Unresponsive HDD Friend DESPERATELY needs file

[megabyteme]

A friend has an important file for his business on a HDD that is not responsive on its home PC, and is hanging mine up each time I try to connect to it.

Have tried an external drive enclosure via USB

Via Linux USB rescue drive on thumb: reads that drive is connected, but unable to access

Using W$7, hot plugging into SATA does not bring drive into Explorer


I need to rescue this one file from the drive. Will go to ANY lengths. Do I need to physically rebuild the drive using the platters? Is there a better method available?

[anon]

Get a copy of BootICE (freeware) and WinHex (not free, but a lifesaver for these things). Can they see the drive and partition(s) within, and read sectors from it? If so, what do the MBR and partition table look like?

Also, do not disassemble the disk, and nor attempt to do any physical repairs. Those require an specialist. The platters are vacuum-sealed, and any extraneous particle can screw them up.

[megabyteme]

Thanks, anon. Trying the latest version of WinHex now. :happy:

[Artemis]

Things are not looking good for the drive, but there are some options to work through. One suggestion at this point is to use a Linux LiveCD distro to access the drive, one that is tailored for this type of problem i.e. Knoppix or GParted Live.

One thing though, the drive isn't 'ticking' or making unusual sounds as it tries to access i.e. sticktion problems?

This is why I still have an old copy of Hiren's BootCD (before the software companies rained down on him with threats of legal action) lurking in my toolkit.....

[megabyteme]

I tried the livecd (via thumb) earlier. I'm going to try it again. System is hanging TERRIBLY with that drive connected. Important file that contains customer info for marketing. Irreplaceable.

[anon]

A corrupted partition table can cause those freezes, by refencing disk sectors that either don't exist or aren't part of the partition they're supposedly associated with. In this case you can wipe the first sector to stop the freezing, then use DiskGenius (it's included in Hiren's Boot CD 9.8) to rebuild the table. Mind you, that's only one possible cause, and the easiest to deal with at that.

Hopefully this will turn out to be a near-miss, and your friend will learn the importance of backups in a business environment. :)

[Artemis]

I was manfully trying to hold back on the backup speech myself.....

A bit more info on the drive itself would help too though, Make model capacity etc. I say this because some manufacturers have their own diagnostic tools for their drives.

[megabyteme]

Thanks, guys. Still having NO luck. Calling it quit after 6.5+ hours. Downloading a newer version of Hirens (restored), which contains "PartitionGuru" (aka DiskGenius). Will battle the forces of evil (boot records) tomorrow.

Inspection of the machine, as well as talking to my friend about the symptoms before failure, and all indications point towards an overheated processor. I can only imagine the "quality" of data being copied to the HDD. :frusty:

As I am not entirely new to data recovery, but new to situations this dire, if you could point me towards reliable tutorials for fixing this sort of thing it could make my life quite a bit more livable endurable. This project REALLY has me stressed... :sadwalk:


I was manfully trying to hold back on the backup speech myself.....

A bit more info on the drive itself would help too though, Make model capacity etc. I say this because some manufacturers have their own diagnostic tools for their drives.

I am on the same page, Art. I just tried WDLifeguard Tools to no avail. Interestingly, it is one of my long-term reliable drives (although this particular one never crossed my desk, or I wold have done some things MUCH earlier to the PC)- WD Black 500GB AAKS model.


One thing though, the drive isn't 'ticking' or making unusual sounds as it tries to access i.e. sticktion problems?

No problems spinning; no ticking; no unusual arm tracking sounds. Leaves hope, it seems...

Look forward to attempting the replacement of the MBR. That is, after some rest. Do not want to get careless while working on a last-ditch-effort. :no:


NOTE- Just noticed anon was referring to partition tables, while I was thinking MBR. Can you clear me up on this difference?

[Travo1]

EASEUS data recovery wizard can usually pull out damaged partitions. Its VERY good for it, I work with storage for a living, and that is a go-to tool for just this type of occasion.

[anon]

No problems spinning; no ticking; no unusual arm tracking sounds. Leaves hope, it seems...

That's good news. I had the click of death with an external drive two years ago; it wasn't nice.


Look forward to attempting the replacement of the MBR. That is, after some rest. Do not want to get careless while working on a last-ditch-effort. :no:


NOTE- Just noticed anon was referring to partition tables, while I was thinking MBR. Can you clear me up on this difference?

The MBR is located in the first 512 bytes of a drive. It contains the partition table (or part of it if you have one or more extended partitions), as well as a small piece of code that tells the computer how to boot from the disk (not particularly important if it's only used for storing documents). If you wipe it, all the partitions and data will remain, but the OS won't be able to find them.

Each partition in turn has sectors at its beginning which fulfill a similar function, and are called the Partition (or Volume) Boot Record. What DiskGenius does is scanning the entire disk in search for PBRs, then writing a partition table that matches with what it's found. If the problem here is a damaged or missing table, this should solve it.

[megabyteme]

EASEUS data recovery wizard can usually pull out damaged partitions. Its VERY good for it, I work with storage for a living, and that is a go-to tool for just this type of occasion.

Thank you, Travo1. Grabbing it to take a look tomorrow. Very well liked program from what I've seen.


That's good news. I had the click of death with an external drive two years ago; it wasn't nice.


Look forward to attempting the replacement of the MBR. That is, after some rest. Do not want to get careless while working on a last-ditch-effort. :no:


NOTE- Just noticed anon was referring to partition tables, while I was thinking MBR. Can you clear me up on this difference?

The MBR is located in the first 512 bytes of a drive. It contains the partition table (or part of it if you have one or more extended partitions), as well as a small piece of code that tells the computer how to boot from the disk (not particularly important if it's only used for storing documents). If you wipe it, all the partitions and data will remain, but the OS won't be able to find them.

Each partition in turn has sectors at its beginning which fulfill a similar function, and are called the Partition (or Volume) Boot Record. What DiskGenius does is scanning the entire disk in search for PBRs, then writing a partition table that matches with what it's found. If the problem here is a damaged or missing table, this should solve it.

Thanks for clearing that up. Better for me to have my terminology correct before I go into surgery. Wouldn't want to be one of those doctors who remove the wrong foot... :)

[Broken]

I've read many times that a hard drive can be put in a couple of freezer bags, and out in the freezer overnight to get it working again for a brief period.

If it works, it may buy you the few minutes to sang what you need. Besides, at this point what could it really hurt?

[Artemis]

I've read many times that a hard drive can be put in a couple of freezer bags, and out in the freezer overnight to get it working again for a brief period.

If it works, it may buy you the few minutes to sang what you need. Besides, at this point what could it really hurt?

This is another old wives tale to a large extent, in that modern drives have far finer tolerances than when this was first purported to be a rescue option in the mid nineties. There is one exception to this rule, if the drives controller board has been overheated then cooling the drive can resolve the issue for a short period of time but, and this is a VERY BIG but, the chance of exceeding the drives environmental envelope is high, with the attendant damage this can cause. A far safer way to repair this issue is find an identical drive and swap out the controller boards.

The chances of damage from contraction of the metals in modern drives is very high along with the attendant danger of condensation, if there is condensation buildup in the drive from freezing then thawing it, then you've got yourself a neato new conversation piece of a paperweight.

[megabyteme]

Besides, at this point what could it really hurt?

Any shreds of hope remaining. We don't want to throw these away before baby HDD Jebus comes in and saves the day. :no:

[IdolEyes787]

Not to make light of your friend's stupidity in blindly trusting to the god of technology only to find him to be a false one misfortune :) but maybe telling you what I did when I had a similar issue with data corruption will help.:)

Back when I was in University,I inadvertently ruined my roommate's Biology paper by spilling a soft drink on it so I took it and put in the least liked persons room and then preceded to lie through my teeth and tell everyone that he did it.:)

Have you tried that?

Btw obviously by "Biology paper" I mean Penthouse magazine and by "soft drink" I mean my man seed.:)

[megabyteme]

trusting to the god of technology

You are too kind. :happy:

----EDIT---

Is there anything I can do when my drive is not being recognized by the software? Got a partial connection, but no file structure with one. :cry:

[Artemis]

To be honest you are running out of 'easy' options fast. The drive's most likely problem is some bad sectors at the start of the drive, enough to corrupt the MBR and/or the the partition table. At this point I would suggest Spinrite as an option for refreshing the drive, but you have not recovered the data from the drive, and there is a chance that the drive will fail completely during Spinrite's operation, leaving you with the aforementioned paperweight. Although I have had some success with Spinrite in the past, the fact that the data on this drive is crucial means that I cannot recommend Spinrite in this case.

I personally would be suggesting to your friend that with the type of failure this drive has sustained the next safe step is to send the drive to a professional data retrieval firm.

[Stehle]

1.) A far safer way to repair this issue is find an identical drive and swap out the controller boards.

2.) To be honest you are running out of 'easy' options fast....I personally would be suggesting to your friend that with the type of failure this drive has sustained the next safe step is to send the drive to a professional data retrieval firm.

I believe other than drastic steps for resolution of your friends dilemma the two items in Artemis's quotes above may be the prudent course of action.

(Either way it's going to be costly and with no guarantees, but always remember discretion is the better part of valor.) :alien:

[anon]

So, what became of the disk's data?

[mitymek]

ive used the freezer technique with positive results twice. drives were like 8 yr old 5400 cheapos and didnt have anything to worry about except saving time by quick cloning em but i did get boot where before there was bsod. (shrugs)
(no expert here just redneck hobby type input fwiw)

[Artemis]

ive used the freezer technique with positive results twice. drives were like 8 yr old 5400 cheapos and didnt have anything to worry about except saving time by quick cloning em but i did get boot where before there was bsod. (shrugs)
(no expert here just redneck hobby type input fwiw)

As I explained (I thought clearly) in my post about the freezer technique, it worked with older drives that were machined less precisely, or if the controller board became overheated. With modern drives the contraction of metal caused by freezing the drive causes the read/write heads to operate inaccurately if at all. I have used the freezer technique myself as a last resort on older drives, with mixed results, on three occasions it did give me 10-20 minutes of up time, but most of the time it made no difference.

With the fault that was described at the start of the thread, and the fact that the drive can be physically seen in an O/S but it's file structure is unreadable, freezing the drive will only make the issue worse, especially considering it is a modern WD 'Black' drive i.e. an enterprise class high availability drive, that is designed for 24/7 operation. The design tolerances on these drives are even finer, freezing the drive will cause a mechanical error on a drive of this design - to add to the physical errors it is already suffering from.

[megabyteme]

So, what became of the disk's data?


[...]The drive's most likely problem is some bad sectors at the start of the drive, enough to corrupt the MBR and/or the the partition table. At this point I would suggest Spinrite as an option for refreshing the drive, but you have not recovered the data from the drive, and there is a chance that the drive will fail completely during Spinrite's operation, leaving you with the aforementioned paperweight. Although I have had some success with Spinrite in the past, the fact that the data on this drive is crucial means that I cannot recommend Spinrite in this case.

I have a copy of Spinrite and am waiting for a day when events seem to be more in my favor than against me. :pray: I have discussed the issue with my friend, and he understands that we have done just about everything possible. He's wise enough to know sometimes Old Yeller dies at the end...

EDIT- In related troubleshooting news, my suspicion was correct regarding the processor not cooling properly. I cleaned the heatsink and fan, scraped off old thermal paste, and have been running the machine for the past 48 hours off a USB thumb drive with a full screen video playing in constant loop. It hasn't missed a beat. Sadly, the file is worth FAR more than the machine... :(

[mitymek]

nm :)

[Artemis]

As to the related troubleshooting news, a CPU getting hot should not affect a hard drive. If the ambient temperature in the room caused a thermal overload that would be a different matter, but I have had servers get seriously hot without it affecting the hard drive(s) and eventually C.O.P. will shut the system down if it gets too toasty on a modern system board.

That being said, it introduces the possibility that it was the controller board on the hard drive that was affected by a thermal buildup (unlikely, but a possibility) in which case you can A. replace the controller board with an identical one. There are only 4-6 micro screws and one ribbon cable connecting the board to the drive or B. try the freezer method if your friend cannot justify the cost, especially since there are no guarantees. I would however, if you are considering it, make the freezer option the very last thing on your list.

[megabyteme]

VERY interesting. My thought was that overheating of the processor caused wonky info to be written to the drive making it unreadable. Not the case? I saw something very similar once when a motherboard died a slow death.

[Artemis]

VERY interesting. My thought was that overheating of the processor caused wonky info to be written to the drive making it unreadable. Not the case? I saw something very similar once when a motherboard died a slow death.

Another possibility that causes hard drive corruption, and that isn't usually part of the diagnostic routine with a faulting hard drive is faulty RAM. Since you have been running a burn-in test over 24 hours with video playing constantly that is a very unlikely scenario in this case, I am just mentioning this as another contributing factor to hard drive corruption. The fact that there is no file structure at all when you try to read the drive is far more likely to be bad sectors on the drive than corrupted data being written to the drive. The data in the MBR is not updated or normally altered during hard drive operation and partition table information is only updated if there is a change in the partitions themselves.

On an MBR based hard drive the MBR and MPT (Master Partition Table, usually just called the partition table) comprise the first 64k of the drive, i.e. a very small area, that is why I am saying the most likely cause is bad sector(s) in this area of the drive. It is accessed every time the computer is started so is in constant use unlike other areas of the drive. It isn't the only cause, but based on the scenario you have given it is the most likely, other possible reasons for the drive not being accessed have been listed but decrease in likelihood.

What I would do at this point is use an analysis tool like Partition Guru to check the drive and if the partition tables can be recovered, it is a powerful repair and recovery tool in situations like this and as I suggested run Spinrite. The caveat was that there is no guarantees at this point that you are going to get the data off the drive, but if your friend accepts this, then I would be analysing the drive with these diagnostic tools long before I stuck it in a freezer.

An aside to this, if you setup and install new systems on a regular basis, think about initialising them using the GPT (GUID) system rather than MBR. It has several advantages including the fact it can handle more than four primary partitions, will recognise drives larger than 2TB and most importantly it has a backup of the partition table stored in another partition on the drive.

[megabyteme]

On an MBR based hard drive the MBR and MPT (Master Partition Table, usually just called the partition table) comprise the first 64k of the drive, i.e. a very small area, that is why I am saying the most likely cause is bad sector(s) in this area of the drive. It is accessed every time the computer is started so is in constant use unlike other areas of the drive. It isn't the only cause, but based on the scenario you have given it is the most likely, other possible reasons for the drive not being accessed have been listed but decrease in likelihood.

Unfortunately, this system was let to run-and-crash for quite awhile before I was asked to help. It is the one PC he owns that I did not build for him, and I think he was just hesitant to "bother" me. If it weren't for this file he probably would not have asked. Silly of him since he is both a quality electrician AND plumber. He helps us A LOT. He could have one of my kidneys if his body could withstand the toxicology. :P


What I would do at this point is use an analysis tool like Partition Guru to check the drive and if the partition tables can be recovered, it is a powerful repair and recovery tool in situations like this and as I suggested run Spinrite. The caveat was that there is no guarantees at this point that you are going to get the data off the drive, but if your friend accepts this, then I would be analysing the drive with these diagnostic tools long before I stuck it in a freezer.

I am going to go back through with some of the diagnostic tools such as Partition Guru just to make sure I didn't fumble on my earlier attempts. Every one of the programs recommended here seems worth retrying. Spinrite looks to be a fire-and-forget-it type weapon not to be used unless.


An aside to this, if you setup and install new systems on a regular basis, think about initialising them using the GPT (GUID) system rather than MBR. It has several advantages including the fact it can handle more than four primary partitions, will recognise drives larger than 2TB and most importantly it has a backup of the partition table stored in another partition on the drive.

While I have had very good success repairing and building PCs, I only do so for a few people who I am indebted to these days. I tried to start a repair business at one point and all I heard from people who should have been supportive was the sound of one hand clapping. :ermm: They are welcome to suffer through their brother-in-law's friend's cousin's former roommate and/or Dell as those entities got brought up enough to hurt my feelings when I needed the work.

[pootystomp]

If you're in the states, Geeksquad has a data recovery division in Kentucky. I have used this service to retrieve info off of a drive that I acquired through a purchase of a business. It is $250 deposit and I paid $250 after they decided it was a level 2 issue. I think it can be as much as $1000 if they have to remount the disc into a new drive. They were able to recover 98% of my drive and I had a good experience working with them.

[megabyteme]

I appreciate the rec, pooty. I discussed the option of sending the drive out with him and he said he did not want to do that. I'm going to do everything possible before giving up. Good experience; unfortunate that the data is so irreplaceable. :(

[mitymek]

point easy recovery pro at that bad boy yet? (ontrack if i recall correctly). should ignore all the acronyms at the front and give you a list of files like porn.jpg etc etc. drag em off and then try format or whatever.

[megabyteme]

point easy recovery pro at that bad boy yet? (ontrack if i recall correctly). should ignore all the acronyms at the front and give you a list of files like porn.jpg etc etc. drag em off and then try format or whatever.

I'll see what it can do tomorrow. Thanks for the rec. :)

[MysticRiffs]

I use Active@File Recovery Professional to recover the MBR in my business, mate. Another thing you can attempt to do is to clone the drive via a CD (no OS getting in the way). Cloning won't automagically solve the issue, but it will let you then recover data if it's a combined issue of corrupt MBR and bad sectors.

Hope this helps.

[Artemis]

I appreciate the rec, pooty. I discussed the option of sending the drive out with him and he said he did not want to do that. I'm going to do everything possible before giving up. Good experience; unfortunate that the data is so irreplaceable. :(

It's obviously not that irreplaceable if he isn't prepared to pay to have the data retrieved.... :idunno:

We can dance around the issue and be pleasant, but actually if the data was that vital to his business he was a grade A card carrying moron to not have some form of backup, either local through a storage medium or cloud based through a backup service like: http://backup.comodo.com/ which is also incidentally free.

[megabyteme]

I use Active@File Recovery Professional [...]

Hope this helps.

This is the only prog (so far) I have not been able to find on torrents. The persistent problem here is that no progs can even see enough of the drive to begin working on the damage.


It's obviously not that irreplaceable if he isn't prepared to pay to have the data retrieved.... :idunno:

We can dance around the issue and be pleasant, but actually if the data was that vital to his business he was a grade A card carrying moron to not have some form of backup, either local through a storage medium or cloud based through a backup service[...]

He knows. I think he's gotten a bit spoiled having never suffered a failure from 12-ish years of the PCs I've built for him. We have discussed backups and having a redundant RAID drive for any business-specific machine I'd do for him. Unfortunately, he has had this file sitting on a machine he purchased second hand, sent to him via a Yahoo account he no longer has any details for. The customer list was built 3-4 years ago. Perfect storm of fuckup.

If he'd placed it on ANY other machine, he'd still have the damn thing. :frusty:

[mitymek]

always amazes and infuriates me when working on a drive issue. its like the fix is gonna be so simple and instant and its just like one click away, but then, so might be disaster lol . and it always happens after just enough time has passed that i cant remember what the heck worked or what box of discs in which closet is the last recovery tools. you have that enclosure going for ya so that helps a bunch. i hope the easy recovery pro lets you see the file you need. then you can take the dang drive out to the garage and beat it to death with a large hammer. you'll get it. cool how you had enough sense to back away from the thing and clear your brain. my wife used to freak on me cuz i would stay up all night and then some trying to get a system back. to hardheaded to know when to step away.
good luck , let me know if i need to dig in the closet for ya :)

[megabyteme]

I did give ERP a shot at it. Unfortunately, it did not see the drive. Ive got time on my side, though. Just received a new WD Black drive and new power supply. Going to get his PC back to him so his wife can resume (yes, his all-important file was sitting on his wife's computer :frusty: - hence the push-it-til-it-breaks mess we are in) then chip away as "good" days come around. Still waiting for one of those...

[mitymek]

I did give ERP a shot at it. Unfortunately, it did not see the drive. Ive got time on my side, though. Just received a new WD Black drive and new power supply. Going to get his PC back to him so his wife can resume (yes, his all-important file was sitting on his wife's computer :frusty: - hence the push-it-til-it-breaks mess we are in) then chip away as "good" days come around. Still waiting for one of those...

ugh, ive got 2 drives that went dumb on me way back in dalnet/mirc days and i keep trying to "see" them whenever im working on drive issues for whatever reason.
logic being the op system and recovery technology keeps getting better so why not try....
ive always felt that they got nuked by a badass file from the dark side folks because i was being dumb and trying to dig up a key to some program off a google search when the lights went out.
one of em was a beloved raptor that was half a matched set.
so far nothing ive tried detects these drives but they spin up ok mechanically.
old school junk in todays world, no doubt loaded with win xp booty lol
but hey, its the thrill of the challenge sometimes dangit!
will be watching to see what finally works for ya.
luck to you sincerely

[megabyteme]

[...]half a matched set

Ouch. And apparently not the kind of set where they mirror each other. :no:

I will keep this thread up-to-date. Especially when I succeed. :01:

[Artemis]

I did give ERP a shot at it. Unfortunately, it did not see the drive. Ive got time on my side, though. Just received a new WD Black drive and new power supply. Going to get his PC back to him so his wife can resume (yes, his all-important file was sitting on his wife's computer :frusty: - hence the push-it-til-it-breaks mess we are in) then chip away as "good" days come around. Still waiting for one of those...

ugh, ive got 2 drives that went dumb on me way back in dalnet/mirc days and i keep trying to "see" them whenever im working on drive issues for whatever reason.
logic being the op system and recovery technology keeps getting better so why not try....
ive always felt that they got nuked by a badass file from the dark side folks because i was being dumb and trying to dig up a key to some program off a google search when the lights went out.
one of em was a beloved raptor that was half a matched set.
so far nothing ive tried detects these drives but they spin up ok mechanically.
old school junk in todays world, no doubt loaded with win xp booty lol
but hey, its the thrill of the challenge sometimes dangit!
will be watching to see what finally works for ya.
luck to you sincerely

If the drive(s) spin up but aren't seen at all, the problem is in the controller. Hopefully being older drives you can track down similar drives i.e. the same model, relatively cheaply and use them as donors. As I said before removing the logic board from a hard drive is relatively easy, it just depends how much you value the data on the drives. I have found over the years that within six months the data is usually redundant and the 'pain' of losing the drive is a vague memory....

[megabyteme]

If the drive(s) spin up but aren't seen at all, the problem is in the controller.

That seems to be the problem here. I'll look into it. Gnu ground... :fear:

[Artemis]

If the drive(s) spin up but aren't seen at all, the problem is in the controller.

That seems to be the problem here. I'll look into it. Gnu ground... :fear:

I did actually mention this as a solution earlier on, it is just that you mentioned the drive was visible (as a drive within the O/S) which led me to a different conclusion. The problem of course with using a donor drive is you first have to locate a drive with an identical model number to use as a donor drive. Once you have read the data off you can replace the controller onto the other drive, rather than continue using the faulty one.
A WD 500GB Black drive shouldn't be too hard to locate, and will probably be a reasonable price. The question is does your friend wish to put any further money into the project, especially since with the level of damage to the drive there is no guarantee of the data still being viable.

[megabyteme]

A WD 500GB Black drive shouldn't be too hard to locate, and will probably be a reasonable price. The question is does your friend wish to put any further money into the project, especially since with the level of damage to the drive there is no guarantee of the data still being viable.

The file is a customer list which is very specific to what he does. The value lies in being able to reach these specific customers without spending money on non-interested parties. This friend just strengthened up the underside of my deck (materials included) for no money. Granted, the work we just got him grossed $10k. Still, if he had been charging for this work I would have been out, say, another $3-4k. Like I mentioned, he's a GOOD friend. If I can find a controller within reason, I owe him the effort.

That said, the value of the file would not be worth sending off the drive for $1000+- especially since with the tools (including you guise :naughty: and downloadable tools at our disposal ), there isn't a whole lot more than one of these centers (of varying qualities) can do.

And, I'll point out, our friendship is not one sided. I recently built his website (going live soon), consult on his business, and give him access to about $30k of tools. It works out nicely. :)

I will look into that controller. If there is a US-based source for these things (WD itself, maybe?), I'd appreciate the info...

[mitymek]

"If the drive(s) spin up but aren't seen at all, the problem is in the controller."
artenis- that lil tidbit is some cool info. and makes total sense too.
seems to me that there could be more possibles twixt the controller and the data on the platta (that arm thing or the reader eye thing for example), but the controller board sounds like a swap out part so with a donor drive it would be the next part to swap out with a known good piece under the spin but no detect issue.
i will have to try that out with mine. i dont have any data to save or anything, just for fun and knowledge.
thanks for the tip

[Artemis]

A WD 500GB Black drive shouldn't be too hard to locate, and will probably be a reasonable price. The question is does your friend wish to put any further money into the project, especially since with the level of damage to the drive there is no guarantee of the data still being viable.

The file is a customer list which is very specific to what he does. The value lies in being able to reach these specific customers without spending money on non-interested parties. This friend just strengthened up the underside of my deck (materials included) for no money. Granted, the work we just got him grossed $10k. Still, if he had been charging for this work I would have been out, say, another $3-4k. Like I mentioned, he's a GOOD friend. If I can find a controller within reason, I owe him the effort.

That said, the value of the file would not be worth sending off the drive for $1000+- especially since with the tools (including you guise :naughty: and downloadable tools at our disposal ), there isn't a whole lot more than one of these centers (of varying qualities) can do.

And, I'll point out, our friendship is not one sided. I recently built his website (going live soon), consult on his business, and give him access to about $30k of tools. It works out nicely. :)

I will look into that controller. If there is a US-based source for these things (WD itself, maybe?), I'd appreciate the info...

Since I have no idea of the exact model number of the drive in question here is a random one from your state (although I don't remember which city you are nearest to and have no intention of being a stalker and going back through the posts): http://seattle.craigslist.org/est/sys/4355926792.html. You simply have to match the model numbers and at $65 (the price of that drive), or a bit more it's worth the punt...

In cases like this myself I usually go a local auction site that deals in second hand office equipment, the prices on components are phenomenally cheap. Since I don't know that many U.S. auction sites this is just to give you an idea of the types of places to go. Data retrieval is something I have had a lot of experience with in various jobs over the years, and by the time we get to this level of failure replacing the logic board will resolve about 40% of the problems (depending on the age of the drive).


"If the drive(s) spin up but aren't seen at all, the problem is in the controller."
artenis- that lil tidbit is some cool info. and makes total sense too.
seems to me that there could be more possibles twixt the controller and the data on the platta (that arm thing or the reader eye thing for example), but the controller board sounds like a swap out part so with a donor drive it would be the next part to swap out with a known good piece under the spin but no detect issue.
i will have to try that out with mine. i dont have any data to save or anything, just for fun and knowledge.
thanks for the tip

If the problem is in the actuator or there is a stiction problem with the read heads then there is usually an audible indication (the drive makes a funny noise). The point of using another controller is this in no way affects the drive, replacing the controller will either make the drive operate normally or not, so it is a safe option on the way down the diagnostic tree to resolve the issue. The only real problem is the cost when it is a gamble, but this must be weighed against the value of the data.

Most data retrieval companies classify this as a level 2 or hardware related problem, one where they have to start purchasing parts to resolve the issue and this is where the rubber hits the road in terms of cost if you have sent the drive for diagnosis and data retrieval. Above this is a level 3 (VERY expensive) repair, which involves dismantling the drive in a clean room to retrieve the platters and read the data off of them directly. As I said though the logic board itself can be easily replaced (I'd rather replace that than the digitiser on a smartphone).

[megabyteme]

You simply have to match the model numbers and at $65 (the price of that drive), or a bit more it's worth the punt...[...]I have had a lot of experience with in various jobs over the years, and by the time we get to this level of failure replacing the logic board will resolve about 40% of the problems (depending on the age of the drive).

I found some controllers for sale. The site mentioned copying over the BIOS. How is this done? I own an identical model HDD. I'm tempted to try the replacement, but am a bit worried about this step.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gSFlAgRAHo