Damaged Hard Drive

[Midwest]

My desktop PC had the blue screen of death the other day, and it kept trying to restart before I realised what was going on. I connected suspect HDD to another PC, and it's not recognised. Did a bit of research on the internet, and decided to open it up to have a look, the platters are scratched. Stupidly, I did not back up any data. There's a few docs & photos on it I would like to recover. I've rang a local shop, who said it would cost anything from £200 upwards, if I'm lucky.

Anybody been in this position who can offer me advice?

 

[Kamikaze]

Assuming it’s a Windozy formatted drive, I would connect the damaged drive to another computer via a USB adapter. It will save you the ball ache of having to set the drive to either master or slave depending on your computer setup and it’s cable connections. You probably would have to alter the settings in the system bios anyway if your connecting via IDE. There is still a good chance that some of the data can be recovered as long as you don’t format the drive and change it’s file system. If you had the data “RAID 0” across two drives, then you’re screwed anyway, and you might as well give up now. To get the right USB adapter, you will need to know what your drive bus connection IDE, SATA, SCSI etc is?

 

[Midwest]

It's SATA. I've connected the drive to another PC via SATA cable, nothing seen? Done the same with a storage HDD from the damaged PC, and was able to recover all data.

 

[Octopus]

Buy an external drive and back up your pc? Lol

 

[Midwest]

Buy an external drive and back up your pc? Lol

Horse bolted comes to mind. Learnt my lesson the hard way.

 

[telectrix]

Horse bolted comes to mind. Learnt my lesson the hard way.

or don't you mean the hard drive way?

 

[Kamikaze]

I too learnt my lesson the hard way…lol. Once lost my entire record collection which I had in mp3 format because I’m a t!t. I store all files on a second drive now and once in a while backup that drive with a third drive. The down side of this method is that you will end up with multiple backups of the same thing with very little changes in-between.

 

[Midwest]

or don't you mean the hard drive way?

To be PC, my memory isn't quite what it used to be.

 

[telectrix]

To be PC, my memory isn't quite what it used to be.

what was the question?

 

[Midwest]

I too learnt my lesson the hard way…lol. Once lost my entire record collection which I had in mp3 format because I’m a t!t. I store all files on a second drive now and once in a while backup that drive with a third drive. The down side of this method is that you will end up with multiple backups of the same thing with very little changes in-between.

It's okay, my Des O'Conner collection is safe on a separate HDD. It's me copy of the Wright Brothers’ Flying Machine Patent, I was keen to recover!

 

[telectrix]

it's a good job edison wasn't interested in flying machines or he'd have stolen the patent.

 

[Kamikaze]

It's okay, my Des O'Conner collection is safe on a separate HDD.

Oh good! You would have hated losing your Dicky a Dum Dum.:biggrin:

 

[DuaneMHunt1976]

well there is cheap recovery software out there, ive used it £50
but opening up the Hard drive to Air and Dust, i wouldnt hold much hope in saving it



when you put the Hard Drive in another PC, dose it see it in the BIOS
may need turning on to look for it

 

[Midwest]

well there is cheap recovery software out there, ive used it £50
but opening up the Hard drive to Air and Dust, i wouldnt hold much hope in saving it



when you put the Hard Drive in another PC, dose it see it in the BIOS
may need turning on to look for it

Think the dust thing is a bit of a smoke screen thing, wouldn't be good to do regularly, but I did just to see if the heads were stuck. They weren't but the platter looks like a vinyl record! Which is a bad thing for me. Not sure if the motor (or what you call it) is still functioning in my HDD. So not sure the software's a goer? Might have a butch in the bios though.

 

[Kamikaze]

well there is cheap recovery software out there, ive used it £50
but opening up the Hard drive to Air and Dust, i wouldnt hold much hope in saving it



when you put the Hard Drive in another PC, dose it see it in the BIOS
may need turning on to look for it

Most computers die from software failure rather than mechanical failure. Therefore the information contained on disks is inaccessible rather than destroyed. It is possible to swap the disks of a hard drive as long as the drive your swapping it to is a like for like. As in the same make and model. If my memory serves me right, IBM years ago as an experiment formatted and overwritten a hard disk nine times and still managed to retrieve 5% of the original data. When you use a software recovery program, you rarely get your files back in the same state as they were originally in. it’s a bit like starting off with the AC/DC version of Thunderstruck and ending up with the Steve'n'Seagulls version…lol.

 

[DuaneMHunt1976]

you can swap the Disc, they dont like to be touched, scratched and shouldnt have dust on them as can affect things.
We are talking fragments of magnetic bumps on it like a Vinal.

Now Hardware is NEVER a 100% .. But if the BIOS cant see then it gets risky, ive never transfert a Hard Drive Disc before but would have to be like for like ie Model.

as for the motor you can feel it going when power up, as normal a smell of it will tell if it is burned out.


the recover software i used got back the whole hard drive Windows and all, i only wanted some of the photos off it
so was some thing IVE DONE .. not READ about from IBM (great JEWISH sorting software company of the sky, gotta love companys that came good after sleeping with the SS)


FIRST THING THO .. is there LIFE

 

[Midwest]

Ok, seen some vids on swapping component parts of HDD, don't think I have a similar old HDD. Wot was the software recovery thing you used?

 

[DuaneMHunt1976]

I used ACRONIS DISK DIRECTOR, long time ago 15yr .
Reading the reviews, 50:50 for working and not

http://www.acronis.com/en-gb/business/enterprise-solutions/server-partition-management/

You might want to try a FREE one first, (you can see the Hard Drive in the BISO and the MOTOR is powered right, because if you cant, software cant help)

http://www.seagate.com/gb/en/servic...DKfFw3sMilazhSupwrIsZU-0wxkiq2b1jQRoCVBfw_wcB

SeaGate do a brand of recovery, also depeneding on the hard drive maybe under warranty but that wont get the data back, my IBM one died after a year.

 

[Kamikaze]

Something like this should sort you out.


USB 2 0 TO Sata 7 15 PIN 22 PIN Adapter Cable FOR 2 5" HDD Hard Disk Drive IG | eBay

 

[DuaneMHunt1976]

Something like this should sort you out.


USB 2 0 TO Sata 7 15 PIN 22 PIN Adapter Cable FOR 2 5" HDD Hard Disk Drive IG | eBay

am i reading the right post here, the he has connected it up via SATA in a PC already as far as i read in Post 3

 

[Kamikaze]

am i reading the right post here, the he has connected it up via SATA in a PC already as far as i read in Post 3

Yes he has but that wasn’t successful because of his bios settings. If he does it via USB he won’t have that problem as the system will see the drive as a storage device rather than a start-up drive. The problem with connecting it directly to the computer is that the primary start-up drive will see the operating system on the second drive. Windows will attempt to self sabotage that drive as it will see it as an attempt to clone the system. If it does work the first time, he will be on borrowed time and will have to get his files off before he shuts the computer down. He is unlikely to get a second chance.

 

[DuaneMHunt1976]

the OS on the 2nd drive is Damaged by the sound of it beyond life..
as a slave SATA drive it shouldnt give a hoot about the OS
the USB connectors can be funny things, Stick to the things that COST LESS
IE seeing if it can even see the HDD in the BIOS and as far as i can read he hasnt done that yet
gone in to the BIOS and see if it can find a 2nd Hard drive
listen to the drive to the sounds it is making ..

could get a LIVE OS disc
boot up from that
copy the hard drive to a USB Pen
and have the date that way without taking the hard drive out of the system it was in

But he has it in anther system, direct to it..
check in the BIOS first to see if the Hard drive is visible
THIS DOSNT not effect the OS becasue the OS dosnt even come in to play as yet

If it can find it then let Windows boot up, as the Drive with Windows on should be the MASTER DRIVE
as the BIOS should have it set up as it shouldnt give a Hoot about the 2nd Drive and just think of it as a SLAVE
If it dose see a OS on it (never done this before myself) it should ask what OS you want to boot up from
One will work and ne by the sounds of it will fall over and die .. then you try the other OS that will work

Ive had two XP systems on one drive and Linux and Windows.

 

[Kamikaze]

What he needs is Samantha Carter. She knows about forbidden Goa'uld magic and Asgard technology.:wink_smile:

 

[DuaneMHunt1976]

What he needs is Samantha Carter. She knows about forbidden Goa'uld magic and Asgard technology.:wink_smile:

Essex girl!


one thing is to get in to good habbits..
Backup to USB and Drop Box even Email

at college i used to dump my work in a Hotmail email account

 

[Kamikaze]

Essex girl!

The only time I would kick her out of bed, would be if I wanted to bonk her on the floor.