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#1
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Dead Hard Drive
This isn't the first time I've been here... It certainly won't be the last.
Less than 90 days ago, my Western Digital IDE 160GB hard drive bit the dust. Thankfully, it didn't take the OS with it, as this drive was used for storage only. I had a lot of data on there, most of it sentimental, but important to me nonetheless.Western Digital has all but officially voided the warranty, stating that a small piece of plastic (no more than 1/2") found missing near the molex power connector appears to void the warranty. To avoid logistical, technical, and legal wrangling with them, I have decided not to send the drive back to them. I fear that once that they void the warranty on the drive that it will be discarded before I could instruct them to return it to me. After looking about on the Internet, I've determined that hiring a professional data recovery consultant to recover the data contents of the drive would be cost prohibitive. I am currently looking for a repair shop that could manage to get the drive started and send it back to me. I would recover the data on my own once it starts. The drive does not spin up and becomes warm to the touch after a few minutes. My suspicion is that a fuse has blown inside the drive or that the motor itself has shorted out. Can anyone refer me to a business of some sort that might be able to get the drive running. All that I need to know really is whether or not the drive can be restarted and if there is data of any sort left on it for me to grab. Thanks for the help. |
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#2
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Dead Hard Drive
If you're in the US - look in the back of "PC Magazine" or "Computer
Shopper" for companies that repair hard drives. "Ben Williams" wrote in message ... This isn't the first time I've been here... It certainly won't be the last. Less than 90 days ago, my Western Digital IDE 160GB hard drive bit the dust. Thankfully, it didn't take the OS with it, as this drive was used for storage only. I had a lot of data on there, most of it sentimental, but important to me nonetheless.Western Digital has all but officially voided the warranty, stating that a small piece of plastic (no more than 1/2") found missing near the molex power connector appears to void the warranty. To avoid logistical, technical, and legal wrangling with them, I have decided not to send the drive back to them. I fear that once that they void the warranty on the drive that it will be discarded before I could instruct them to return it to me. After looking about on the Internet, I've determined that hiring a professional data recovery consultant to recover the data contents of the drive would be cost prohibitive. I am currently looking for a repair shop that could manage to get the drive started and send it back to me. I would recover the data on my own once it starts. The drive does not spin up and becomes warm to the touch after a few minutes. My suspicion is that a fuse has blown inside the drive or that the motor itself has shorted out. Can anyone refer me to a business of some sort that might be able to get the drive running. All that I need to know really is whether or not the drive can be restarted and if there is data of any sort left on it for me to grab. Thanks for the help. |
#3
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Dead Hard Drive
"Ben Williams" wrote in message ... This isn't the first time I've been here... It certainly won't be the last. Less than 90 days ago, my Western Digital IDE 160GB hard drive bit the dust. Thankfully, it didn't take the OS with it, as this drive was used for storage only. I had a lot of data on there, most of it sentimental, but important to me nonetheless.Western Digital has all but officially voided the warranty, stating that a small piece of plastic (no more than 1/2") found missing near the molex power connector appears to void the warranty. To avoid logistical, technical, and legal wrangling with them, I have decided not to send the drive back to them. I fear that once that they void the warranty on the drive that it will be discarded before I could instruct them to return it to me. After looking about on the Internet, I've determined that hiring a professional data recovery consultant to recover the data contents of the drive would be cost prohibitive. I am currently looking for a repair shop that could manage to get the drive started and send it back to me. I would recover the data on my own once it starts. The drive does not spin up and becomes warm to the touch after a few minutes. My suspicion is that a fuse has blown inside the drive or that the motor itself has shorted out. Can anyone refer me to a business of some sort that might be able to get the drive running. All that I need to know really is whether or not the drive can be restarted and if there is data of any sort left on it for me to grab. Thanks for the help. I'd be quite surprised if you found a repair shop that works on hard drives that isn't also a data recovery company. It's a pretty specialized sort of business. And it's costly to maintain a clean room and have the parts, testing equipment, and quality employees you need to work on hard drives and data recovery. It might be the controller on the hard drive is shot, and I've known some people who've repaired that sort of thing by getting an IDENTICAL drive and putting the controller from the new drive onto the dead one. You run the risk of killing the new drive in the process if you screw up or if something in the dead drive fries the new controller. So at that point you're out the cost of the new drive and you haven't recovered anything. And if the controller isn't easily accessible, you might not be able to swap it yourself without causing more problems. I'd be surprised if a computer shop would want to tackle something like that because the chance of success is slim and the cost of doing the repair is high. They don't want to run the risk that they kill their hard drive, can't fix yours, and then you don't want to pay because nothing is fixed. I'm not saying you, personally, wouldn't pay, but it's the sort of thing that happens. And then who'd want a hard drive that's had the controller removed and replaced? I'd consider both the old and the new ones as a bit suspect after all of that. So the cost of the drive really is wasted unless you want to risk using it. You could also have an internal problem that's keeping the drive from spinning, and if that's the case, it's going to take someone with a cleanroom to get the drive functioning again. About the only repairs a normal shop might attempt is putting the drive in a freezer (which sometimes works if a platter is stuck, which doesn't seem to be your problem) or some other brute-force methods. But in those cases, the drive isn't going to be functional for long, so if you don't let them do the recovery, it's likely that when you get the drive back, it's going to be dead again. I'd be interested if you do find someone who's willing to work on the drive, and how it works out for you. I'd actually be pleased if I'm wrong and someone wants to do the work and they actually get it fixed. |
#4
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Dead Hard Drive
"D.Currie" wrote in message ... "Ben Williams" wrote in message ... This isn't the first time I've been here... It certainly won't be the last. Less than 90 days ago, my Western Digital IDE 160GB hard drive bit the dust. Thankfully, it didn't take the OS with it, as this drive was used for storage only. I had a lot of data on there, most of it sentimental, but important to me nonetheless.Western Digital has all but officially voided the warranty, stating that a small piece of plastic (no more than 1/2") found missing near the molex power connector appears to void the warranty. To avoid logistical, technical, and legal wrangling with them, I have decided not to send the drive back to them. I fear that once that they void the warranty on the drive that it will be discarded before I could instruct them to return it to me. After looking about on the Internet, I've determined that hiring a professional data recovery consultant to recover the data contents of the drive would be cost prohibitive. I am currently looking for a repair shop that could manage to get the drive started and send it back to me. I would recover the data on my own once it starts. The drive does not spin up and becomes warm to the touch after a few minutes. My suspicion is that a fuse has blown inside the drive or that the motor itself has shorted out. Can anyone refer me to a business of some sort that might be able to get the drive running. All that I need to know really is whether or not the drive can be restarted and if there is data of any sort left on it for me to grab. Thanks for the help. I'd be quite surprised if you found a repair shop that works on hard drives that isn't also a data recovery company. It's a pretty specialized sort of business. And it's costly to maintain a clean room and have the parts, testing equipment, and quality employees you need to work on hard drives and data recovery. It might be the controller on the hard drive is shot, and I've known some people who've repaired that sort of thing by getting an IDENTICAL drive and putting the controller from the new drive onto the dead one. You run the risk of killing the new drive in the process if you screw up or if something in the dead drive fries the new controller. So at that point you're out the cost of the new drive and you haven't recovered anything. And if the controller isn't easily accessible, you might not be able to swap it yourself without causing more problems. I'd be surprised if a computer shop would want to tackle something like that because the chance of success is slim and the cost of doing the repair is high. They don't want to run the risk that they kill their hard drive, can't fix yours, and then you don't want to pay because nothing is fixed. I'm not saying you, personally, wouldn't pay, but it's the sort of thing that happens. And then who'd want a hard drive that's had the controller removed and replaced? I'd consider both the old and the new ones as a bit suspect after all of that. So the cost of the drive really is wasted unless you want to risk using it. You could also have an internal problem that's keeping the drive from spinning, and if that's the case, it's going to take someone with a cleanroom to get the drive functioning again. About the only repairs a normal shop might attempt is putting the drive in a freezer (which sometimes works if a platter is stuck, which doesn't seem to be your problem) or some other brute-force methods. But in those cases, the drive isn't going to be functional for long, so if you don't let them do the recovery, it's likely that when you get the drive back, it's going to be dead again. I'd be interested if you do find someone who's willing to work on the drive, and how it works out for you. I'd actually be pleased if I'm wrong and someone wants to do the work and they actually get it fixed. I am not totally opposed to doing business with a data recovery company, so long as it is firmly understood that the aim is and will continue to be restoring the drive to a functional state. Again, the purpose here is for me to recover the data myself, not to sit here and pay out the wazoo for them to do it for me. I am convinced that the data on the drive is largely intact, just I have no way to access it at this stage. Can you or anyone think of even a data recovery company that will repair the drive to a functional state? I just don't want to pay $400-$500 to get back maybe 30-45gb of stuff. It's a ripoff. |
#5
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Dead Hard Drive
Ben Williams wrote:
"D.Currie" wrote in message ... "Ben Williams" wrote in message ... This isn't the first time I've been here... It certainly won't be the last. Less than 90 days ago, my Western Digital IDE 160GB hard drive bit the dust. Thankfully, it didn't take the OS with it, as this drive was used for storage only. I had a lot of data on there, most of it sentimental, but important to me nonetheless.Western Digital has all but officially voided the warranty, stating that a small piece of plastic (no more than 1/2") found missing near the molex power connector appears to void the warranty. To avoid logistical, technical, and legal wrangling with them, I have decided not to send the drive back to them. I fear that once that they void the warranty on the drive that it will be discarded before I could instruct them to return it to me. After looking about on the Internet, I've determined that hiring a professional data recovery consultant to recover the data contents of the drive would be cost prohibitive. I am currently looking for a repair shop that could manage to get the drive started and send it back to me. I would recover the data on my own once it starts. The drive does not spin up and becomes warm to the touch after a few minutes. My suspicion is that a fuse has blown inside the drive or that the motor itself has shorted out. Can anyone refer me to a business of some sort that might be able to get the drive running. All that I need to know really is whether or not the drive can be restarted and if there is data of any sort left on it for me to grab. Thanks for the help. I'd be quite surprised if you found a repair shop that works on hard drives that isn't also a data recovery company. It's a pretty specialized sort of business. And it's costly to maintain a clean room and have the parts, testing equipment, and quality employees you need to work on hard drives and data recovery. It might be the controller on the hard drive is shot, and I've known some people who've repaired that sort of thing by getting an IDENTICAL drive and putting the controller from the new drive onto the dead one. You run the risk of killing the new drive in the process if you screw up or if something in the dead drive fries the new controller. So at that point you're out the cost of the new drive and you haven't recovered anything. And if the controller isn't easily accessible, you might not be able to swap it yourself without causing more problems. I'd be surprised if a computer shop would want to tackle something like that because the chance of success is slim and the cost of doing the repair is high. They don't want to run the risk that they kill their hard drive, can't fix yours, and then you don't want to pay because nothing is fixed. I'm not saying you, personally, wouldn't pay, but it's the sort of thing that happens. And then who'd want a hard drive that's had the controller removed and replaced? I'd consider both the old and the new ones as a bit suspect after all of that. So the cost of the drive really is wasted unless you want to risk using it. You could also have an internal problem that's keeping the drive from spinning, and if that's the case, it's going to take someone with a cleanroom to get the drive functioning again. About the only repairs a normal shop might attempt is putting the drive in a freezer (which sometimes works if a platter is stuck, which doesn't seem to be your problem) or some other brute-force methods. But in those cases, the drive isn't going to be functional for long, so if you don't let them do the recovery, it's likely that when you get the drive back, it's going to be dead again. I'd be interested if you do find someone who's willing to work on the drive, and how it works out for you. I'd actually be pleased if I'm wrong and someone wants to do the work and they actually get it fixed. I am not totally opposed to doing business with a data recovery company, so long as it is firmly understood that the aim is and will continue to be restoring the drive to a functional state. Again, the purpose here is for me to recover the data myself, not to sit here and pay out the wazoo for them to do it for me. I am convinced that the data on the drive is largely intact, just I have no way to access it at this stage. Can you or anyone think of even a data recovery company that will repair the drive to a functional state? I just don't want to pay $400-$500 to get back maybe 30-45gb of stuff. It's a ripoff. I don't think the data recovery companies are a ripoff. It is all a matter of proportion. How valuable is the data to you? Our company used one several years ago to recover a tape with less than 10 GB of data on it and it cost over $18,000. Since this was the last backup of our system it was worth it to us. In our case the old tape drive had got out of alignment and the backup tapes were written out of alignment. I found this out when the tape drive died in the middle of restoring the system. The new drive could not read the tapes and the data recovery service we used had to buy a new drive deliberately misalign the heads and copy the data to another drive and tape. Definitely not a cheap or simple operation. From what you have said it sounds like what happened to me when I had a controller die on a hard drive. Replacing the electronics may be something you could do yourself or something requiring specialized equipment. And even if you did repair the drive to operational status with a new controller it does not mean that it could read the data as the alignment might not be the same or the old controller could have trashed the data when it went. |
#6
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Dead Hard Drive
Iomega recovery, if I recall correctly, is no-data, no-charge. When I used
them last, they sent me a list of all the files they could recover and asked me if I wanted to proceed. If they were not able to recover the files that I needed off the drive, there would have been no charge. Once I agreed to the recovery, I paid the fee and the data was transferred to a new drive and everything returned to me. "Michael W. Ryder" wrote in message ... Ben Williams wrote: "D.Currie" wrote in message ... "Ben Williams" wrote in message ... This isn't the first time I've been here... It certainly won't be the last. Less than 90 days ago, my Western Digital IDE 160GB hard drive bit the dust. Thankfully, it didn't take the OS with it, as this drive was used for storage only. I had a lot of data on there, most of it sentimental, but important to me nonetheless.Western Digital has all but officially voided the warranty, stating that a small piece of plastic (no more than 1/2") found missing near the molex power connector appears to void the warranty. To avoid logistical, technical, and legal wrangling with them, I have decided not to send the drive back to them. I fear that once that they void the warranty on the drive that it will be discarded before I could instruct them to return it to me. After looking about on the Internet, I've determined that hiring a professional data recovery consultant to recover the data contents of the drive would be cost prohibitive. I am currently looking for a repair shop that could manage to get the drive started and send it back to me. I would recover the data on my own once it starts. The drive does not spin up and becomes warm to the touch after a few minutes. My suspicion is that a fuse has blown inside the drive or that the motor itself has shorted out. Can anyone refer me to a business of some sort that might be able to get the drive running. All that I need to know really is whether or not the drive can be restarted and if there is data of any sort left on it for me to grab. Thanks for the help. I'd be quite surprised if you found a repair shop that works on hard drives that isn't also a data recovery company. It's a pretty specialized sort of business. And it's costly to maintain a clean room and have the parts, testing equipment, and quality employees you need to work on hard drives and data recovery. It might be the controller on the hard drive is shot, and I've known some people who've repaired that sort of thing by getting an IDENTICAL drive and putting the controller from the new drive onto the dead one. You run the risk of killing the new drive in the process if you screw up or if something in the dead drive fries the new controller. So at that point you're out the cost of the new drive and you haven't recovered anything. And if the controller isn't easily accessible, you might not be able to swap it yourself without causing more problems. I'd be surprised if a computer shop would want to tackle something like that because the chance of success is slim and the cost of doing the repair is high. They don't want to run the risk that they kill their hard drive, can't fix yours, and then you don't want to pay because nothing is fixed. I'm not saying you, personally, wouldn't pay, but it's the sort of thing that happens. And then who'd want a hard drive that's had the controller removed and replaced? I'd consider both the old and the new ones as a bit suspect after all of that. So the cost of the drive really is wasted unless you want to risk using it. You could also have an internal problem that's keeping the drive from spinning, and if that's the case, it's going to take someone with a cleanroom to get the drive functioning again. About the only repairs a normal shop might attempt is putting the drive in a freezer (which sometimes works if a platter is stuck, which doesn't seem to be your problem) or some other brute-force methods. But in those cases, the drive isn't going to be functional for long, so if you don't let them do the recovery, it's likely that when you get the drive back, it's going to be dead again. I'd be interested if you do find someone who's willing to work on the drive, and how it works out for you. I'd actually be pleased if I'm wrong and someone wants to do the work and they actually get it fixed. I am not totally opposed to doing business with a data recovery company, so long as it is firmly understood that the aim is and will continue to be restoring the drive to a functional state. Again, the purpose here is for me to recover the data myself, not to sit here and pay out the wazoo for them to do it for me. I am convinced that the data on the drive is largely intact, just I have no way to access it at this stage. Can you or anyone think of even a data recovery company that will repair the drive to a functional state? I just don't want to pay $400-$500 to get back maybe 30-45gb of stuff. It's a ripoff. I don't think the data recovery companies are a ripoff. It is all a matter of proportion. How valuable is the data to you? Our company used one several years ago to recover a tape with less than 10 GB of data on it and it cost over $18,000. Since this was the last backup of our system it was worth it to us. In our case the old tape drive had got out of alignment and the backup tapes were written out of alignment. I found this out when the tape drive died in the middle of restoring the system. The new drive could not read the tapes and the data recovery service we used had to buy a new drive deliberately misalign the heads and copy the data to another drive and tape. Definitely not a cheap or simple operation. From what you have said it sounds like what happened to me when I had a controller die on a hard drive. Replacing the electronics may be something you could do yourself or something requiring specialized equipment. And even if you did repair the drive to operational status with a new controller it does not mean that it could read the data as the alignment might not be the same or the old controller could have trashed the data when it went. |
#7
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Dead Hard Drive.... PS
Snipped this from a thread from the 26th
What ever you do, don't open the drive, there's nothing a layman can service in there. Not only that, the drive might be fine! The circuit board on the bottom of the drive may be shot and just need replacing. Last year, my computer fell victim to a huge power surge - toasted all the stuff inside - MB, CD Rom, video card, etc... I had two drives in the system. I pulled them out and stuck them in another computer. They would spin up, but I could not access the drives. I pulled the circuit board off and sure enough, parts of them were melted. I had one spare drive identical to one of the damaged drives, swapped the boards and retrieved the data. The other one, unfortunately, had to go to a data recovery center.(I used Iomega, and I highly recommend them.) It cost $ 800.00 to get the data back - 25 GB of stuff. They transferred the contents to an external drive and returned everything. After I received the data and the damaged drive, I returned it for replacement. So, what can you do? 1. Try to freeze the drive - see if that works. That works!!!! I did that to a drive 60 GB that failed; it had 40 GB of videos. Got it running long enough to recover 20 GB, froze it again, and got the other 20. 2. Buy an identical drive and swap the circuit boards - see if that works - you can do that without voiding the warranty, I think. You may need a special 'star' type screwdriver depending on how the circuit board is attached. 3. Shop around for the best price for recovery. (Iomega was the cheapest, and again, great service. Not to mention a discount on the drive I bought to recover the data. 4. After you get your data and drive back, send the drive back for repair replacement. 5. Back up all your important files on CD or DVD. "JEM" wrote in message ... Iomega recovery, if I recall correctly, is no-data, no-charge. When I used them last, they sent me a list of all the files they could recover and asked me if I wanted to proceed. If they were not able to recover the files that I needed off the drive, there would have been no charge. Once I agreed to the recovery, I paid the fee and the data was transferred to a new drive and everything returned to me. "Michael W. Ryder" wrote in message ... Ben Williams wrote: "D.Currie" wrote in message ... "Ben Williams" wrote in message ... This isn't the first time I've been here... It certainly won't be the last. Less than 90 days ago, my Western Digital IDE 160GB hard drive bit the dust. Thankfully, it didn't take the OS with it, as this drive was used for storage only. I had a lot of data on there, most of it sentimental, but important to me nonetheless.Western Digital has all but officially voided the warranty, stating that a small piece of plastic (no more than 1/2") found missing near the molex power connector appears to void the warranty. To avoid logistical, technical, and legal wrangling with them, I have decided not to send the drive back to them. I fear that once that they void the warranty on the drive that it will be discarded before I could instruct them to return it to me. After looking about on the Internet, I've determined that hiring a professional data recovery consultant to recover the data contents of the drive would be cost prohibitive. I am currently looking for a repair shop that could manage to get the drive started and send it back to me. I would recover the data on my own once it starts. The drive does not spin up and becomes warm to the touch after a few minutes. My suspicion is that a fuse has blown inside the drive or that the motor itself has shorted out. Can anyone refer me to a business of some sort that might be able to get the drive running. All that I need to know really is whether or not the drive can be restarted and if there is data of any sort left on it for me to grab. Thanks for the help. I'd be quite surprised if you found a repair shop that works on hard drives that isn't also a data recovery company. It's a pretty specialized sort of business. And it's costly to maintain a clean room and have the parts, testing equipment, and quality employees you need to work on hard drives and data recovery. It might be the controller on the hard drive is shot, and I've known some people who've repaired that sort of thing by getting an IDENTICAL drive and putting the controller from the new drive onto the dead one. You run the risk of killing the new drive in the process if you screw up or if something in the dead drive fries the new controller. So at that point you're out the cost of the new drive and you haven't recovered anything. And if the controller isn't easily accessible, you might not be able to swap it yourself without causing more problems. I'd be surprised if a computer shop would want to tackle something like that because the chance of success is slim and the cost of doing the repair is high. They don't want to run the risk that they kill their hard drive, can't fix yours, and then you don't want to pay because nothing is fixed. I'm not saying you, personally, wouldn't pay, but it's the sort of thing that happens. And then who'd want a hard drive that's had the controller removed and replaced? I'd consider both the old and the new ones as a bit suspect after all of that. So the cost of the drive really is wasted unless you want to risk using it. You could also have an internal problem that's keeping the drive from spinning, and if that's the case, it's going to take someone with a cleanroom to get the drive functioning again. About the only repairs a normal shop might attempt is putting the drive in a freezer (which sometimes works if a platter is stuck, which doesn't seem to be your problem) or some other brute-force methods. But in those cases, the drive isn't going to be functional for long, so if you don't let them do the recovery, it's likely that when you get the drive back, it's going to be dead again. I'd be interested if you do find someone who's willing to work on the drive, and how it works out for you. I'd actually be pleased if I'm wrong and someone wants to do the work and they actually get it fixed. I am not totally opposed to doing business with a data recovery company, so long as it is firmly understood that the aim is and will continue to be restoring the drive to a functional state. Again, the purpose here is for me to recover the data myself, not to sit here and pay out the wazoo for them to do it for me. I am convinced that the data on the drive is largely intact, just I have no way to access it at this stage. Can you or anyone think of even a data recovery company that will repair the drive to a functional state? I just don't want to pay $400-$500 to get back maybe 30-45gb of stuff. It's a ripoff. I don't think the data recovery companies are a ripoff. It is all a matter of proportion. How valuable is the data to you? Our company used one several years ago to recover a tape with less than 10 GB of data on it and it cost over $18,000. Since this was the last backup of our system it was worth it to us. In our case the old tape drive had got out of alignment and the backup tapes were written out of alignment. I found this out when the tape drive died in the middle of restoring the system. The new drive could not read the tapes and the data recovery service we used had to buy a new drive deliberately misalign the heads and copy the data to another drive and tape. Definitely not a cheap or simple operation. From what you have said it sounds like what happened to me when I had a controller die on a hard drive. Replacing the electronics may be something you could do yourself or something requiring specialized equipment. And even if you did repair the drive to operational status with a new controller it does not mean that it could read the data as the alignment might not be the same or the old controller could have trashed the data when it went. |
#8
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Dead Hard Drive
"Ben Williams" wrote in message ... "D.Currie" wrote in message ... "Ben Williams" wrote in message ... This isn't the first time I've been here... It certainly won't be the last. Less than 90 days ago, my Western Digital IDE 160GB hard drive bit the dust. Thankfully, it didn't take the OS with it, as this drive was used for storage only. I had a lot of data on there, most of it sentimental, but important to me nonetheless.Western Digital has all but officially voided the warranty, stating that a small piece of plastic (no more than 1/2") found missing near the molex power connector appears to void the warranty. To avoid logistical, technical, and legal wrangling with them, I have decided not to send the drive back to them. I fear that once that they void the warranty on the drive that it will be discarded before I could instruct them to return it to me. After looking about on the Internet, I've determined that hiring a professional data recovery consultant to recover the data contents of the drive would be cost prohibitive. I am currently looking for a repair shop that could manage to get the drive started and send it back to me. I would recover the data on my own once it starts. The drive does not spin up and becomes warm to the touch after a few minutes. My suspicion is that a fuse has blown inside the drive or that the motor itself has shorted out. Can anyone refer me to a business of some sort that might be able to get the drive running. All that I need to know really is whether or not the drive can be restarted and if there is data of any sort left on it for me to grab. Thanks for the help. I'd be quite surprised if you found a repair shop that works on hard drives that isn't also a data recovery company. It's a pretty specialized sort of business. And it's costly to maintain a clean room and have the parts, testing equipment, and quality employees you need to work on hard drives and data recovery. It might be the controller on the hard drive is shot, and I've known some people who've repaired that sort of thing by getting an IDENTICAL drive and putting the controller from the new drive onto the dead one. You run the risk of killing the new drive in the process if you screw up or if something in the dead drive fries the new controller. So at that point you're out the cost of the new drive and you haven't recovered anything. And if the controller isn't easily accessible, you might not be able to swap it yourself without causing more problems. I'd be surprised if a computer shop would want to tackle something like that because the chance of success is slim and the cost of doing the repair is high. They don't want to run the risk that they kill their hard drive, can't fix yours, and then you don't want to pay because nothing is fixed. I'm not saying you, personally, wouldn't pay, but it's the sort of thing that happens. And then who'd want a hard drive that's had the controller removed and replaced? I'd consider both the old and the new ones as a bit suspect after all of that. So the cost of the drive really is wasted unless you want to risk using it. You could also have an internal problem that's keeping the drive from spinning, and if that's the case, it's going to take someone with a cleanroom to get the drive functioning again. About the only repairs a normal shop might attempt is putting the drive in a freezer (which sometimes works if a platter is stuck, which doesn't seem to be your problem) or some other brute-force methods. But in those cases, the drive isn't going to be functional for long, so if you don't let them do the recovery, it's likely that when you get the drive back, it's going to be dead again. I'd be interested if you do find someone who's willing to work on the drive, and how it works out for you. I'd actually be pleased if I'm wrong and someone wants to do the work and they actually get it fixed. I am not totally opposed to doing business with a data recovery company, so long as it is firmly understood that the aim is and will continue to be restoring the drive to a functional state. Again, the purpose here is for me to recover the data myself, not to sit here and pay out the wazoo for them to do it for me. I am convinced that the data on the drive is largely intact, just I have no way to access it at this stage. Can you or anyone think of even a data recovery company that will repair the drive to a functional state? I just don't want to pay $400-$500 to get back maybe 30-45gb of stuff. It's a ripoff. Whether it's too expensive or not is up to you, but I don't know of any that start at less than $500 and it rises pretty quickly to the thousands. There was a local company that was offering free estimates and $200 minimums, but that changed pretty quickly. Even if you could find one that would "repair" the drive and return it to you to copy the data, I can't see that they'd charge you that much less, as they would have done all the critical, expensive work, and you'd just be doing the mop-up. And if they had to open the drive in a clean room, it would probably be more expensive to return it to you in working order, as they'd have to reassemble the drive so that it would work in the environment instead of simply copying the data while the drive was open. And I don't know if they'd even be set up to do that. It's one thing to open the drive and work on it, and another to seal it up and expect it survive shipping and to work for any length of time. And depending on what's wrong with the drive, sometimes they don't repair your drive at all. Sometimes what they do is take the platters out of your dead drive, and read them on their equipment. After that, your old drive is just scrap. But if you do find someone, let us know. Good luck. |
#9
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Dead Hard Drive.... PS
Freezing the drive sounds like the best idea to me for the time being. How
long did you freeze your drive for and should I leave it in an anti-static bag? Also, when you say "freeze" what initially comes to mind is leaving it in my common household freezer with TV dinners and the whole bit. "JEM" wrote in message ... Snipped this from a thread from the 26th What ever you do, don't open the drive, there's nothing a layman can service in there. Not only that, the drive might be fine! The circuit board on the bottom of the drive may be shot and just need replacing. Last year, my computer fell victim to a huge power surge - toasted all the stuff inside - MB, CD Rom, video card, etc... I had two drives in the system. I pulled them out and stuck them in another computer. They would spin up, but I could not access the drives. I pulled the circuit board off and sure enough, parts of them were melted. I had one spare drive identical to one of the damaged drives, swapped the boards and retrieved the data. The other one, unfortunately, had to go to a data recovery center.(I used Iomega, and I highly recommend them.) It cost $ 800.00 to get the data back - 25 GB of stuff. They transferred the contents to an external drive and returned everything. After I received the data and the damaged drive, I returned it for replacement. So, what can you do? 1. Try to freeze the drive - see if that works. That works!!!! I did that to a drive 60 GB that failed; it had 40 GB of videos. Got it running long enough to recover 20 GB, froze it again, and got the other 20. 2. Buy an identical drive and swap the circuit boards - see if that works - you can do that without voiding the warranty, I think. You may need a special 'star' type screwdriver depending on how the circuit board is attached. 3. Shop around for the best price for recovery. (Iomega was the cheapest, and again, great service. Not to mention a discount on the drive I bought to recover the data. 4. After you get your data and drive back, send the drive back for repair replacement. 5. Back up all your important files on CD or DVD. "JEM" wrote in message ... Iomega recovery, if I recall correctly, is no-data, no-charge. When I used them last, they sent me a list of all the files they could recover and asked me if I wanted to proceed. If they were not able to recover the files that I needed off the drive, there would have been no charge. Once I agreed to the recovery, I paid the fee and the data was transferred to a new drive and everything returned to me. "Michael W. Ryder" wrote in message ... Ben Williams wrote: "D.Currie" wrote in message ... "Ben Williams" wrote in message ... This isn't the first time I've been here... It certainly won't be the last. Less than 90 days ago, my Western Digital IDE 160GB hard drive bit the dust. Thankfully, it didn't take the OS with it, as this drive was used for storage only. I had a lot of data on there, most of it sentimental, but important to me nonetheless.Western Digital has all but officially voided the warranty, stating that a small piece of plastic (no more than 1/2") found missing near the molex power connector appears to void the warranty. To avoid logistical, technical, and legal wrangling with them, I have decided not to send the drive back to them. I fear that once that they void the warranty on the drive that it will be discarded before I could instruct them to return it to me. After looking about on the Internet, I've determined that hiring a professional data recovery consultant to recover the data contents of the drive would be cost prohibitive. I am currently looking for a repair shop that could manage to get the drive started and send it back to me. I would recover the data on my own once it starts. The drive does not spin up and becomes warm to the touch after a few minutes. My suspicion is that a fuse has blown inside the drive or that the motor itself has shorted out. Can anyone refer me to a business of some sort that might be able to get the drive running. All that I need to know really is whether or not the drive can be restarted and if there is data of any sort left on it for me to grab. Thanks for the help. I'd be quite surprised if you found a repair shop that works on hard drives that isn't also a data recovery company. It's a pretty specialized sort of business. And it's costly to maintain a clean room and have the parts, testing equipment, and quality employees you need to work on hard drives and data recovery. It might be the controller on the hard drive is shot, and I've known some people who've repaired that sort of thing by getting an IDENTICAL drive and putting the controller from the new drive onto the dead one. You run the risk of killing the new drive in the process if you screw up or if something in the dead drive fries the new controller. So at that point you're out the cost of the new drive and you haven't recovered anything. And if the controller isn't easily accessible, you might not be able to swap it yourself without causing more problems. I'd be surprised if a computer shop would want to tackle something like that because the chance of success is slim and the cost of doing the repair is high. They don't want to run the risk that they kill their hard drive, can't fix yours, and then you don't want to pay because nothing is fixed. I'm not saying you, personally, wouldn't pay, but it's the sort of thing that happens. And then who'd want a hard drive that's had the controller removed and replaced? I'd consider both the old and the new ones as a bit suspect after all of that. So the cost of the drive really is wasted unless you want to risk using it. You could also have an internal problem that's keeping the drive from spinning, and if that's the case, it's going to take someone with a cleanroom to get the drive functioning again. About the only repairs a normal shop might attempt is putting the drive in a freezer (which sometimes works if a platter is stuck, which doesn't seem to be your problem) or some other brute-force methods. But in those cases, the drive isn't going to be functional for long, so if you don't let them do the recovery, it's likely that when you get the drive back, it's going to be dead again. I'd be interested if you do find someone who's willing to work on the drive, and how it works out for you. I'd actually be pleased if I'm wrong and someone wants to do the work and they actually get it fixed. I am not totally opposed to doing business with a data recovery company, so long as it is firmly understood that the aim is and will continue to be restoring the drive to a functional state. Again, the purpose here is for me to recover the data myself, not to sit here and pay out the wazoo for them to do it for me. I am convinced that the data on the drive is largely intact, just I have no way to access it at this stage. Can you or anyone think of even a data recovery company that will repair the drive to a functional state? I just don't want to pay $400-$500 to get back maybe 30-45gb of stuff. It's a ripoff. I don't think the data recovery companies are a ripoff. It is all a matter of proportion. How valuable is the data to you? Our company used one several years ago to recover a tape with less than 10 GB of data on it and it cost over $18,000. Since this was the last backup of our system it was worth it to us. In our case the old tape drive had got out of alignment and the backup tapes were written out of alignment. I found this out when the tape drive died in the middle of restoring the system. The new drive could not read the tapes and the data recovery service we used had to buy a new drive deliberately misalign the heads and copy the data to another drive and tape. Definitely not a cheap or simple operation. From what you have said it sounds like what happened to me when I had a controller die on a hard drive. Replacing the electronics may be something you could do yourself or something requiring specialized equipment. And even if you did repair the drive to operational status with a new controller it does not mean that it could read the data as the alignment might not be the same or the old controller could have trashed the data when it went. |
#10
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Dead Hard Drive.... PS
wrapped it in a towel - put it in the freezer overnight. pulled it out of
the freezer. left it sitting outside the case, hooked it up and booted up. got half the data, froze it again, and got the rest. "Ben Williams" wrote in message ... Freezing the drive sounds like the best idea to me for the time being. How long did you freeze your drive for and should I leave it in an anti-static bag? Also, when you say "freeze" what initially comes to mind is leaving it in my common household freezer with TV dinners and the whole bit. "JEM" wrote in message ... Snipped this from a thread from the 26th What ever you do, don't open the drive, there's nothing a layman can service in there. Not only that, the drive might be fine! The circuit board on the bottom of the drive may be shot and just need replacing. Last year, my computer fell victim to a huge power surge - toasted all the stuff inside - MB, CD Rom, video card, etc... I had two drives in the system. I pulled them out and stuck them in another computer. They would spin up, but I could not access the drives. I pulled the circuit board off and sure enough, parts of them were melted. I had one spare drive identical to one of the damaged drives, swapped the boards and retrieved the data. The other one, unfortunately, had to go to a data recovery center.(I used Iomega, and I highly recommend them.) It cost $ 800.00 to get the data back - 25 GB of stuff. They transferred the contents to an external drive and returned everything. After I received the data and the damaged drive, I returned it for replacement. So, what can you do? 1. Try to freeze the drive - see if that works. That works!!!! I did that to a drive 60 GB that failed; it had 40 GB of videos. Got it running long enough to recover 20 GB, froze it again, and got the other 20. 2. Buy an identical drive and swap the circuit boards - see if that works - you can do that without voiding the warranty, I think. You may need a special 'star' type screwdriver depending on how the circuit board is attached. 3. Shop around for the best price for recovery. (Iomega was the cheapest, and again, great service. Not to mention a discount on the drive I bought to recover the data. 4. After you get your data and drive back, send the drive back for repair replacement. 5. Back up all your important files on CD or DVD. "JEM" wrote in message ... Iomega recovery, if I recall correctly, is no-data, no-charge. When I used them last, they sent me a list of all the files they could recover and asked me if I wanted to proceed. If they were not able to recover the files that I needed off the drive, there would have been no charge. Once I agreed to the recovery, I paid the fee and the data was transferred to a new drive and everything returned to me. "Michael W. Ryder" wrote in message ... Ben Williams wrote: "D.Currie" wrote in message ... "Ben Williams" wrote in message ... This isn't the first time I've been here... It certainly won't be the last. Less than 90 days ago, my Western Digital IDE 160GB hard drive bit the dust. Thankfully, it didn't take the OS with it, as this drive was used for storage only. I had a lot of data on there, most of it sentimental, but important to me nonetheless.Western Digital has all but officially voided the warranty, stating that a small piece of plastic (no more than 1/2") found missing near the molex power connector appears to void the warranty. To avoid logistical, technical, and legal wrangling with them, I have decided not to send the drive back to them. I fear that once that they void the warranty on the drive that it will be discarded before I could instruct them to return it to me. After looking about on the Internet, I've determined that hiring a professional data recovery consultant to recover the data contents of the drive would be cost prohibitive. I am currently looking for a repair shop that could manage to get the drive started and send it back to me. I would recover the data on my own once it starts. The drive does not spin up and becomes warm to the touch after a few minutes. My suspicion is that a fuse has blown inside the drive or that the motor itself has shorted out. Can anyone refer me to a business of some sort that might be able to get the drive running. All that I need to know really is whether or not the drive can be restarted and if there is data of any sort left on it for me to grab. Thanks for the help. I'd be quite surprised if you found a repair shop that works on hard drives that isn't also a data recovery company. It's a pretty specialized sort of business. And it's costly to maintain a clean room and have the parts, testing equipment, and quality employees you need to work on hard drives and data recovery. It might be the controller on the hard drive is shot, and I've known some people who've repaired that sort of thing by getting an IDENTICAL drive and putting the controller from the new drive onto the dead one. You run the risk of killing the new drive in the process if you screw up or if something in the dead drive fries the new controller. So at that point you're out the cost of the new drive and you haven't recovered anything. And if the controller isn't easily accessible, you might not be able to swap it yourself without causing more problems. I'd be surprised if a computer shop would want to tackle something like that because the chance of success is slim and the cost of doing the repair is high. They don't want to run the risk that they kill their hard drive, can't fix yours, and then you don't want to pay because nothing is fixed. I'm not saying you, personally, wouldn't pay, but it's the sort of thing that happens. And then who'd want a hard drive that's had the controller removed and replaced? I'd consider both the old and the new ones as a bit suspect after all of that. So the cost of the drive really is wasted unless you want to risk using it. You could also have an internal problem that's keeping the drive from spinning, and if that's the case, it's going to take someone with a cleanroom to get the drive functioning again. About the only repairs a normal shop might attempt is putting the drive in a freezer (which sometimes works if a platter is stuck, which doesn't seem to be your problem) or some other brute-force methods. But in those cases, the drive isn't going to be functional for long, so if you don't let them do the recovery, it's likely that when you get the drive back, it's going to be dead again. I'd be interested if you do find someone who's willing to work on the drive, and how it works out for you. I'd actually be pleased if I'm wrong and someone wants to do the work and they actually get it fixed. I am not totally opposed to doing business with a data recovery company, so long as it is firmly understood that the aim is and will continue to be restoring the drive to a functional state. Again, the purpose here is for me to recover the data myself, not to sit here and pay out the wazoo for them to do it for me. I am convinced that the data on the drive is largely intact, just I have no way to access it at this stage. Can you or anyone think of even a data recovery company that will repair the drive to a functional state? I just don't want to pay $400-$500 to get back maybe 30-45gb of stuff. It's a ripoff. I don't think the data recovery companies are a ripoff. It is all a matter of proportion. How valuable is the data to you? Our company used one several years ago to recover a tape with less than 10 GB of data on it and it cost over $18,000. Since this was the last backup of our system it was worth it to us. In our case the old tape drive had got out of alignment and the backup tapes were written out of alignment. I found this out when the tape drive died in the middle of restoring the system. The new drive could not read the tapes and the data recovery service we used had to buy a new drive deliberately misalign the heads and copy the data to another drive and tape. Definitely not a cheap or simple operation. From what you have said it sounds like what happened to me when I had a controller die on a hard drive. Replacing the electronics may be something you could do yourself or something requiring specialized equipment. And even if you did repair the drive to operational status with a new controller it does not mean that it could read the data as the alignment might not be the same or the old controller could have trashed the data when it went. |
#11
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Dead Hard Drive
Based upon what was reported, data may be easily recovered.
Implied is that drive motor does not spin. That is either one of two problems: the drive motor has locked in a dead spot or one of three driver transistors on PC board have failed. Making things a little more complex is that the drive motor and drive transistors are in a closed loop system - meaning anything in that loop could be causing a problem. Measuring with the oscilloscope to discover which is the problem would be futile. So pick which of two possible solutions to start. For example, a PC board from an identical drive (and it must be exact same model number) can replace the existing (burned out) motor driver transistors. Most of the worry about alignment differences is nonsense - but only if firmware on the new board is same as old board. This solution has one danger. If motor is locked, then excessive current through that locked motor could burn out same drive transistor on new (replacement) PC board. Now you would have two defective drives. Most all drives have an access hole covered in silver tape. Get some duct tape and a soft probe - wood or plastic less than 1/8 inch diameter. Use the probe to punch through that metallic tape and partially spin the disk platter. A moved disk platter will no long be in the dead spot. Immediately cover that hole with the duct tape, connect drive, and see if it spins. Do this a few times as necessary. If the drive still does not spin, then install the replacement PC board - because stuck drive may have also burned out the drive transistor. IOW best to first do probe surgery before replacing PC board. Again, this assumes your problem is no spinning disk drive. Other solutions such as the freezer solution are for other type of failures. There is no fuse on disk drives. Especially if this is a FAT drive, do not let that probe touch the disk surface. Only spin disk platter by pushing its narrow edge. Probe touching surface on FAT drives could destroy critically important allocation tables. Also perform this surgery in a clean room meaning no open windows and a long time since the vacuum cleaner filled the room with dust storms. Ben Williams wrote: This isn't the first time I've been here... It certainly won't be the last. Less than 90 days ago, my Western Digital IDE 160GB hard drive bit the dust. Thankfully, it didn't take the OS with it, as this drive was used for storage only. I had a lot of data on there, most of it sentimental, but important to me nonetheless.Western Digital has all but officially voided the warranty, stating that a small piece of plastic (no more than 1/2") found missing near the molex power connector appears to void the warranty. To avoid logistical, technical, and legal wrangling with them, I have decided not to send the drive back to them. I fear that once that they void the warranty on the drive that it will be discarded before I could instruct them to return it to me. After looking about on the Internet, I've determined that hiring a professional data recovery consultant to recover the data contents of the drive would be cost prohibitive. I am currently looking for a repair shop that could manage to get the drive started and send it back to me. I would recover the data on my own once it starts. The drive does not spin up and becomes warm to the touch after a few minutes. My suspicion is that a fuse has blown inside the drive or that the motor itself has shorted out. Can anyone refer me to a business of some sort that might be able to get the drive running. All that I need to know really is whether or not the drive can be restarted and if there is data of any sort left on it for me to grab. Thanks for the help. |
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