Earlier today I started experiencing problems with my storage hard drive. At first file access would stutter, stopping for 5 or so seconds at a time about every 30 seconds. Then it got worse, I couldn't access many of my files and folders.
At this point I tried to run windows disk check. After about 5 minutes of checking the disk check simply displays "1024" and the computer locks up. After restarting, I go to back up what files I can access. It will copy the files for about 5 minutes then the hard drive will disconnect and disappear from windows completely. I can restart the hard drive no problem, but the same thing will happen.
Now here's where I've been foolish...I've been using this hard drive for about 5 years now and haven't backed up anything. I have a lot of important stuff on this hard drive, so it is very important to either get the data back or the hard drive working.
I have already done some research about hard drive recovery, but all of the programs I've tried can't see my hard drive for some reason. I'm coming to you guys as a last resort before taking this drive to get professionally restored.
I would really appreciate any help you guys can offer (i.e. what the problem is, how to fix it, how to recover my files, etc...).
Thanks,
Indybird