Recovering a crashed Hard Drive

[Abraxas]

OK, I had a hard drive crash. It started making these odd pinging sounds - and then my machine couldn't detect it anymore. Anyone know of a way to recover files from a hard drive that stopped working?

I believe the data is still there - I just don't have a way to get to it. I pulled the drive and hooked it up to another machine and can feel it spinning inside the case. Is there anything that can be done that won't cost an arm and a leg?

Thanks

 

[Psionicist]

Is there anything that can be done that won't cost an arm and a leg?

Yes, but it's one of those "do you feel lucky"-things. If you are lucky, you will recover the most important files. If you are not, you will not recover a single file. In both cases, you will (most certainly) damage the drive even more by using it.

You will need a computer with a working drive and a free IDE-channel. Install the faulty drive in this computer. There should be two or more drives in the computer now. Assuming your BIOS detects the faulty drive (it probably will, if not, check the jumpers), try the following:

If you are using 2000/XP, let it boot and install the second drive from the control panel -> administrative tools -> computer management -> disk managements. Reboot if you have to. Backup the important files to the healthy drive. Please note the drive can die any time, give you CRC errors etc, ONLY BACKUP REALLY IMPORTANT FILES. If you can download it, don't backup.

 

[Abraxas]

Well I tried installing it in another machine but it just doesn't recognize it.

Then I crawled around on the web and found the freezer trick, which seems to work - so now I'm cobbling together a dry ice cooler to hold the drive - hopefully it will last long enough to get the files i need.

The real bummer is I had started to back up everything on that drive in expectation of setting up my new machine - then it crashed and burned.

What I really need is an identical working drive that I can pull the circuit board off of and swap it out on the faulty drive - I really think that would let me recover everything.

I'm going to get a DVD burner and just start archiving weekly.

 

[JamesL85]

Not sure if it will help, but I purchased an item called Go!Data from Tiger Direct (link here ) that might help you out. It's $48.00 and it's not a 100% thing, but I've e-mailed the company, and it doesn't check the drive the way the BIOS does on boot-up. The guy I talked to thought it might work. I haven't tried it with my "faulty" drive yet, but I'll post my results if/when I get around to it.....

 

[Abraxas]

I think I will try that, thanks JamesL85

 

[Breakdaddy]

Dude, if your bios doesnt see it its toast. The only advice an old tech like me can give you is to stick it in the freezer for a few hours then immediately plug it back in and see if you can pull the data to another drive or cdr/dvdr. It sounds kooky, but it works at least a small percentage of the time.

 

[JamesL85]

Sorry Abraxas, I didn't catch the part about the computer not detecting the drive anymore. Mine started making clicking noises so I immediately started copying files to the master drive (my slave had all of my important downloaded files - I thought I had retrieved all of them, but I missed some). My computer refused to boot a couple of days later. The BIOS would start checking drives and it would just hang, with my slave drive clicking. I unhooked it and the computer booted fine. That was the information I gave the guy I talked to from Cables To Go (the manufacturers of the USB adapter). I hope that I haven't led you astray and you forked out $50 for nothing.

Maybe you can do both: try as was suggested earlier and freeze it for a couple of hours before hooking it up to the adapter.

Would be interested in hearing how everything turns out.....

 

[Abraxas]

No, I haven't bought the cable yet. It started acting up and I was starting to take everything off of it when it went from acting squirrely to acting like a paper weight.

I'm gonna put it on dry ice in a cooler and run cables in to it so it stays cold to see if the freezer trick works and if I can get enough of the files off of it.

I'm still looking for another drive just like it to rip the circuit board off of and slap on this one if the freezer trick doesn't work.

There is alot of stuff that is probably irreplaceable because I used it as a odds and ends drive to hold stuff before I would burn it to CD or DVD. So I usually fill it up and then sort and burn - it had 34 gigs of stuff on it.

[rant]These things shouldn't be made disposable. I want things that are actually repairable. The solution shouldn't always be throw it away and buy another.[/rant]

 

[Pinotage]

Noises

If it was making noises before it went, then it's unlikely that a controller board replacement will make much of a difference. It sounds like the head itself or one of the disks has been damage. The freezer trick might work for this. If it's a Fijitsu drive then there is a known problem with some of their brands on the controller board.

One other thing I would suggest, is to leave the harddrive alone for a few weeks. I had a similar crash a few months ago, albeit without the noises, and my PC wouldn't notice it either. I plugged it into several other PC's and it didn't even spin up. I resigned myself to a lost drive. Several weeks later, a plugged it in on a whim, and it booted up perfectly fine. Got all the files I needed backed up. And, it's not the first time this has happened. Several years ago another HDD I had died, and came back to life after ignoring it for a while.

Hope that helps.

Pinotage

 

[Abraxas]

It wasn't making any odd noises until after it stopped working. I pulled it out of the case and plugged it into my new machine and could feel the thing spin up and it made odd noises - it just wouldn't read.

I think I'll use a combination of let it sit for a week or two and then use the freezer trick. If I can get it to work for a couple hours I can get everything off it.

If I can get it to work for ten minutes I can get my critical stuff off it.

Anything longer than 10 minutes is just gravy.