CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

Spanky Ham · Joined: 22 Mar 2006 Posts: 5643 Location: Comedy Central

I won't make this a long story as I am really pissed right now.

My Linux hard drive with all of my data on it wasn't mounting the flie system the last couple of days. I tried to use a data recovery tool in Windows that I read about and it started to work. There was an issue and I shut the PC down. When I started it back up, the drive made the click of death. I have thought about sending it to a data recovery place. I found one place that looks pretty good with only a shipping cost obligation. Any other options?
http://www.lowcostrecovery.com/pricing.html

Nashou66 · Joined: 12 Jan 2007 Posts: 16171 Location: West Seneca NY

JUst ask the NSA for it, they probably have it. Wink

But from what I know about pricing that is the lowest I have ever seen.

Nashou

Spanky Ham · Joined: 22 Mar 2006 Posts: 5643 Location: Comedy Central

LOL, maybe I should give them a call or do they already know I am about to call.

Yeah, I thought it was. I read that the average cost is between $800 and $1000. I am going to call a couple of places down here, but it sounds like I this place might be my best option.

ima · Joined: 25 Apr 2014 Posts: 6

some PC shop can retrieve back , expensive though

Spanky Ham · Joined: 22 Mar 2006 Posts: 5643 Location: Comedy Central

Yep and I still haven't done it. Don't tell the IRS, but I winged my expenses this year without the first half of the years receipts.

CIR Engineering · Posted: Sat May 24, 2014 5:54 pm Post subject:

If you search hard you can find forums dedicated to restoring data off hard drives. I have used techniques in the past and have retrieved data that would have been lost. Most recently I had a hard drive crash that had some one of a kind data on it that I had to have back.

In this past case, the hard drive platters had stopped spinning with the heads still over the disc. This caused the heads to sandwich the platters and it made the disc unable to spin up. I opened the drive to find that out and then hooked it up to a PC. I then used a star head screw driver to start the platters spinning and was able to get the data off the drive before it was lost.

This is the simplest kind of thing to fix and often has the symptom of the clicking noise.

Other ways to retrieve data include buying the exact same drive off ebay with the exact same firmware version. You can then swap control boards if the problem is on the PC board. You can also remove the platters from the damaged drive and put them in your replacement drive from ebay if the motor is the issue.

One thing that people think is that HD's are hermetically sealed. This is not true and air is allowed to circulate in and out of a hard drive. The trick is to not allow the platters to get dust or other dirt on them. When you open a hard drive they say you have a limited amount of time to work with it before your data is corrupt. The key is to wear a dust mask when you work on the open HD and make sure the room you are in is as close to an actual clean room as possible. Also, when you put it aside and while you are getting the data off the HD, you must cover the drive with something so that dust can't settle on it.

When I opened mine, it took me about six hours to retrieve about 100 mb of data because the drive was not performing well anymore. But I got everything off it that was essential.

craigr

Spanky Ham · Joined: 22 Mar 2006 Posts: 5643 Location: Comedy Central

Thanks Craig.

Mine does the clicking noise. I was going to throw it in the freezer first.

I have heard that there is a filter somewhere on the drive, but I guess it isn't accessible.

CIR Engineering · Posted: Sun May 25, 2014 3:19 pm Post subject:

**Curt Palme** · Posted: Sun May 25, 2014 3:22 pm Post subject:

A while ago, I had in 3 MP3 players with 20G Hitachi drives in them. All most likely had the issue that Craig talked about above. I was about to give up, but googled the issue, and it was recommended that you slam the HD on a flat surface.. HARD in order to free up the heads.

3 out of 3 HDs were recovered, and are still working today, I fired them up about a month ago as I was curious.

Spanky Ham · Joined: 22 Mar 2006 Posts: 5643 Location: Comedy Central

xthunder · Joined: 19 Jun 2014 Posts: 5 Location: Los Gatos, CA, USA

Not too long ago I use TheDataRescueCenter.com to recover one of the RaidFrame RAID-5 disk and they did a fine job for me.

I was shocked after one of the disk failed and while I was waiting for a replacement drive to arrive, 2nd drive failed on me on the 3rd day.....

oh well...