Dead hard drive - tips and suggestions please!

[nila]

Hi all,
Hard drive will no longer show up in the BIOS at all.
Tried in several computers with no luck.

I need to get a bunch of photos off it which I dont have backed up anywhere else but paying several k to get them back just isn't an option for obvious reasons.

I've heard the rumour about the freezer for it, anyone got any other ideas that might work or tips or advice about trying the freezer trick?

Thanks

 

[sandmanwn]

the freezer trick works on drives that are having motor issues for the head. I just used this trick a week ago on a drive that was overheating and dying after a few minutes of use. I froze the drive and luckily had a cold night, so I daisy chained some usb extenders and set the drive outside in the cold overnight while I pulled an image off of it.

your issue seams to be related to the PCB on the drive. Inspect the PCB for dark spots and burn marks. Best method to try would be to find the exact same model drive and swap the boards.

 

[nila]

You can hear the drive powering on very quickly when the computer first turns on and then it just never seems to fully kick in

 

[qwertycopter]

Did you follow sandmanwn's advice? Flip the drive upside down and look for damage on the circuit board (ie. melted or scorched areas). Be sure to check the power and data connectors as well. The circuit board might look something like the green area in this picture, although it can be bigger:

http://www.elitebastards.com/hanners/seagate/st3320620as/drive_rear_tn.jpg

If your circuit board is damaged (ie. from static), you might be able to swap it out. Look for the same hard drive model on ebay or something for cheap.

 

[nila]

Haven't tried it yet as it's a friends drive and I'm going to have to get it from him to try it. I'm just trying to gather as many ideas as possible so that when he does finally give it to me I might be able to just 'fingers crossed' save it with one of them.

He has like 5yrs of his kids growing up photos on there completely un-backed up

 

[gandalf777]

What really seems to work for me is to : hook the drive up to a usb external enclosure, start a computer that runs linux, and hook the usb up to it. I have found that 7 times out of 10 I can extract most of the data that I need. (when working with linux and windows always have a fat32 formated drive handy to move data back to windows). The freezing trick gives you ONE shot at the recovery, so be careful. I have also seen the setting of the drive affect recovery, like someone said earlier try upside down, sitting on its front, then each side.good luck.....



If the size of the drive is a multiple of 30, the drive was bad the day it was made....

 

[darkman738]

I know this is an old add, but I thought I'd add this info for anyone who may try any of these tips. Some background:
I currently work for a data recovery company and work on recovering data from failed drives. I also have been Sys Admin/Network Admin and worked on most types of computers from end-user/residential to commercial level equipment, so I have back ground in the field.

Couple of points..

1 Freezing the drive: Sometimes this works, I have seen it work, and before I began data recovery, I have tried this as a last resort, now after working on drives, I have found that this is really one of the worst things you can do for you're drive. The condensation builds up on the head assembly and can cause some serious damage, eliminating your changes of retrieving data at all without a head assembly swap.

2 Swapping PCB Boards: This will work for certain problems such as power (drive not spinning up or indexing), some clicking (NOT grinding) when the cause of the clicking is either the power cycling(power issues), or a few other problems. In these circumstances you can swap the PCB boards, BUT on almost ALL drives, you would also have to swap the ROM on the PCB board (and its not the one you would thing, NOT the large control chip) on the board as well as it usually contains information specific for that drive.

3 Linux: This is usually on useful when there is damage to the file system, MFT, or beginning sectors of the drive where the MFT is kept. Still works on occasion as the fault tolerance for Linux is much lower than Windows. If you are creative with a Google search you can find Windows software that will recover files from those drives: Recuva, or the Ontrack Recover Pro or W/E it is called are for deleted files, they take quite a long time to run, but they are some more well known, but they really do suck in comparison to some other software available.

 

[cptblackeye]

I know this is an old add, but I thought I'd add this info for anyone who may try any of these tips. Some background:
I currently work for a data recovery company and work on recovering data from failed drives. I also have been Sys Admin/Network Admin and worked on most types of computers from end-user/residential to commercial level equipment, so I have back ground in the field.

Couple of points..

1 Freezing the drive: Sometimes this works, I have seen it work, and before I began data recovery, I have tried this as a last resort, now after working on drives, I have found that this is really one of the worst things you can do for you're drive. The condensation builds up on the head assembly and can cause some serious damage, eliminating your changes of retrieving data at all without a head assembly swap.

2 Swapping PCB Boards: This will work for certain problems such as power (drive not spinning up or indexing), some clicking (NOT grinding) when the cause of the clicking is either the power cycling(power issues), or a few other problems. In these circumstances you can swap the PCB boards, BUT on almost ALL drives, you would also have to swap the ROM on the PCB board (and its not the one you would thing, NOT the large control chip) on the board as well as it usually contains information specific for that drive.

3 Linux: This is usually on useful when there is damage to the file system, MFT, or beginning sectors of the drive where the MFT is kept. Still works on occasion as the fault tolerance for Linux is much lower than Windows. If you are creative with a Google search you can find Windows software that will recover files from those drives: Recuva, or the Ontrack Recover Pro or W/E it is called are for deleted files, they take quite a long time to run, but they are some more well known, but they really do suck in comparison to some other software available.

Thanks for the heads up on different options. I'll take your opinion on my specific problem. My Raptor 150 (WD1500ADFD) will start spinning and then make one click then stop spinning then repeat this cycle until I power down. The drive never spins more than 5 seconds before clicking and restarting the process.

 

[darkman738]

Well as Raptors are quite expensive, there control magnet (the top magnet over the actuator on the head assembly) are so strong, that it takes 2 people to remove. Also with the smaller patters, and the size of the drive, it will have too many heads and a head swap is almost never going to work, so you're gonna want to try a live board swap, or replace the PCB board you will also need to swap the rom chip on the PCB board from the old drive to the working board, this will take some soldering. The other likely problem with you're Raptor is that there is damage in the SA (service area) of the drive. This area contains information such as the Drive model number, P-List, G-List, SMART test, servo information, ect. If this is the case, a live board swap will be necessary. Unfortunately this will be difficult to do, and doesn't work that often. The concept is simple: match a drive's board with another board. Put the working drive in a computer and boot it into windows. Now spin the drive down, at one point I found a program to do that, or you can set the power options to power down the HDDs in windows after 3 mins, then walk away. Then, remove the board from the good drive without disconnecting it from the computer, and put it on the bad drive. Then attempt to access the disk. This has maybe a 20% success rate or less, but its worth a shot. Also, if you're willing to open the drive you can look for damage to the platters on the top platter or the filter inside.

Images of head crashes:
Link 1
Link 2
Link 3

If it looks like this, you're screwed. If the filter is silver, you're screwed, you've found you're data, its in the filter. Once you have a head crash, you're not getting data. The data is stored on the platter, and if the platter is destoried, then the data is no longer there to recover. In rare cases you can, with the right imaging equipment (about $3500) and 8-10 hard drives, maybe less you can get SOME data back, but more often than not its not worth it.

Good Luck!

 

[leon2006]

I'm not sure if Western Digital.... Seagate offer datarecovery service for drives under warranty. One of the drives on my OLD pc failed. I sent the drive to seagate for warranty claim. I got the contents back plus the replacement drive.

I'm not sure for out of warranty drives...

Its possible that WD offer the same service. Check their website...

On my new PC I always have an image file of my drives including the operating system(c:\). In the future you can consider Norton Ghost or Acronic True Image to back up your data and OS. In case of drive failure i just replace the drive and restore it from the image file.

 

[darkman738]

Seagate dose do data recovery through a company called i386, but it is not free under warranty, and it certianly not cheap. In most cases you're looking in excess on $2-$3,000. Good luck!

 

[cptblackeye]

Well as Raptors are quite expensive, there control magnet (the top magnet over the actuator on the head assembly) are so strong, that it takes 2 people to remove. Also with the smaller patters, and the size of the drive, it will have too many heads and a head swap is almost never going to work, so you're gonna want to try a live board swap, or replace the PCB board you will also need to swap the rom chip on the PCB board from the old drive to the working board, this will take some soldering. The other likely problem with you're Raptor is that there is damage in the SA (service area) of the drive. This area contains information such as the Drive model number, P-List, G-List, SMART test, servo information, ect. If this is the case, a live board swap will be necessary. Unfortunately this will be difficult to do, and doesn't work that often. The concept is simple: match a drive's board with another board. Put the working drive in a computer and boot it into windows. Now spin the drive down, at one point I found a program to do that, or you can set the power options to power down the HDDs in windows after 3 mins, then walk away. Then, remove the board from the good drive without disconnecting it from the computer, and put it on the bad drive. Then attempt to access the disk. This has maybe a 20% success rate or less, but its worth a shot. Also, if you're willing to open the drive you can look for damage to the platters on the top platter or the filter inside.

Images of head crashes:
Link 1
Link 2
Link 3

If it looks like this, you're screwed. If the filter is silver, you're screwed, you've found you're data, its in the filter. Once you have a head crash, you're not getting data. The data is stored on the platter, and if the platter is destoried, then the data is no longer there to recover. In rare cases you can, with the right imaging equipment (about $3500) and 8-10 hard drives, maybe less you can get SOME data back, but more often than not its not worth it.

Good Luck!

Thanks Darkman for the detailed reply. I was hoping I was just overlooking a simple solution. The only data without a current backup is my email (backed up 2 months ago), so I don't want to spend any extra money on it. Fortunately my drive is still under warranty and WD has already processed my RMA request and given me a RMA #. The new drive should be shipped in the next couple of days.

Thanks Leon, I usually back up my complete system once a month onto an external drive using explorer. I think I will invest in Acronis and an external drive specifically for imaging my boot drive and my laptop drive. My boot is my Raptor 150 GB and my laptop is a WD black 160 GB. Can I image both drives on a single backup drive if I create partions bigger than the drives themselves? I have no experience with Acronis.

 

[leon2006]

Image files can be saved through dvd discs (several discs if needed). Or you can save to any network drives. It can use whatever storage media you have.

 

[cptblackeye]

Thanks Leon

 

[thebrat]

the freezer trick works on drives that are having motor issues for the head. I just used this trick a week ago on a drive that was overheating and dying after a few minutes of use. I froze the drive and luckily had a cold night, so I daisy chained some usb extenders and set the drive outside in the cold overnight while I pulled an image off of it.

your issue seams to be related to the PCB on the drive. Inspect the PCB for dark spots and burn marks. Best method to try would be to find the exact same model drive and swap the boards.