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#31
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Recommend data recovery company?
On Mon, 23 Apr 2018 10:44:35 +1000, Peter Jason wrote:
On Sat, 21 Apr 2018 00:09:33 -0400, B00ze wrote: Good day. Got a 15 years old WD IDE hard drive, that was showing ZERO problems in SMART data, suddenly can no longer calibrate (i.e. it can't read anymore.) NOW the SMART data is showing something's wrong. Hard drive "clicks" (heads go back and forth full disk) then quits trying. Have another of the same model, but hesitant moving the platters myself; apparently platters are not really "stuck" together and I could mis-align them (rotate them in relation to each other) rendering the whole thing un-readable. Was planning to move the data off but kept delaying since it showed no sign of problems... Now need a data recovery company; anyone have good experience with one and can recommend? I'm also curious about how they recover drives if not by using another of the same model (where they hell how they going to find one as old as mine, and can they really keep one of each model of ALL drives?) If you can enlighten me on that too, would be great. Thank you. Best Regards, I had such a damaged HDD a long time ago. It was the attached HDD control card that was faulty. I found another identical HDD and swapped over the control card using a small star-screw driver. This worked. This might be the cheapest way out. I had a drive that did spin but somehow the data got lost. Something about the boot record. I could access some, but not all of tha data. I plugged the drive into an IDE to USB adaptor. Booted up a different computer using a Puppy Linux Flash drive. Then plugged that IDE hard drive into the USB port. I was able to access a lot more of the data, which I quickly copied to a 64gb flash drive (the Bad drive was only 40gb). Aside from buying one of them IDE to USB adapters (under $10 on ebay), you can download Puppy Linux for free. Thnn just have e small falsh drive to make your Puppy boot and another flash drive big enough to copy your data to. Note: The bad drive was from a Windows 98 computer and had Fat32 format. The computer I used to do the linux boot and transfer was a much newer one, which would boot XP, Viata or Windows 7. (whether that matters). |
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#32
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Recommend data recovery company?
In article
5n4tY76H10y83Lr618DRo, Diesel wrote: Hard drive "clicks" (heads go back and forth full disk) then quits trying. Have another of the same model, but hesitant moving the platters myself; apparently platters are not really "stuck" together and I could mis-align them (rotate them in relation to each other) rendering the whole thing un-readable. swapping controllers (which is what i assume you mean by moving platters) won't make a difference and risks making things worse. First hand experience tells me otherwise. Swapping the controllers if they're identical and the controller is at fault can result in regaining access to his data. I wouldn't perform any writes on a drive using a 'borrowed' controller, but I'd certainly take full advantage if it regains access to the drive and copy data over. swapping a controller isn't going to fix a clicking sound. that's a mechanical issue internal to the drive. the chances of a home remedy working are very low, and with a significant risk of making it worse. Taking the drive apart physically to gain access to the platters though would be a very bad idea and will almost certainly result in further damaging the drive. incredibly stupid. It's pretty clear by his descriptive theory that he was thinking of physically opening the drive and moving things around. Not swapping out the controller. it may have sounded that way, but it's hard to believe anyone would be foolish enough to even consider physically opening a hard drive mechanism outside of a clean room, let alone actually try it. unless of course, the goal was to destroy the platters or use them for clocks or something, and/or repurpose the magnets, but that's not the case here. Now need a data recovery company; anyone have good experience with one and can recommend? without question, drive savers: https://www.drivesaversdatarecovery.com they aren't cheap (none of the good ones are), but if for some reason they can't recover the drive (possible, but highly unlikely), you don't pay anything. Your actual experience with the company is? extensive. i've known about the company for more than 20 years, i've met several of their techs at trade shows over the years and talked with them at length* and i also know several people who have had the unfortunate need to use their services. recovery was 100% (and $$$). backups are *much* cheaper and also much faster to restore. turnaround time can be as short as a minute or so. * it was quite interesting to learn how they can handle recovery from multiple drives in a raid array as well as from ssds, skipping the ssd controller entirely. |
#33
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Recommend data recovery company?
On 2018-04-23 07:03, nospam wrote:
In article 5n4tY76H10y83Lr618DRo, Diesel wrote: Hard drive "clicks" (heads go back and forth full disk) then quits trying. Have another of the same model, but hesitant moving the platters myself; apparently platters are not really "stuck" together and I could mis-align them (rotate them in relation to each other) rendering the whole thing un-readable. swapping controllers (which is what i assume you mean by moving platters) won't make a difference and risks making things worse. I don't think it's a controller issue, but I could try that first. It's the exact same model, it won't make things worse. First hand experience tells me otherwise. Swapping the controllers if they're identical and the controller is at fault can result in regaining access to his data. I wouldn't perform any writes on a drive using a 'borrowed' controller, but I'd certainly take full advantage if it regains access to the drive and copy data over. swapping a controller isn't going to fix a clicking sound. that's a mechanical issue internal to the drive. Clicking means the drive is moving the heads the full width of the platters in an attempt to find what it needs to start reading (embbeded servo information I presume). It could be the controller board, I don't know, but I do think this is the first thing I should try if I do this myself... the chances of a home remedy working are very low, and with a significant risk of making it worse. Taking the drive apart physically to gain access to the platters though would be a very bad idea and will almost certainly result in further damaging the drive. incredibly stupid. First of all, this is a 15 year old drive, things were bigger then (bigger heads, bigger area for each bit on the platter, etc.) so it is not as fragile as more recent drives (still pretty fragile however.) I have opened and played around inside hard drives before, and did not loose the drive. A clean room is nice, but not necessary if all I want to do is read whatever I can ONCE from the drive. Here's a little video that will help you see how easy it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZx-tU1_gOw It's pretty clear by his descriptive theory that he was thinking of physically opening the drive and moving things around. Not swapping out the controller. Indeed. it may have sounded that way, but it's hard to believe anyone would be foolish enough to even consider physically opening a hard drive mechanism outside of a clean room, let alone actually try it. Done it before, no issues. unless of course, the goal was to destroy the platters or use them for clocks or something, and/or repurpose the magnets, but that's not the case here. Now need a data recovery company; anyone have good experience with one and can recommend? without question, drive savers: https://www.drivesaversdatarecovery.com Thanks, will see if perhaps they have an outlet in Canada... they aren't cheap (none of the good ones are), but if for some reason they can't recover the drive (possible, but highly unlikely), you don't pay anything. Yeah, I don't really care for that - i.e. If we break it beyond repair you won't pay anything is not an important consideration as far as I'm concerned, since they will have rendered the thing unrecoverable. Your actual experience with the company is? extensive. i've known about the company for more than 20 years, i've met several of their techs at trade shows over the years and talked with them at length* and i also know several people who have had the unfortunate need to use their services. recovery was 100% (and $$$). backups are *much* cheaper and also much faster to restore. turnaround time can be as short as a minute or so. * it was quite interesting to learn how they can handle recovery from multiple drives in a raid array as well as from ssds, skipping the ssd controller entirely. I'm skeptic about this, but feel free not to doubt, you're the one who heard them explain. I need more data. Best Regards, -- ! _\|/_ Sylvain / ! (o o) Memberavid-Suzuki-Fdn/EFF/Red+Cross/SPCA/Planetary-Society oO-( )-Oo JUST DISCOVERED - Research causes cancer in rats! |
#34
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Recommend data recovery company?
On 2018-04-21 02:40, Paul wrote:
The big-name companies are listed here. https://support.wdc.com/warranty/dat...ericas&lang=en Thanks, I will look into those "official" recovery centres. And you can find sites with chit-chat about recovery. https://www.data-medics.com/forum/wd...re58-t746.html Interesting, he's accessing the drive RAM and fiddling with reading only from 1 head at a time etc. The things you can do :-) And there is gear people hint at, but don't describe in detail. I even found a site in India, selling things like "head stack holders" for when you change out a head stack. If you want to get into the business, there's always someone selling the bits and pieces needed. Yeah, I know there are things like head "spreaders" etc making it easier to rebuild drives, but of course I don't have any of that here ;-) http://www.acelaboratory.com/pc3000.udma.php One interesting tidbit, is there is a three wire TTL level serial port on the controller board. Which accepts a cryptic language of some sort (parameter list, comma separated), There is at least one web page, which describes temporarily interrupting some electrical connections on a drive, issuing a couple commands into that serial port, and actually recovering a drive where the firmware has damaged a data structure stored in the Service Area. That was the first hint I got, that a hard drive has an interface like some home routers do. And it's not a port that responds to "help" either :-) Lol, yeah I'm not going there. Either I fix it physically or I have it recovered; not learning hard drive controller language. An industry practice seems to be "no charge unless I recover your data". You'd probably have to pay for shipping in cases where you want the carcass back, if they fail at the task. Yeah but like I said to the other dude, that doesn't impress me as much as people telling me they are a good experience with so and so. All it means is: if I break it, so that you can not EVER recover from it, then I won't charge you. It is better than nothing, it is an incentive to the vendor to recover, but it doesn't make me all warm and fuzzy inside as much as you'd think. I've never used data recovery myself, so have not gone through the selection process of picking a repair/recovery facility. My phone book has three entries, claiming to be local service, but my guess is they just mail your drive to a larger facility somewhere. The listing for Florida, had maybe 30-40 providers. That's a lot of basements, with glove boxes in them... I got a few in my city here, but don't know how reputable they are which is why I asked around here. They should really be using a Class 100 or Class 10 Clean Room or Air Curtain for this work. But there are also glove boxes with HEPA air supplies, for doing the work. I think you could only get away with sloppy cleanliness, on the old drives (the ones with 10u flying height). If I do it myself dusty air is going to have to do. It is quite an old drive, I think it could survive colliding with a few particles, all I need is to read it once... And I think it'll be interesting, when someone asks this question, and he has a Helium drive. Who can handle one of those ? That will take a rocket scientist, as the HDA has a seal to keep the Helium in. What a mess that's going to be. Do they use a can opener on those ? :-) Conventional air-filled drives with breather holes, are a lot easier to open up (the breather hole has a HEPA filter underneath the cover). There is no "vacuum" inside a hard drive, as the heads actually "fly" on a cushion of some gas, whether it's 1 ATM air, or it's helium. Well the helium is to make sure it's easier to spin the platters and the temp doesn't go up. Maybe they can just run the drive in an appropriately cold room, provided the rotor can take the extra drag... Regards, -- ! _\|/_ Sylvain / ! (o o) Memberavid-Suzuki-Fdn/EFF/Red+Cross/SPCA/Planetary-Society oO-( )-Oo Friends don't let friends use Windoze. |
#35
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Recommend data recovery company?
On 2018-04-21 07:15, Zaidy036 wrote:
One last effort? Place drive in zip lock bag overnight in freezer. Quickly attach to PC and try to transfer files. I "recovered" a 1TB USB drive that would no longer spin-up that way last week, suspect a controller-board power-delivery issue, which apparently the cold temperature helped, because it had done this before and once it managed to spin-up it was good for months. But I'm not sure it would be enough for a drive that can't read anymore. Regards, -- ! _\|/_ Sylvain / ! (o o) Memberavid-Suzuki-Fdn/EFF/Red+Cross/SPCA/Planetary-Society oO-( )-Oo God made the world in 6 days and was arrested on the 7th. |
#36
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Recommend data recovery company?
On 2018-04-21 00:47, nospam wrote:
In article , B00ze wrote: Got a 15 years old WD IDE hard drive, that was showing ZERO problems in SMART data, suddenly can no longer calibrate (i.e. it can't read anymore.) NOW the SMART data is showing something's wrong. what specifically is smart showing? do you have more than a pass/fail? Calibrate and Read, they're both like 1 or 2 (out of 100 or 199 or whatever) - it can't read, spinning-up is fine. The drive shows-up in Windows, so the interface to the computer works fine, but since it can't read, Windows keeps freezing-up. It's still running in that old computer, I just disabled it in the BIOS for now. Regards, -- ! _\|/_ Sylvain / ! (o o) Memberavid-Suzuki-Fdn/EFF/Red+Cross/SPCA/Planetary-Society oO-( )-Oo Windows error 05 Multitasking attempted; system confused. |
#37
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Recommend data recovery company?
Hi Vanguard.
On 2018-04-21 10:26, VanguardLH wrote: B00ze wrote: Got a 15 years old WD IDE hard drive, that was showing ZERO problems in SMART data, suddenly can no longer calibrate (i.e. it can't read anymore.) NOW the SMART data is showing something's wrong. Hard drive "clicks" (heads go back and forth full disk) then quits trying. Have another of the same model, but hesitant moving the platters myself; apparently platters are not really "stuck" together and I could mis-align them (rotate them in relation to each other) rendering the whole thing un-readable. Was planning to move the data off but kept delaying since it showed no sign of problems... Now need a data recovery company; anyone have good experience with one and can recommend? How much are you willing to spend? Could be a few hundred dollars or a couple thousand depending on whether advanced (expensive) software could be used or they have to disassemble the drive in a clean room and use special equipment to read the magnetic dipoles from the platters. Max I'm paying is $500 Canadian. If they try to charge me $1500-$2000, I'm doing it myself. When my aunt found out it would cost $1500 to recover old data files from her defective HDD, she decided that old data wasn't really worth that much. Also, it is highly unlikely that they can recover 100% of the data from the platters. With luck being against you, likely the majority of the files you want to recover will be unrecoverable. It's not damaged because I had a fire or because the heads crashed into the platters and left nice circular traces into it. I suspect something like one of the heads just doesn't work anymore, nothing more than that. Recovery should be fairly simple. It was working fine on 100% of its surface in the morning, couldn't calibrate when I came home from work. I think it's just age - something failed, and it's not the spindle motor, and I don't think it's the actuator/voice-coil that drives the heads, since they still move back and forth. nospam mentioned DriveSavers. They seem to be about what was estimated to rescue data from my aunt's HDD and the company name sounds familiar. Yeah, we'll see; that dude in your link paid them $1900, no way I'm paying that. I have an exact same drive/model they can use for parts, if they can't be reasonable I'm not playing. https://www.geek.com/chips/drivesave...-drive-574764/ "Pricing is determined by the drive capacity, complexity and completeness of the data recovery. The cost for recovering data from a drive with severe media damage, like mine, is about $1900. An average single drive data recovery costs about $1500." https://acsdata.com/drivesavers-data-recovery/ That has ACS extolling DriveSavers, a competitor. ACS has an interesting video of how to move platters from one drive to another: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZx-tU1_gOw Considering the how expensive it is to use physical recovery services, I find regular scheduled backups (which eliminates user intervention since humans are unreliable in saving backups at critical moments in change of state to their drives) to other internal media (for fast restores) and a 2nd copy of offline media to be far cheaper and the shortest time to recover. Yeah, I'm more careful now (duplication and SnapRAID) but that computer with the failed drive was old, and I kept reporting copying the files over the network (slow) to later. Shoulda taken the time to do it lol. Can you find a seller of the same type (IDE) of drive at the same capacity (or a minimum size that would encompass the data files you think are on the failed drive)? The rescue service provider might get some of the data files off the failed drive but they may not be able to put them back on the same type and size of drive you had. How accurate is your measure of 15 years old for the failed drive? Up until somewhere to the 80's, MFM was used. That got replaced by RLL by the early 90's. Then came PATA and SATA (and some others). Since you mentioned IDE, yours is using PATA which was called ATA or [E]IDE before SATA came out. It's not so old as to use MFM or RLL; it probably uses PRML. It's a PATA drive, it does PATA-100 if I recall, interface-side - i.e. it uses the 80-wires cables. I don't really need another drive, once I have the data the old computer goes to recycling. I'm keeping the computer now in case I want to do recovery myself and need it to read back the drive. Regards, -- ! _\|/_ Sylvain / ! (o o) Memberavid-Suzuki-Fdn/EFF/Red+Cross/SPCA/Planetary-Society oO-( )-Oo Sex is not the answer, it's the question. Yes is the answer. |
#38
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Recommend data recovery company?
On 2018-04-22 02:52, David Samuel Barr wrote:
I can recommend https://sherlockdatarecovery.com/ which last year recovered data for me from an 11-year-old WD drive which, right after producing a clean SMART report, suddenly became completely unreadable. Thanks David. Do you recall how much you had to pay? Thank you. Best Regards, -- ! _\|/_ Sylvain / ! (o o) Memberavid-Suzuki-Fdn/EFF/Red+Cross/SPCA/Planetary-Society oO-( )-Oo Light speed! Ridiculous speed! Ludicrous speed! |
#39
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Recommend data recovery company?
On 2018-04-22 05:39, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
On 4/21/2018 12:09 AM, B00ze wrote: Good day. Got a 15 years old WD IDE hard drive, that was showing ZERO problems in SMART data, suddenly can no longer calibrate (i.e. it can't read anymore.) NOW the SMART data is showing something's wrong. Hard drive "clicks" (heads go back and forth full disk) then quits trying. Have another of the same model, but hesitant moving the platters myself; apparently platters are not really "stuck" together and I could mis-align them (rotate them in relation to each other) rendering the whole thing un-readable. Was planning to move the data off but kept Rather than move the platters, why not move the controller (from the good drive to the dud), if you think that's what's faulty? Doing that might also be possible without breaking the seal on the housings. Yeah, I will try that first if I decide the recovery labs practice extortion. You can hear head movement, but can you hear platter rotation? They might perhaps just be stuck. (I had that, but in my case one at least of the heads had stuck to the platter - I think; after all the recommended things [freezing, shaking in various ways, ...] I finally bit the bullet and opened up the drive in a clean cabinet at work: I could see the heads weren't in the park position. When I attempted to turn the pack [the spindle took the same Torx driver as the screws holding the case shut - don't know if that's always the case], I felt something unstick, and the heads then were free. Fortunately, after putting it all back together, I was able to recover 95% or more of the data, so it must have only been a tiny spot-weld somewhere. [I considered the drive junk after that.] Obviously not stuck heads in your case if you can hear them moving, but the platters might be stuck rotation-wise? Just a guess.) It spins fine, no SMART issues there, but it can't read. I'm also curious about how they recover drives if not by using another of the same model (where they hell how they going to find one as old as mine, and can they really keep one of each model of ALL drives?) If you can enlighten me on that too, would be great. Thank you. Best Regards, I would imagine there are "families" of drives, so they can use common controllers - possibly using a master, versatile, controller. (I also suspect that a _lot_ of the companies do little more than we do, other than perhaps having "clean" facilities so they can open up to see if faults like I had are the problem.) Yeah, I read in a link someone posted in this thread, all they need is a drive in the same family, not necessarily the exact same model. But will they have such an old drive family around? I DO have another drive anyway, they could use that. As far as what they do, they can do more than we can (like Paul posted, they can address the drive via a serial interface) but I don't think they have a programmable "master" drive that can read any platter, any sector size, any track size, etc. Regards, -- ! _\|/_ Sylvain / ! (o o) Memberavid-Suzuki-Fdn/EFF/Red+Cross/SPCA/Planetary-Society oO-( )-Oo Windows error 04 Erroneous error, nothing wrong. |
#40
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Recommend data recovery company?
On 2018-04-22 08:35, VanguardLH wrote:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote: Rather than move the platters, why not move the controller (from the good drive to the dud), if you think that's what's faulty? Doing that might also be possible without breaking the seal on the housings. The problem with swapping PCBs (assuming you can find a replacement that matches the old one) is the calibration and low-level bad-sector mapping recorded by the factory during manufacture and testing won't match from the replacement PCB to what is on the failed drive's PCB. Sectors marked and masked out by the replacement drive's minicontroller will prevent access to sectors for files you want to recover on the failed drive, and you would end up trying to use the bad sectors no longer mapped out to the minicontroller on the failed drive. https://www.hddzone.com/fix_hard_drive_pcb_board.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yn2eL4o-6Eo Timemark 5:40 - Swap doesn't work. Timemark 7:12 - Gotta swap the ROM chip. Nice info, didn't know about the calibration! Thanks! You'll end up having to move the ROM chip, if still usabled, from the failed drive's PCB to the identical replacement PCB. Easier and more likely to succeed by repairing the failed drive's PCB, like replacing a burnt TVS diode, than to replace the PCB and somehow transplant the calibration and bad-sector tables to the replacement PCB. The drive still spins and shows-up in Windows, so it's not a power-delivery problem. I can swap the ROM chip, provided I am very very patient with this (I don't have an air gun, so I'd be stuck with a soldering iron.) If there was no possibility of a failed head then I'd swap the boards right away... Since the OP is asking about using a recovery lab on his failed drive, I doubt he has the skills and gear to swap the ROM chip assuming he finds a donor drive with EXACTLY the same PCB (same minicontroller, same firmware) and even knows how to identify which is the ROM chip to move. I have another drive of the same make and model, bought at the same time. Identifying the chip might be a problem if there's a bunch of similar chips on the board - the days where I could just look-up a chip number in TTL books to see what it does are long gone. There are lots of urban legends out there on swapping PCBs and magically the replacement PCB on the failed drive suddenly works. The success rate of a simple PCB swap is rare. Go to your nearest casino and you'll have better odds of winning enough money to pay the recovery lab. Well, I won't get nowhere if the problem is a failed head; then I'd have to swap the head assembly and put the ROM chip back. It's all kinda risky, those heads are very fragile, which is why I'm looking for a cheap recovery place. But there's no way I'm paying $2000 just to get old game ISOs and old documents - that drive has been in my old computer for like 5 years with me not reading a single file from it (I used it as a download slave, i.e. I downloaded on it and immediately copied the stuff onto a USB drive. The data that was already there, I haven't really touched in a long time.) Best Regards, -- ! _\|/_ Sylvain / ! (o o) Memberavid-Suzuki-Fdn/EFF/Red+Cross/SPCA/Planetary-Society oO-( )-Oo You! In the red, investigate that noise! -Kirk |
#41
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Recommend data recovery company?
On 2018-04-22 21:14, Diesel wrote:
B00ze news Apr 2018 04:09:33 GMT in alt.windows7.general, wrote: Good day. Got a 15 years old WD IDE hard drive, that was showing ZERO problems in SMART data, suddenly can no longer calibrate (i.e. it can't read anymore.) NOW the SMART data is showing something's wrong. Hard drive "clicks" (heads go back and forth full disk) then quits trying. Have another of the same model, but hesitant moving the platters myself; apparently platters are not really "stuck" together and I could mis-align them (rotate them in relation to each other) rendering the whole thing un-readable. Was planning to move the data off but kept delaying since it showed no sign of problems... Hmm. If you have two identical drives, you can try temporarily swapping the logic board. Sometimes, the board itself is the culprit and your drives internals are actually okay; along with your data. Yeah, if all I find are $2000 repair shops then that's what I'll do. Thanks, -- ! _\|/_ Sylvain / ! (o o) Memberavid-Suzuki-Fdn/EFF/Red+Cross/SPCA/Planetary-Society oO-( )-Oo BUREAUCRACY: Transforming energy into solid waste. |
#42
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Recommend data recovery company?
In message , B00ze
writes: On 2018-04-22 08:35, VanguardLH wrote: J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote: Rather than move the platters, why not move the controller (from the good drive to the dud), if you think that's what's faulty? Doing that might also be possible without breaking the seal on the housings. The problem with swapping PCBs (assuming you can find a replacement that matches the old one) is the calibration and low-level bad-sector mapping recorded by the factory during manufacture and testing won't match from the replacement PCB to what is on the failed drive's PCB. Sectors marked and masked out by the replacement drive's minicontroller will prevent access to sectors for files you want to recover on the failed drive, and you would end up trying to use the bad sectors no longer mapped out to the minicontroller on the failed drive. https://www.hddzone.com/fix_hard_drive_pcb_board.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yn2eL4o-6Eo Timemark 5:40 - Swap doesn't work. Timemark 7:12 - Gotta swap the ROM chip. Nice info, didn't know about the calibration! Thanks! You'll end up having to move the ROM chip, if still usabled, from the failed drive's PCB to the identical replacement PCB. Easier and more likely to succeed by repairing the failed drive's PCB, like replacing a burnt TVS diode, than to replace the PCB and somehow transplant the calibration and bad-sector tables to the replacement PCB. The drive still spins and shows-up in Windows, so it's not a power-delivery problem. I can swap the ROM chip, provided I am very very patient with this (I don't have an air gun, so I'd be stuck with a soldering iron.) If there was no possibility of a failed head then I'd swap the boards right away... I'd say it's probably worth - if you're considering this route - getting the hot-air gun. My last 6 months' employment (with a company which repaired car electronics; I was mostly on dashboards [the bit behind the dials - it's a lot of the computing in modern cars]) involved a lot of replacement of surface-mount devices; the devices (packages) themselves are surprisingly robust, it's the tracks - and especially pads - on the board that tend to lift. Especially where it's a pad connected to a track that only goes under the device. Since the OP is asking about using a recovery lab on his failed drive, I doubt he has the skills and gear to swap the ROM chip assuming he finds a donor drive with EXACTLY the same PCB (same minicontroller, same firmware) and even knows how to identify which is the ROM chip to move. I have another drive of the same make and model, bought at the same time. Identifying the chip might be a problem if there's a bunch of similar chips on the board - the days where I could just look-up a chip number in TTL books to see what it does are long gone. Yes, even reading the part number may require optical aid - and it's highly likely to be a proprietary one anyway, though if you ask (e. g. here) there's likely to be someone who recognises part of the number. [] Well, I won't get nowhere if the problem is a failed head; then I'd I wonder if a failed head could fail in such a way that it damages the electronics to which it connects. I suspect open-circuit is more likely than a short, but I don't actually know what the head technology _is_ these days (my mind still visualises some sort of coil - while the technology still involves magnetism, it can't be _too_ far from that). have to swap the head assembly and put the ROM chip back. It's all kinda risky, those heads are very fragile, which is why I'm looking for a cheap recovery place. But there's no way I'm paying $2000 just to get old game ISOs and old documents - that drive has been in my old Is that what's there? For game ISOs, presumably you could find copies of the game CDs on ebay? The documents obviously not. computer for like 5 years with me not reading a single file from it (I used it as a download slave, i.e. I downloaded on it and immediately copied the stuff onto a USB drive. The data that was already there, I haven't really touched in a long time.) Best Regards, If you hadn't accessed it for 5 years, do you actually need it anyway? I can see myself still wanting to access it for completeness (and crossness with myself for not having backed it up), but ... -- J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf I'd rather trust the guys in the lab coats who aren't demanding that I get up early on Sundays to apologize for being human. -- Captain Splendid (quoted by "The Real Bev" in mozilla.general, 2014-11-16) |
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Recommend data recovery company?
In article , B00ze
wrote: Got a 15 years old WD IDE hard drive, that was showing ZERO problems in SMART data, suddenly can no longer calibrate (i.e. it can't read anymore.) NOW the SMART data is showing something's wrong. what specifically is smart showing? do you have more than a pass/fail? Calibrate and Read, they're both like 1 or 2 (out of 100 or 199 or whatever) - it can't read, spinning-up is fine. The drive shows-up in Windows, so the interface to the computer works fine, but since it can't read, Windows keeps freezing-up. It's still running in that old computer, I just disabled it in the BIOS for now. try it on a non-windows system. if you don't have a non-windows system available, try spinrite: https://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm |
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Recommend data recovery company?
In article , B00ze
wrote: Taking the drive apart physically to gain access to the platters though would be a very bad idea and will almost certainly result in further damaging the drive. incredibly stupid. First of all, this is a 15 year old drive, things were bigger then (bigger heads, bigger area for each bit on the platter, etc.) so it is not as fragile as more recent drives (still pretty fragile however.) I have opened and played around inside hard drives before, and did not loose the drive. A clean room is nice, but not necessary if all I want to do is read whatever I can ONCE from the drive. a clean room is necessary, but it's the only copy of your data and if you want to risk it, go right ahead. |
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Recommend data recovery company?
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
I'd say it's probably worth - if you're considering this route - getting the hot-air gun. My last 6 months' employment (with a company which repaired car electronics; I was mostly on dashboards [the bit behind the dials - it's a lot of the computing in modern cars]) involved a lot of replacement of surface-mount devices; the devices (packages) themselves are surprisingly robust, it's the tracks - and especially pads - on the board that tend to lift. Especially where it's a pad connected to a track that only goes under the device. A hot air gun is part of my electronics toolbox. That I don't use it often doesn't mean it has no value. I've found it handy for shrinking heat-shrink tubing (rather than wrapping a wire splice with tape), helped loosen siezed or rusted bolts, bend plastic without breaking it, and many other uses. Like a hot-glue gun, a heat gun has lots of uses. A soldering iron would need a super fine tip to solder the ROM chip so it touched only one pin (and prevent solder bridges between pins). You could only unsolder one pin at a time which means having to wick the solder from other other pins but that probably will still have them slightly soldered the pad. The heatgun lets you melt the solder on all pins so you can lift off. Likely you won't have to apply more solder when you heat the solder left on the pads to put on the new chip. Using a soldering gun with microtip, solder sucker, and solder wick will be exponentially more difficult than using a heatgun (about $25). It becomes part of your tool collection. Guys love tools. Girls love shoes. We both like to collect. A got a Kill-a-watt meter just to determine if a fridge would work on the same circuit as other electrics (I was surprised at how little current the fridge draws). I've then used it on my computer and other electrics. Sometimes you get a specialty tool and it never gets used again (so check if you can rent it). Some tools you know will have future potential use. Yes, even reading the part number may require optical aid - and it's highly likely to be a proprietary one anyway, though if you ask (e. g. here) there's likely to be someone who recognises part of the number. If the part number can be read. Seems chip manufacturers deliberately use the palest white ink that makes in impossible to read. I wonder if a failed head could fail in such a way that it damages the electronics to which it connects. Yep. A worn spindle bearing can burn out a diode or regulator because of the continual higher current load to the motor. I had a PCB where a tiny diode not only failed but must've exploded because only 1 end of it was left wave-soldered to a minipad. Took me a while to realize what I was looking for was not there. Nowadays (well, for quite a while now) I do image backups (full, differentials, incrementals) to internal storage and copied to external storage and off-site media so I don't have to bother doing computer repairs. Just replace, restore, and move on. |
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