Hard drive failure help

[masraum]

Originally Posted by slodave

Again, lendaddy, I can recover certain drive failures. That's what I do. I do not do clean room work and leave that to the pros, but if the drive has failed a certain way, I can possibly get the data back and it would be a lot less expensive than the other route.

Not to hijack this thread, but a quick question.

Windows Vista told me that my old HDD was failing. The drive still spins and sounds normal. I stuck it in an external enclosure on the new PC to see if it would see anything. It seems like it seeks for a while and eventually tells me that I may need to format the drive before it's useful.

Is there anything that you think I could try that might allow me to get some data off of the drive that doesn't require specialized equipment?

Thanks

[MysticLlama]

Originally Posted by masraum

Not to hijack this thread, but a quick question.

Windows Vista told me that my old HDD was failing. The drive still spins and sounds normal. I stuck it in an external enclosure on the new PC to see if it would see anything. It seems like it seeks for a while and eventually tells me that I may need to format the drive before it's useful.

Is there anything that you think I could try that might allow me to get some data off of the drive that doesn't require specialized equipment?

Thanks

Sounds dumb, but put it in the freezer for a few hours, and then try it in the external again.

I usually will put it on a piece of cardboard or something just to avoid condensation sticking to it.

I am still surprised every time it works, even though I've done it 7-8 times.

[slodave]

Yes. You want me to reveal my secrets online?

Let me see what I still have on my web server and I'll sent you a link via PM.

[slodave]

Originally Posted by MysticLlama

Sounds dumb, but put it in the freezer for a few hours, and then try it in the external again.

I usually will put it on a piece of cardboard or something just to avoid condensation sticking to it.

I am still surprised every time it works, even though I've done it 7-8 times.

The freezer trick will work in certain situations. It's best to stick the drive into a static bag with a package of silica.

[masraum]

I've been thinking about the freezer trick, but haven't worked up the gumption to try it.

Like I said, there's nothing super vital that is lost, but there are definitely tons of things that I'd love to have back if I could get it to work even if just for a little while.

Thanks

[MysticLlama]

Ah, yeah, in the freezer in a bag, I meant when pulled out I use the cardboard since it's absorbent vs. just sitting on a table or plastic. Guess I just naturally do the bag thing and forget about it.

Have read a lot of theories as to why it works, but none seem to really explain it, just have had good luck. *shrug*

[john70t]

Originally Posted by slodave

The freezer trick will work in certain situations. It's best to stick the drive into a static bag with a package of silica.

I'm just guessing here....that this would work if the HD/write-head grease (i.e. bearings) had thinned out. Then the cold environment would thicken the grease and the HD would become "accessable" for transfer(for a little while).

Grease:the problem.

[Flieger]

Originally Posted by lendaddy

When you run diagnostics it doesn't say 'hey you got issues with your hard drive", it basically doesn't see it. It doesn't try to run or anything, it's just not there.

Ah yes, my laptop drive's motor died last year. I had no backups at the time. I had gotten an error message on startup like that a month or so before it failed for good. It worked fine one night, shut it off, then go to start it the next morning and no drive is installed.

I have the drive but have not paid the big bucks for the data recovery. I got most of my pictures back since they were on flickr. The school reports were old and the quarter had just ended, so it worked out ok. I bought an external drive and backup regularly.

[Rufblackbird]

same exact thing happened to me recently, with the exception of it still working after it was dropped. I had a program I bought years ago (getdataback) which allows you to recover files off a hard drive that still spins. Took out the hard drive, put it in an enclosure, and was able to recover most of my files. Luckily I did regular data backups. I didn't want to do this ever again, so I ended up putting in a SSD drive, albeit with half the capacity of the original and double the price of a SATA replacement. But so far, so good, and the speed of the SSD amazes me sometimes.