Not so much time ago I wrote about the problems I’ve had with my 320 GB Western Digital hard disk. I have lost all my data, but I have managed to solve all of it.

I thought that if I got my data back the disk should still be usable. I have removed the partition, reformatted it and set up a new partition.I have checked chkdsk without errors, I have run the WD disk utility without errors, so I thought I might have another chance with the disk. I wouldn’t trust it any useful data, of course, but it was all about trying – specially because I couldn’t figure out what has happened to the disk in the first place.

The disk worked for some time but later it started to crash my computer again. I have been able to save 15 GB of data on the disk before the disk became really slow and has stopped responding.

I have decided that I give up – the disk wins. I have gotr all my data back, so there is no loss (with the exception of hardware – I’m already thinking of buying a new disk…). I still have to decide whether I keep the disk in my computer or remove it and get rid of it.

If it helps, when the disk was broken, I have been receiving these errors:

When running chkdsk I got “an unspecified error“, which didn’t really help. Chkdsk asked me if I want to continue, but it answered automatically “No” so it didn’t perform the check.

When running several disk utilities I frequently got an error with “Invalid opcode at” and some numbers. I haven’t been able to find out what that should mean. Also, some utilities froze when “selecting drive for use“. I had to restart my computer afterwards.

I hope none of you have such problems with your disk(s). If you do, my three part tutorial should help you getting all your data back: Part 1, part 2, part 3.