sizes are all about 36KB, and that are not openable (if I try to open them with Notepad for example, it says the file doesn't exist), and Second the properties of Local Disk(E:) say that its only 1.25GB in capacity and that 559MB are used up, but actually its a 20GB disk. I'm sure that (E:) is the old hard drive since if I unplug it, (E:) disappears. What can I do to get the original data? Is there any program I can use?

quote hiigaran

if that doesnt work, youre pretty much screwed i think, and i wouldnt even be too sure of doing a format either. im not sure, but i think there is a freeware program called hd tune or something like that which is able to see if you have damaged sections of your hard drive.

Actually pretty much is a bit of a stretch, I would have said he needs to check google for other places instead of suggesting a format or HD Tune.

The damage sounds like a controller issue, low level access programs may be able to bypass that. Programs such as SpinRite and Power Data Recovery can read and pull information from essentially screwed drives.

I would run CHKDSK and try to repair the MBR if possible, if that fails then it means you're going to need to run a program like the ones mentioned to save your data. If you were hoping to run it in any full capacity, scratch that off the list as it's on the way out.

I wouldn't run the old drive again until I had the programs, otherwise you'll just chip away at the little life that it has left.