Hitachi 2,5" HDD 500 GB failure, different than usual noise (video), looking for diagnose and help

[User241]

Greetings!
I hope you guys can help me with diagnosing my potentially hardware failing laptop hard drive, and direct on DIY methods of solving this. As probably professional data recovery costs are not within my reach.

Recently I have came back from a trip and as always I transported my laptop in my carry on, and within additional sleeve. However at some point my bag got caught on an edge and handle was ripped out of my hand and bag simply smacked flat against the floor. It was packed tight.

Laptop cant see the system files and cant recognize the disk.

To make long story short, I have taken the disk out of the laptop, and I trough a USB SATA docking station tried to connect it to a different machine. Whenever the disk gets power, it starts to spin and shortly after starts to make this unusual noises. I did some research before this post and I couldn't find any similar noises to this one. Perhaps some of you heard this before and can at least help to diagnose this noise:

https://youtu.be/bGXVH41AkPI

After a series of this noises (3 to 4), I can hear the disk still spinning.
When in docking station, Windows recognizes the station but doesn't see the disk volumes inside it. It is a Mac formatted disk and I use HFSExplorer to view such disks. Others works fine but there is something obviously wrong with this one.

I hope with your help I can recover data from this disk.

Thx in Advance!

TJ

 

[itmoba]

Unfortunately, your disk is dead -- it encountered a major mechanical error. Do not attempt to use the HD anymore; if you want to recover any of the files, then, you'll need to send it to a specialist. The recovery of files in any scenario, whatsoever, is never 100% guaranteed, and the cost to recover said files averages between $500 and $2500 (currency expressed in USD).

 

[User241]

Unfortunately, your disk is dead -- it encountered a major mechanical error. Do not attempt to use the HD anymore; if you want to recover any of the files, then, you'll need to send it to a specialist. The recovery of files in any scenario, whatsoever, is never 100% guaranteed, and the cost to recover said files averages between $500 and $2500 (currency expressed in USD).

Hi and thx for answer

However could you be more specific on why did it fail? I mean if it's so bad I don't mind trying some really radical methods to save it. I mean I don't think that the disks which data is stored on are damaged it must be some component inside, that surely can be exchanged. Have you heard such a noise before? What is the actual reason for it? Saying it simply failed sounds almost like you would have your own data recovery business

TJ

 

[itmoba]

Yes, I've heard a HD make this noise before; in fact, I hate hearing it every time it happens! Also, I don't have a data recovery business, though I have done data recovery for others in software failure scenarios. This is a completely different problem; there's no way to fix it yourself, period. Why? Because a HD cannot be opened -- not unless you want to throw it away.

When a mechanical failure occurs, the HD needs to be processed and handled in a special cleanroom with very, very expensive hardware. The problem is that it needs to be aligned correctly and in addition to that if any particles land on the opened disc, then, at the high RPM they run at they get scratched completely which destroys everything. You can't fix the problem yourself. In fact, system administrators for large companies can't do it either.

As for the going rates for recovery, I'd like to reiterate that it has to be done in a cleanroom with expensive hardware that you can't afford. If you absolutely insist on doing it yourself, you're going to be spending a lot of money (about $250,000 USD). Good luck!

 

[User241]

Ok I understand, but I still would like to ask what kind of mechanical issue this sound means. Disks has been opened by users before and fixed by users before. I mean If you are saying that this disk is trashed I could surely at least try to exchange some mechanical components myself and see how much I can get. Worst to buy a seperate disk and exchange the disks to the new disk. Putting it on the shelve seems like not trying to do anything about it.

TJ

 

[itmoba]

(1) The sound you're hearing in quasi-layman's terms is called a "head crash." I'm not going to go into the specifics because it takes many, many hours to truly grasp the mechanics of a HD (yes, it's possible to understand how it works in a few minutes, but it takes a long time to understand how and why things go wrong). Anyone can understand "something spins, something reads, something moves," but not everyone understands concepts, like, how TRIM really works or why some software doesn't work with SSDs when it does with regular mechanical HDs.

(2) No, the people who claim to do that on Youtube are trolling you. It's very funny to watch them pretend to know what they're doing when they don't. I think you simply fail to understand the concept that you can't repair it yourself, period. It's one thing to fix an SSD and it's another thing entirely to fix a HD with magnetic plates (i.e., mechanical). The best trolls are the ones who say freezing the HD works -- LOL! (Note: I'm not the kind of person to use silly acronyms, like, 'LOL'. In this case, however, it's fitting.)

(3) Let's look at two good sample videos, which we'll call 'A' and 'B' (see links below). In video 'A', the guy does a decent job of explaining in lay why you shouldn't try what he's doing. He doesn't go into depth and kind of glosses over the protective film (filter) and the plates. Essentially, at that point he already killed the HD. Why? Because fine particles will cause scratches at high RPM. Is it genuinely possible for this guy to have been successful? Maybe, but the fact that he's using Windows and makes the assumption that 98% of the drive is still fine when knowing that fragmentation needs to be taken into account causes him to lose a good deal of credibility.

Now, we should examine video 'B'. This is what real recovery is when there's a mechanical failure. The person is in a suit and is in a cleanroom. He then starts to do an actual explanation of why things go bad. In fact, he even tells you to use other credible sources if you don't believe him! Again, this is how things are really performed. Watch the entire thing -- the guy does an excellent job of explaining the mechanics; thereafter, you'll maybe understand why I said you're SOL, period.


{A}: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5Y7BniaRXg&spfreload=10

{B}: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hQZ09sdcRs&spfreload=10

 

[User241]

itmoba

Well this definitely is more in detail answer. So thank you very much for your time and expertise and forgive me sounding a bit on the ignorant side. But there is a lot on that disk, that without a doubt pushes me towards a simple assumption that I cannot loose it, therefore there has to be a way to fix it. And I will probably try a bit more before simply accepting my SOL option. Nevertheless you are probably right, but bottom line is that on that second video the guy does what I thought should be able to fix, it. I probably will fail in doing it in such a professional way as he does, but to me it is better to try and fail and maybe recover only some bits of info. Rather than simply trash the disk. First option with a dash of ignorance offers at least a bit of hope, to what seems to be a hopeless situation. But I do appreciate professional way of your commentary. It will help me to be that much more careful and if I really loose it, accept the SOL reality :[ Thx!
If you know some more links to a good knowledge base for this problem I sure would like to check them out. Only thing I can do is learn from this. And that's always good. Bottom line is that according to what you know this is the heads problem, so if anybody would attempt to fix this, they would have to start from replacing them.

TJ

 

[itmoba]

If there's important information on the HD, then, you need to send it to a professional. If you proceed in your attempt to fix it yourself, the probability of the professional being able to do any kind of recovery goes down the crapper.

As much as I advise against it, if you really, really insist on trying to do it yourself, then, (1) you'll need to isolate yourself in a very clean environment, (2) you need to make sure that there're no magnets around, (3) you need the proper tools, and (4) you need to know how to pursue the software recovery portion (i.e., what software to use).

Good luck!