HARD DRIVE CRASH! Need IT helper!

[zeitgeist57]

We moved everything we have electronically onto an external 750gb hard drive this year. Just before Christmas, an inadvertent trip over the cable caused it to crash onto the floor (wasn't me). While we were in Philly this week, my FiL - who's into tech stuff as a hobby - tried to restore it. He was unable to get it to power back on.

 

My wife is pretty upset, as this unit has ALL of our pictures for the last 4+ years, including baby/kid photos. The housing is intact, but the fall fucked it up and I would love someone that's had experiences retrieving data from crashed hard drives to tackle this one. Will pay for the service as well. Thanks, CR...

[thorne]

i

 

I've done data recovery in the past by swapping control boards from like drives. Have you pulld the drive out of the caddy and tried to power it up with something else? Is it makes noises or nothing?

 

If the drive has not been removed from the caddy that would be step 1. I'd try to power it up and see if it sounds good. If It is making Kerklunk noises there is most likely phyiscal damage.

[TTQ B4U]

There may be a chance also that you can recover some images from the source you moved them from too. I have some software that you can run that will search and pull them off for you. Pretty easy to use. Unless you completely reformatted the drive or wrote a bunch of new stuff to that original drive you would be surprised to know that you can likely get 75% or better back. I've pulled images off phones and drives that were years old.

 

Look into carbonite back up too. Works very well. I have over 6TB of images backed up in several ways including online through them.

[mrs.cos]

i

 

I've done data recovery in the past by swapping control boards from like drives. Have you pulld the drive out of the caddy and tried to power it up with something else? Is it makes noises or nothing?

 

If the drive has not been removed from the caddy that would be step 1. I'd try to power it up and see if it sounds good. If It is making Kerklunk noises there is most likely phyiscal damage.

 

yah if the case is crap, maybe try just hooking it up to your PC.

[thorne]

Carbonite i hear works great!.

[mrs.cos]

or just an FTP server..(i use carbonate for business photos)

[zeitgeist57]

Right...2013 resolution for wifey and I is to set up a proper "media server" in our house for movies, records, etc...with cloud backup!

 

My FiL cracked the case I believe, but not the hard drive...apparently there are special screws that he would need to drill out??? I'll talk to my wife...

[KillJoy]

Give me the HDD and give me a few days. I will get what can be obtained w/o large fees....

 

KillJoy

[thorne]

Killjoy assuming the drives not phsyically damaged or are you saying you have the ability tyo directly read data from the platter?

[KillJoy]

Killjoy assuming the drives not phsyically damaged or are you saying you have the ability tyo directly read data from the platter?

 

What I am saying is that I can recover anything that can be recovered w/o sending it to a data recovery facility.

 

I know how to use spell check as well.

 

KillJoy

[thorne]

Darn I was hoping it was otherwise :[

 

Do you happen to have access to anything old enough to read a old IDE 80mb drive? You have to manually configure the settings for it. I don't have anything that can read ithe drive

[KillJoy]

Darn I was hoping it was otherwise :[

 

Do you happen to have access to anything old enough to read a old IDE 80mb drive? You have to manually configure the settings for it. I don't have anything that can read ithe drive

 

 

If it is still IDE, I SHOULD be able to.

 

KillJoy

[zeitgeist57]

http://www.columbusracing.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=693&pictureid=6840

 

Here's a pic...sorry for the delay as I was getting the drive back from FiL.

 

Hard drive has not been cracked open, ziploc bag contains hard drive, power mgmt, and wiring.

 

Steve, can you PM me your schedule and I can drop it off? If you can't do it, a couple other peeps PM'd me. THANKS IN ADVANCE FOR EVERYONE'S HELP!

[Tractor]

I have a pile of external drive enclosures that have failed over the years. Very bad quality for some reason. I ended up just making a server and backup to cloud.

 

Its been awhile since I've used it so I can't remember the name right off, but I have a recovery software that has been great at recovering photos from SD cards even after a few formats.

[90G60]

I think most people use Recuva. May be worth a try if the drive hasn't physically failed.

[jeffro]

How high and what did the drive fall on? Carpet? I find it hard to believe that the drive itself is damaged. More than likely its just the caddy that it sits in has broken somewhere.

 

I have a IDE-USB cable that should power it up, providing the drive itself isn't broken.

[Akula]

I have pulled files from damaged drives using Hard Drive Rescue and a USB/IDE cable. Simple, cost effective.

[gillbot]

I use a USB to Sata/IDE cable and a freezer.

http://lifehacker.com/5515337/save-a-failed-hard-drive-in-your-freezer-redux

[jeffro]

I use a USB to Sata/IDE cable and a freezer.

http://lifehacker.com/5515337/save-a-failed-hard-drive-in-your-freezer-redux

 

In concept this MIGHT work, but the risk of condensation forming and really fucking things up is too much for the reward.

 

Then again, if absolutely nothing else works then what do you have to lose?

[gillbot]

In concept this MIGHT work, but the risk of condensation forming and really fucking things up is too much for the reward.

 

Then again, if absolutely nothing else works then what do you have to lose?

 

I just set my laptop by the freezer, use a USB cord with a power supply, wrap everything up as well as possible in plastic wrap, then leave the hard drive in the freezer while I get the data off. After the data is off, who cares if it fries or fails again when it warms up.

 

http://www.pimfg.com/ifaq/images/usb-ide40-power-1.jpg

 

It's a pretty common trick really:

http://www.churchvideo.co.uk/hardware/recover-a-clicking-hard-disk-drive-in-the-freezer_189.html

http://brmlaptoprepair.blogspot.com/2009/04/hard-drive-recovery-freezer.html

http://hacknmod.com/hack/how-to-recover-dead-hard-drive-data/

http://www.kempa.com/2006/10/02/adam-is-there-a-reason-your-laptop-is-in-the-fridge/