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geekhack Community => Other Geeky Stuff => Topic started by: Melvang on Sun, 21 September 2014, 17:20:48
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Hey guys, the hard drive in the wife PC crashed. It is doing the click of death. Can anyone recommend any methods to get some files off it? We already have a new drive in her computer so I am not trying to extend its life beyond getting files extracted. It is a few Gb worth of pictures, both professional and personal, along with tax return documents.
Also would entertain recovery services that anyone has used in the past as well.
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Hey guys, the hard drive in the wife PC crashed. It is doing the click of death. Can anyone recommend any methods to get some files off it? We already have a new drive in her computer so I am not trying to extend its life beyond getting files extracted. It is a few Gb worth of pictures, both professional and personal, along with tax return documents.
Also would entertain recovery services that anyone has used in the past as well.
Ouch. I have never succeeded at that.
The ideas I have heard are to put it in an external rig and:
(1) Try to get a Linux box (of some flavor) to read it
(2) Put it in the freezer and get it very cold and hope that it runs long enough to copy
(3) Put it in the sun and and get it very hot and hope that it runs long enough to copy
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I've heard of the freezer trick to coax a dead hard drive back to life. I've also heard that it only works once - so make sure you get as much as you can in one go.
There was also this thread (http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=62842.0) about data recovery recently.
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Thanks guys. I have it in the freezer right now and will attempt it in the morning.
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Thanks guys. I have it in the freezer right now and will attempt it in the morning.
YOU PUT IT IN A BAG FIRST, RIGHT???
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Thanks guys. I have it in the freezer right now and will attempt it in the morning.
YOU PUT IT IN A BAG FIRST, RIGHT???
Yes I put it in a bag first.
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Thanks guys. I have it in the freezer right now and will attempt it in the morning.
YOU PUT IT IN A BAG FIRST, RIGHT???
Yes I put it in a bag first.
PHEW
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Well no luck with the freezer. I have been filing out RFQ forms and such for HDD data recovery services. Any idea what this goes for lately?
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usually if it's clicking the only way is to go to data recovery guys.
You can sometimes replace the controller from another drive of the same model though.
if it's clicking only sometimes, you can get data though. but if all it does is click at you, the drive is usually toast.
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Best technique is to do a low level sector image onto another drive, then mount that and copy it as needed with something more robust that can deal with file errors like teracopy. That is assuming it's still readable at all.
If not, then you need to get into more exotic things like remounting the platters in another working drive... such services usually run into the $300-$500ish range.
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Best technique is to do a low level sector image onto another drive, then mount that and copy it as needed with something more robust that can deal with file errors like teracopy. That is assuming it's still readable at all.
If not, then you need to get into more exotic things like remounting the platters in another working drive... such services usually run into the $300-$500ish range.
I do believe that is what I am looking at at this point in time. Just need to see what these pics are worth to the wife.
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Put substantial weight on the spindle part of the drive. Like a c-clamp with some wooden blocks to cushion a little. Rationale: slightly changes the alignment of platters to heads. Most likely won't work. Worked for me 2 out of 9 times.
Also if you're at high altitude (8000+ ft) go lower. Has worked for me 3/9.
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Best technique is to do a low level sector image onto another drive, then mount that and copy it as needed with something more robust that can deal with file errors like teracopy. That is assuming it's still readable at all.
If not, then you need to get into more exotic things like remounting the platters in another working drive... such services usually run into the $300-$500ish range.
that is what DD_rescue actually does, and why I recommended it. I haven't tried teracopy, but the command I recommend is quite robust. It reads and bad block multiple times to ensure as much data as possible is recovered. Sadly you need a drive to actually be readable (and mount in windows if you are going with teracopy) to run any of these tools.
The "click" is from the arm clicking against it's stop. you can see this after opening a defective drive. In such a case it will not read the platters at all or mount. That's why I further recommended data recovers businesses or controller swap. Swapping platters is more difficult than changing the controller board.
Best technique is to do a low level sector image onto another drive, then mount that and copy it as needed with something more robust that can deal with file errors like teracopy. That is assuming it's still readable at all.
If not, then you need to get into more exotic things like remounting the platters in another working drive... such services usually run into the $300-$500ish range.
I do believe that is what I am looking at at this point in time. Just need to see what these pics are worth to the wife.
If you can get it to mount at all, you may want to use something like photorec to only grab the .jpg files you want.