Recovering data from a hard drive with too many bad sectors

I have a 250 GB hdd that I used as secondary storage on my PC. Since a few days ago the drive doesn't show up at all, or when it does it will take a very long time to just load one of the partitions (it has four) and basically none the data can be accessed. After talking to a few people I found out the problem seems to be too many bad sectors. I was wondering if there are any ways I could recover some of my data from this drive?

I know nothing about that. Just for fun, I tried a Google search on "data recovery bad sectors" (without the quotation marks).

The top hit was: Recover Data from Hard Drive with Bad Sectors on Windows 10/8/7 – EaseUS It's inexpensive ($19.90US) commerical software that copies a disk, skipping bad sectors.

There are other solutions, including free ones: Mucking About With Technology: Disk Cloning (for Data Recovery) with GNU ddrescue (Uses a Linux boot CD. No gui.)

These are some software seen in Ten Forums threads:

TestDisk - CGSecurity
5 best software to recover damaged Windows hard drive
https://www.diskgenius.com/how-to/ba...r-software.php
UPDATED How To Fix: External Disk Drive Suddenly Became RAW – Unknown Kadath
Data Recovery Software Products - Runtime Software Products

@jumanji may have suggestions.

Welcome to Ten Forums timforr.

@jumanji is an expert on data recovery and may be able to help.

I have had great success by first making a whole DD image with TestDisk and then using GetDataBack for NTFS. As Bree suggested, @jumanji, is an expert in data recovery. He may chime in and help you further.

Hi @timforr,

1. Please fill in complete details of your computer. Just PC/desktop, Win 10 does not suffice.

2. You have got many suggestions in the foregoing posts. I shall pick two.

a) bobkn: Mucking About With Technology: Disk Cloning (for Data Recovery) with GNU ddrescue . Yep, ddrescue.
Please read my thesis here: Best method/tool for cloning a failing HDD for Data Recovery? Solved - Windows 7 Help Forums Atleast three members in Seven Forums used the info there and using ddrescue recovered the data and shared their experience. Take your time to read it and understand.Here at Ten Forums @simrick recovered the data from his uncle's "4%-health-remaining-drive that was almost totally dead" Check to see whether ddrescue suits you. You may have to help yourself as these members did.

b) eLPuSHeR: have had great success by first making a whole DD image with TestDisk and then using GetDataBack for NTFS.

Yep, imaging with TestDisk is a lot easier. Once a TestDisk Image is done, we shall use TestDisk itself to recover the data. Of course we shall use the trial version of Getdataback Pro to check what all data you can recover. If you are satisfied then we can run freeware TestDisk to check whether it can accomplish the task without paying $79 for GetdataBack Pro.

To be continued after a short break with some screenshots of TestDisk to do an initial check.

Thanks everyone for your help. Sorry it took me a few days to reply.
@jumanji Thanks for your detailed reply. I have added the details of the PC. To give you a bit of background about the PC. It's a Dell Precision T1650 that I bought second hand for my wife's work. The PC is modified but I'm not exactly sure which parts.
Since my wife uses the PC for work, I had to take the hard drive out, and now it is connected to my laptop using a docking station. The problem still persists even when using a docking station. I followed your instructions and in the last step when I select the "advanced" option it tells me that there is no partition available.
This is while 3 partitions from this hard drive load in drive's list but I cannot access any of them. When I double click on any of them it just tries to load but nothing happens.

P.S. I just realised it was a 500 GB drive, not 250. sorry for the mistake.

OK. This 500 GB HDD was originally a second HDD on your desktop. Did you buy it or was it there when you bought the desktop?

Now it is placed in the dock connected to your laptop.

1. Can you manage to post a screenshot of Windows Disk Management? ( Please safely remove any other HDDs in the dock as well as any other external storage devices plugged into the laptop) Follow the guidelines in Golden's tutorial here
Disk Management - Post a Screen Capture Image - Windows 7 Help Forums

2. Download and install MiniTool Partition Wizard Free version 9.1 from here. (old version 9.1 and not any later version. In later versions Partition Recovery feature is not free) MiniTool Partition Wizard Free 11.6 Download for Windows / Old Versions Page 2 / FileHorse.com

Run Partition Wizard, say No if it offers a new version, and post a screenshot of how your drives look in it - the very first screen when you launch it. After taking the screenshot , close PW.

We are still in the investigative stage and more work may be required till I get to know what exactly is causing the problem.

I shall be closing down for the day now and will see your post only tomorrow morning, 12 hours from now.