Retrieving data from a hard drive crash

[El_Guapo]

Damn hard drive crashed last week. Computer techs at Lab Computers couldn't recover the data. Any suggestions? I know there are companies that specialize in this - what can they do that the techs couldn't? How much is this gonna cost? Any recommendations or advice other than "back up your data next time, idoit"?

 

[TexasEd]

Call up those data restoration specialists and get an estimate.

Depending on what happened to your drive there are a lot of different things that can be done.

 

[Horn_Spanker]

First, if it’s a mechanical problem, you’re probably SOL

If it’s the controller board, here’s a theory I’ve thought about but have not tried. Find an exact brand model of the bad drive and make it the master in the system, then hook the broken drive up as a slave. The theory goes that the controller board on the master will control both?

 

[BNB]

I had never heard of this, but someone came out to my friends parents place and said to put the hdd in the freezer for awhile, take it out plug it in and immediatly try to start copying stuff off of it. They were able to get some stuff off before it died again.

some google searches of people whom it worked for:
fficial>www.google.com/search?q=hdd+freezer&sourceid=mozilla-search&start=0&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-USfficial

 

[Ags_EE]

If it's a mechanical problem, then you need a data recovery specialist and it's going to be an assload of money. They can do all sorts of ****, up to and including removal and reinstallation of the hard drive platters in your original hard drive into a new hard drive. The only thing that can really stop them is if the drive heads have made contact with the platter enough to scrape off the magnetic coating, or if the platters are no longer physically intact.

If it's a controller board issue then you may be able to get away with finding the exact same model drive and using the controller board from that to replace the controller board on your broken drive. YMMV.

If Windows can still see your drive when it's not hooked up as the boot drive, then there are a lot of data recovery programs out there that can retrieve files from your drive.

Freezing may work if you have the "click of death" or something similiar. It makes the metal inside the drive contract, which may allow for the drive to start working again for a short time. If you're doing this, wrap the drive in paper towels, place in ziploc bag with all air removed, then place in freezer. When you hook the drive up again, hook it up as the slave drive.

 

[TxStHorn]

I had this problem just last week, and I lost everything - my client files, accounting, research, all of it. This guy was able to retrieve everything I thought I had lost, which was significant. Give him a call, he's good, and very reasonable.

Erich Prinz
BPI Systems
512-922-5750
[email protected]

 

[Anastasis]

I would cry if my harddrive died. Seriously. I haven't backed it up in years. Guess I have a project to do next week.

 

[El_Guapo]

Mrs. Guapo cried. We more than likely lost a whole bunch of pictures.

Back up your stuff NOW, not next week.

 

[Dead Horse]

I thought mine had crashed after two different people told me so. I took it down to PC Guru on S Lamar and he fixed it for $84 (it was something others missed). He also does data retrieval for cheaper than others which was why I took it there to begin with...I was shittin bricks until he fixed it.

 

[Ignatius]

Norton Ghost is your friend...