Dead hard drive recovery?

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ws_volt

ws_volt

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My hard drive (3TB, stores all my games and work) appears to have died. Windows wont see it, i cant see it in the BIOS either, its just gone. It made no sounds before it died, so I dont think its a mechanical failure. Whats the best way to go about trying to get my data back?
 
Solution
MarkW
Change the SATA plug on the motherboard end. Switch from one plug to another one and see if that works.

But the bottom line is this. If doing that does not change things, and you do not have backups on another drive, unless you are willing to spend $1000+ to have a professional data recovery center try to extract the data for you, it is most likely gone forever.

I know that is hard to swallow sometimes, but I spent $30 for a good backup program, and another $70 for a new 2TB hard drive just to back things up 3 times a week. I will have over a months worth of backups at all times on that new hard drive. Just to make sure that I can recover from the loss of my 1TB boot SSD which has everything on it.

Unfortunately, most people do not...
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Boogieman_WD

Boogieman_WD

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Jul 31, 2014
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Hey there, ws_volt.

Do you even hear it power up when you start your system? You could try the drive with a different computer, to see if the same thing happens. If it powers up, you could try accessing it via Ubuntu Live USB/DVD, or via data recovery software: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/id-1644496/lost-data-recovery.html. On the other hand, if the drive doesn't power up at all, then I'm afraid that your best and most reliable option would be a data recovery company.

Hope that helps.
Boogieman_WD
 
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MarkW

MarkW

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Change the SATA plug on the motherboard end. Switch from one plug to another one and see if that works.

But the bottom line is this. If doing that does not change things, and you do not have backups on another drive, unless you are willing to spend $1000+ to have a professional data recovery center try to extract the data for you, it is most likely gone forever.

I know that is hard to swallow sometimes, but I spent $30 for a good backup program, and another $70 for a new 2TB hard drive just to back things up 3 times a week. I will have over a months worth of backups at all times on that new hard drive. Just to make sure that I can recover from the loss of my 1TB boot SSD which has everything on it.

Unfortunately, most people do not do this, and then they lose everything when a drive dies.
 
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ws_volt

ws_volt

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I cant tell if its powering up or not, due to some lovely loud fans, I cant hear much else except fans, even when the hard drive was working. I get the feeling though, its not powering on at all.
 
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ws_volt

ws_volt

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Thing is I have like 1.5tb of games, I would need a second 2TB+ hard drive just to do backups with, and while im now very tempted, I think maybe ill just invest in a good quality 4TB hard drive and hope for the best. (WD instead of seagate). I dont midn about loosing my games, its my work im really annoyed about. guess it should back it up on my SSD and hard drive, since it doesnt take up that much space.

 
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MarkW

MarkW

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HGST drives seem to have the lowest failure rates. But WD, HGST and Toshiba are all good drives in my book. And yes, it seems like everytime I try a Seagate drive, it fails way too early on me. So I no longer buy Seagate.

Once you are back up and running, look into buying a copy of NovaSTOR backup. Its often on sale for $29.99. And get yourself a hard drive just for backups. $100 investment, and a whole lot of peace of mind. And if you would like to know which hard drive I bought, I can post the link for you whenever you want it.

I just want to show you a chart that a backup company named BackBlaze posted early this year. They have over 40,000 hard drives running as part of their operation. And this chart shows the failure rates of various sized drives by manufacturer. My experiences over the years matches this chart.

357oyl5.jpg
 
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RunLuke

RunLuke

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Before doing anything, try bringing it to a data-recovery place, afaik they diagnose it for a small fee and then give you an estimate, leaving you to decide. That may give you an idea of how to proceed. It's stupid expensive because taking the disk apart - if the platters need to come out - requires a clean room, and there aren't many, so they are usually shipped somewhere and not done locally. In my instance the disk had to go to another country.

One way to possibly recover data if it isn't a mechanical fault is exchanging the PCB with one from a similar harddrive (it has to be the exact same PCB). You may completely break it if you don't know what you are doing, but if you are at the point where all hope is lost, then why not.

I'd get two harddrives and mirror them to avoid a single disk failure killing all your data, but as MarkW says some type of external backup is necessary. I just prefer to have a few redundancies. You never know. Also, you could consider putting your games on one disk and your work on another one that's backed up.


 
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ws_volt

ws_volt

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Thanks. You seem to know your stuff, would it be possible to get a 4Tb drive and create a 1TB partition (or smaller) nd have that backed up to another drive, but not the rest of the drive?
 
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MarkW

MarkW

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You could do that. But if the drive fails like this one appears to have done, you are going to be right back where you are right now. When a drive dies, the entire drive dies.

If I were in your shoes, do what you plan to do in getting that 4TB hard drive. Then save up, and buy a 1 or 2 TB hard drive for backups. Or maybe even a second 4TB drive, and just have your system do a full system backup every few days to the second drive.

In the end, you want to have as much as you can backed up on a drive that is not the drive you use all day long.
 
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ws_volt

ws_volt

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but with that I could have my work and important stuff backed up, but not my games, which i dont need backed up really.
 
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MarkW

MarkW

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Like I said, you can do the 1TB partition backup on a 4TB hard drive. But if that drive dies like your current one appears to have done, that 1TB partition is going to still be on that 4TB drive. So do this on a temporary basis. But in the long run, you are going to want the backups to go to a different physical hard drive.

Any good backup program will let you select what folders you want backed up. You control that. It can be anything from one folder to all folders. And where the backup is saved to is also your call.
 
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ws_volt

ws_volt

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Oh I wasnt clear, i want to have the 1TB partition only backed up to a seperate 1TB hard drive (im thinking WD black or HGST) maybe 500Gb since it will just be for work. can this be done?
 
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ws_volt

ws_volt

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I dont really want to pay £250 for data recovery, even if it is possible, thats like, the cost of two 4TB hard drives, im not willing nor capable of replacing the PCB, so I think im just going to buy new storage, take my losses and try to do better this time. I have a question though, is it possible to back up a single partition of a drive to another hard drive? So instead of getting a separate drive for work, simply using a partition, and then backing up only that partition?
 
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MarkW

MarkW

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Yes. You control what gets backed up, and where the backup goes.

I recommend NovaSTOR Backup, and it's often or always (I don't go there very often) on sale for $29.99. It does its job well, and will even encrypt the backup for you if you want it to.

 
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ws_volt

ws_volt

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There has been an interesting development, the drive is not dead, apparently, despite it not even spinning up before (I think) has re-appeared in windows after many restarts, im now able to use some diagnostic tools, and they are both reading "warning" as the health status. Should I replace the drive? I cant think of a reason it would have stopped appearing and now come back other than there are serious issues with it.

 
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RunLuke

RunLuke

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Replace it
 
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