Data Recovery

B

babyshark31

Gawd
2FA
Joined
Nov 5, 2008
Messages
775
Hello,

I have an "ancient" (about 6 years old) WD external USB/Firewire HDD. Recently i went to turn it on to back up all the files on my new server, and I heard a clicking noise and the computer would not recognize it. I took it to a local data recovery place that said it was due to the head falling out of whack, and as a result it scratched the platter. The place wanted an arm and leg and wouldn't guarantee that they could fix it, but would charge me anyways. As I have about 10 years of irreplaceable photos I am looking into other places to take it or other ideas. I was wondering what your experience with Data Recovery companies was and who you would recommend, or what other method you might choose to get the data. I have been told that if you try to read a scratched platter when the magnetic head reaches the scratch you risk erasing/corrupting all of the data. Is there anyway to read the data up to the scract and past the scratch prior to trying to read the scratch? THanks so much for all of your help!

CHeers,
Ryan
 
It's hard to tell exactly what is going on at first glance...especially if you just described the sound to them. A head crash is a possibility, but there are quite a few other things that are more likely. Your best bet will be to take the drive out of the enclosure and plug it directly into the server. If it still clicks and isn't recognized, then you know it's not the enclosure. From there you can start diagnosing the drive itself.

P.S. - There is some truth to the statement that further recovery attempts can damage *more* data. However, keep in mind that this is true in rather rare cases.

P.P.S. - I generally hate external enclosures. I have had more drives die due to external enclosures than...well...let's just say I've lost a lot of drives that way. Sometimes it's poor power supply, other times it's the controller, and then you have the possibility of it getting knocked around a little more than it likes.



I wish you the best of luck because I know how bad it can suck. Come back once you've found out a little more.
 
I have used this software several times on drives acting similar to yours with success to recover all data. You can try it for free and it will show you everything you can recover. However, you'll have to pay $79 for a registration key to actually recover the data. But you'll know for sure if it can be recovered by the software before you purchase it. Give it a try.


http://www.runtime.org/data-recovery-software.htm

 
Last edited:
Ryan,

Unfortunately this would be a somewhat difficult case. Software would definitely not help, it would only make the condition of the drive worse. Some data recovery companies have advance techniques that may be able to read around the bad (scratched) area. Your best bet would be to call some big and some small data recovery centers and ask about their capabilities pertaining to your type of case. We have used http://www.datanalyzers.com for our recoveries in the past. They are pretty knowledgeable; but I am not sure if they have anway to recover your data. Try just calling a few and see what they say.
 
If your drive is bad, there is no way software can recover that data. It is very expensive to recover data from a dead/bad drive and there is no guarantee they can recover the data.
 
IF the drive is detected by the BIOS and spins up then I would run Spinrite
http://grc.com/spinrite
This will use the properties of the drive to attempt to move data to readable sectors, reading data from a bad platter will not destroy it, its just a read. Spinrite relocates what data it can read from failed sectors to empty sectors and thus makes all of your data readable. Spinrite's unique property is that it can recover partial sectors where other data recovery is an all-or-nothing attempt. If the probem is truly mechanical then neither spinrite nor any software will help you.
*another side benefit of Spinrite is that the drive is never exposed to an OS like windows that may attempt to do lord-knows-what to your hard disk as spinrite comes in the form of a bootable CDROM or Floppy
*you will also have to take the drive out of the enclosure to run spinrite, and when attempting any data recovery, should do so anyhow to eliminate variables.

If this is not the case then I would find a nice cool dry place t store it in an anti-static bag with foam all around it until you can afford to take it to DriveSavers. They have a garuntee and will only charge you if they can recover your data. The recovery process is not cheap but this is the last solution you will ever need (you can't assign a value to irreplaceable photos) just call them up and ask about their prices. A friend of mine is a rep for them and I have heard nothing but good things. For what it's worth I wouldn't trust my data to anywhere else (thankfully my personal backups have prevented me from needing this to date).
http://www.drivesaversdatarecovery.com/
1-800-440-1904
 
Last edited:
The_Engineer said:
If this is not the case then I would find a nice cool dry place t store it in an anti-static bag with foam all around it until you can afford to take it to DriveSavers. They have a garuntee and will only charge you if they can recover your data. The recovery process is not cheap but this is the last solution you will ever need (you can't assign a value to irreplaceable photos) just call them up and ask about their prices. A friend of mine is a rep for them and I have heard nothing but good things. For what it's worth I wouldn't trust my data to anywhere else (thankfully my personal backups have prevented me from needing this to date).
http://www.drivesaversdatarecovery.com/
1-800-440-1904
Click to expand...

QFT on the DriveSavers part, we only use them at work and they've always done a great job. The best part is, they won't charge you a cent if they can't recover any data, though it won't be cheap to get it back (I think they charge around $500min). If you absolutely need the data on that drive, I'd send it to drivesavers.
 
that stinks... been there. ALWAYS keep a backup


if you don't want to spend the $$$ to have everything recovered, you could always try the old freezer method. I had a drive fail on me while I was at work. I came home and tried booting my machine, only to hear a god awful clicking coming from it.

Someone suggested putting it in the freezer (in a bag) for 4 or 5 hours, then plugging it back into the computer and to immediatly start copying important data. I though they were pulling my leg... but figured it couldn't hurt. To my surprise, it actually worked and was able to get everything I needed off of it before it went down for good. Just a heads up if you wanted to try it.

http://geeksaresexy.blogspot.com/2006/01/freeze-your-hard-drive-to-recover-data.html

good luck, let us know how it goes
 
The_Engineer said:
I would run Spinrite
Click to expand...

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO Never ever ever ever ever use spinrite on a failing drive! Software like this and HD Regenerator will only cause you to lose your data as it beats the poor sick drive to death...

To the OP, if your drive is clicking rhythmically your problem could be with the head(s) or the PCB. If your drive is clicking erratically it is almost certainly with the heads. PCB is relatively easy to fix, heads not so much.

Also, putting the hard drive in the freezer is risky and very unlikely to produce any kind of results other than tiny components shorting out when the cold drive causes ambient moisture to condense.
 
freezer worked here. 30 minutes cold (drive in paper, rubber banded ) >> 10 min data off >>
30 minutes cold (after 10 minutes the data started its invisibility again)... I recovered 90 percent
of the missing files. Not a very large drive, though, it was IIRC 80 ide
 
Martel-fs said:
NO NO NO NO NO NO NO Never ever ever ever ever use spinrite on a failing drive! Software like this and HD Regenerator will only cause you to lose your data as it beats the poor sick drive to death...

To the OP, if your drive is clicking rhythmically your problem could be with the head(s) or the PCB. If your drive is clicking erratically it is almost certainly with the heads. PCB is relatively easy to fix, heads not so much.

Also, putting the hard drive in the freezer is risky and very unlikely to produce any kind of results other than tiny components shorting out when the cold drive causes ambient moisture to condense.
Click to expand...

Hope I'm not reviving a too long dead thread but Spinrite monitors the drives own health metrics and stops itself if it finds that it is doing damage to the drive. It is a perfectly safe application to run. Certainly no worse than any other data recovery application. As I said in my own post if the data truly is invaluable the only real solution is a company like drivesavers. I am interested in what the OP has done to date with their drive too...
 
Any "data recovery" tool that writes back to the drive that it is "recovering" from is absurd, in my opinion. At the VERY LEAST if someone insists on using spinrite or hd regenerator, a full image of the drive should be made first. I think you would find that "any other data recovery application" contains a big huge warning to NOT write any data back to the drive that is being recovered from.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top