Computer geeks help....HD failure!

[midget]

HD crash 2 days ago. I'm pretty sure the drive is dead. It keeps cycling through the startup process.....it clicks, then you hear the drive start to spin up....then it starts all over. The bios will no longer recognize the drive.

So there's a shit ton of my photos on there......photos that I was going to backup this week ironically.

So what are my options for sending the drive somewhere for data recovery? Can I salvage the drive myself?....like pulling the actual HD out of the casing and putting it in a similar drive casing?

It's a desktop IDE drive....WD 120gig ATA/100 drive.....only 6 months old. Fortunately all my photos weren't on there....and not the raw ones, just the ones that I had finished post-processing on.....heh, it was the "photo submissions" folder as it turns out.

Anyways, I'm searching the internet right now, but any help would be appreciated.

[mtbakerskier]

Erik, dont meen to laugh, but another reason to shoot FILM as for drive back restoration i dont have clue, but i believe something was posted about it on SS.com a while ago. Good luck man

[OldnSlow]

Whir-click likely is a mechanical failure, so trying to swap to a different controller PCB would probably not help. Anything more requires a clean room.

There are data recovery services. I have bad news for you - it will cost between $500 and, well, several $K. If the head has crashed or hung, the drive is disassembled in a clean room, and it is expensive. The recovery services will evaluate the drive for free, at least.

Although this is the least of your worries, you should talk with Seagate too. Your drive is under warranty and they should ship you a replacement. However, they will require the old drive which the data recovery service will return to you. Talk to the data recovery company to make sure they have permission to open the drive without voiding your warranty. The following do.

http://www.actionfront.com/
http://www.ontrack.com/
http://www.drivesavers.com/index.html

Give one of the above a call.

Bill

[midget]

Now how the hell did I know you were going to reply with something like that MBS?

Yah, as if I could afford to shoot film!
I'll check out SS

[midget]

OldnSlow:

Thanks for the response. I guess the data isn't worth that much to me!.......as it isn't my primary storage drive for my photos.....which i'm going to stay up all night backing up!

I found a trick on another website (sportsshooter.com) that I'm gonna give a shot...hopefully that works.

Otherwise I guess I'm going to spend a whole lot of time post processing......again. But at least I have the time to do it!

[fiddler]

I had what sounds like that happen to my HD. I took it into NW Computer Supply and they were able to ghost everything onto another drive. It didn't cost even close to what OldnSlow was talking about. Even I could afford it. Hopefully you'll get lucky and it won't be too hard or expensive to fix.

[midget]

So how much did it cost?

[DaveTV]

Let this be a lesson to all who read this: KEEP ALL YOUR DATA BACKED UP! - You don't need to backup the operating system, applications or system files - your PERSONAL STUFF - music, and whatever all else. If you don't have a CD burner, either get one or use WINZIP and get a box of diskettes...

[fubar]

Try one thing first. THis is going to sound crazy, but I want you to try this before going out and spending a bunch of money on an over-priced tech shop.... I want you to take the HD out of the PC, and put it in the freezer over night. Make sure it is in a plastic bag of course.

Do you have a second HD? At this point what are we most interested in? Getting your data.... so what you do is put the orginal HD in the freezer, attach a second HD to the PC, the next day pull that frozen HD out, slap it back in, and copy as much data as you can over to the new HD before the old HD goes tits up. This is all dependant on whether or not the HD will boot.

Do you know anything about setting master/slave in the bios?

I know it sounds crazy, but give it a go.


I have some other things you can try if this does not work.

[midget]

Heh, I'm going to try the freezer trick. I forgot to put it in last night but that was the trick I heard about. Let's hope!

I'm backing up 70 Gigs of photos to DVD's right now. Yay
Backups will happen the day after I take photos on cd-r's from now on with Weekly DVD-RW backups to those photo directories......and those backup discs going into a fireproof safe.

Yah, now I'm getting paranoid!

[Snow Dog]

Originally posted by midget
I'm backing up 70 Gigs of photos to DVD's right now. Yay

That's a lot of porn!

[OldnSlow]

I know post was not very encouraging and offered no cheap solutions. Sure, try the "tricks", although I could not find whatever SS was suggesting over there. Before that, though, verify the cable integrity - try another if you have one. Make sure the drive jumper is still in-place and that the power connector is fully seated. My more costly suggestions were based on your symptoms which, unfortunately, indicate a serious mechanical failure. I probably won't turn in my geek card even if the freezer trick permits BIOS recognition. Since the admittedly espensive recovery services will talk to you and evaluate your drive for free, it would be worth talking with them if it doesn't.

[frerad]

I've heard of the freezer trick before too. Seems to work as a temporary fix to get data off the drive. Then trash the drive afterwards.

My plan of attack would be...
1) Put drive into freezer
2) Pull bottle of Vodka out of Freezer
3) Drink said Vodka
4) When hangover is gone, pull the drive out of the freezer
5) Reinstall drive and start copying.
6) Drink beer while waiting for "copying" to finish
7) Go online and make a drunken post about how the "freezer" thing worked and how your "Friday NSFW" stash is now protected for all eternity!!


Note: Waiting for Hangover to go away is purely optional.

[OldnSlow]

Good plan.

[midget]

Heh, I just might.

So my "backup" HD I loaded windows on to so I could backup my Photos onto DVD.....just crashed. It's in about 10 pieces in my street right now. I've unplugged the rest of my other HD's in fear of my computer killing those before I get to back those up as well. I'm currently re-loading windows right now on my last extra HD I have laying around so I can finish backing my shit up.

Does anyone know if a problem with my motherboard (such as a bad IDE controller or something like that could be causing a problem, frying my hard drives? Possibly a bad power supply?

I have my puter hooked up to a UPS/surge suppressor.

Ug, back to geekdom.

[Snow Dog]

It's possible that the IDE controller is broken. Or the connector. Or the cable. Or the power supply. Or a second device (HD or CD) is interferring with the first HD. And so on and so on. There are utilities to check the hard drive (check the drive manufacturer's web site). You make a bootable floopy and run the utility. It should be able to communicate with the microcontroller on the drive even if the motor is fried.

[midget]

HOLY SHIT! The freezer trick works!
So I stick the failed drive in the freezer for 8 hours in 2 ziploc bags (as instructed), pull the thing out of the freezer, plug it in as a slave drive and......it works!!!!......heh, for 5 minutes or so. So I'm pulling all the data off the bad drive 5 minutes at a time.....2 times a day. Damn this is taking a long ass time, but at least I'm getting the data off that thing.

I have no idea why it works but who cares!
Who Hoo!

[mtbakerskier]

Geek, info, but the reason why it works, midget, is our good friend the coefiecnet of thermal expansion. If the drive has crashed, freezing it will cause ti to "shrink" and htus pull away from the crashed head, allowing the drive to work untill it heats back up to regular operating temp. Good luck, and btw just gota say it again, if you where shooting film you wouldnt have to worry so much about computer shit.

[midget]

blah blah blah blah.........I CAN'T AFFORD TO SHOOT FILM!

[AH]

Originally posted by midget

So what are my options for sending the drive somewhere for data recovery? Can I salvage the drive myself?....like pulling the actual HD out of the casing and putting it in a similar drive casing?

It's a desktop IDE drive....WD 120gig ATA/100 drive.....only 6 months old. Fortunately all my photos weren't on there....and not the raw ones, just the ones that I had finished post-processing on.....heh, it was the "photo submissions" folder as it turns out.

If it's only six months old, you should get warranty for the drive. I'd contact WD and try to find out if they could help to restore the damaged drive.. They'll prolly do the recovery or pay for the recovery, which is usually quite expensive...