Hard Drive Crashed, Your Advice?

[ealvin]

Sadly, my hard drive just crashed, and of course, I don't have a backup (learn from my mistake if you're vulnerable). I've decided to use a data recovery service and I'd like to get it restored as cheaply as possible. If you have any ideas that can help me along I'd sure appreciate it.

Thanks in advance for your help.

[kaled]

What is the nature of the crash?

If you've simply lost a couple of critical sectors, you may find (free) software that will recover all your data.

If the disk is not spinning (or heads are stuck) a gentle tap may free the mechanism.

The disk itself may be fine, it could be a motherboard (controller) fault. In this case, plugging the old drive into a new computer should recover all data.

Kaled.

[ealvin]

Thanks Kaled, I'm not sure of the specific nature. It just froze up and when I attempt to boot I get a choice of F1 to continue or F1 to setup. Two different Dell tech guys said my hard drive is bad and someone should be out shortly to replace it, but that doesn't help me with my data recovery. I know there are some services but they seem pretty expensive so anything I can do to lower that cost would be really appreciated.

[jessejump]

What happens when you hit F1?

It may just need some tweaking in the setup - with all the data intact.

[ealvin]

jessejump, thanks for your reply. IL can't remember exactly what happened when I hit F1, but I think it just cycled through to the same screen again. Two different Dell guys helped me try and restore the info, including running ChekDisk, but nothing worked, so the drive may be shot. Dell is sending someone to swap the drive out with a new one and I'm trying to figure out the best, most affordable way to secure my data from the old drive.

[kaled]

Until you know for sure that the drive is faulty, there's nothing to be done.

Kaled.

[jbinbpt]

If they are swapping drives they want to take the old one.

[bunltd]

If the drive is making a clicking sound (or any other weird sound) you might want to turn it off and leave it off, instead of keep trying it - that clicking means it's a physical failure and that little arm is banging the disc, which is not a good thing.

Your data may still be recoverable for a fee, if you send it off to a data recovery co. Typically they don't charge much to look at it. They'll tell you if/what they can recover and how much it will cost, then you decide if it's worth it. Been there done that. :(

LisaB

[Terabytes]

They'll tell you if/what they can recover and how much it will cost

I've been this route...attempting to recover lost data from an array...

Without going into the boring details...
The recovery company stated no problem, we can get this back for you, it will cost $17,000...
(it was a ton of data! spread over 10 SCSI drives)

What we received back was simply filenames and directorys...no actual data...we actually lost everything (they might have told us that in the beginning....)

I'm not saying this happens to everyone, just wanted to say "be careful" with what you expect from a data recovery service. Sometimes it doesn't go "perfectly"...

[Moosetick]

There is a free forensic tool named Helix. You can download an ISO and burn it to a CD. It will boot to a version of Linux and from there you can see if the data is intact on the drive. It is GUI and easy and intuitive to use. If you just have an OS problem then you may be able to get your data.

To have a data recovery service get your data because there is a physical problem then you are looking at spending thousands of $$ and may still get nothing back.

[bunltd]

Sometimes it doesn't go "perfectly"...

Yes, that's true. In my case, we couldn't get anything back - nada - zip - because it was RAID 0 - striped. We sent both drives and the controller. But we didn't pay much to find that out.

FWIW we've also sent off another drive (not ours this time) and gotten back good data (Outlook files and stuff like that) and it was well worth the price, around $1200 - on a single drive. The recovery company sent a list of recoverable files for us to review and a price beforehand.

LisaB

[kaled]

If the engineer wishes to take the drive, point out that the data on the drive is your property. If he can recover the data and copy it to the new drive you might reasonably allow him to take it but only after you have witnessed the permanent erasure of all data (not a reformat, etc.).

Kaled.

[nonstop]

What do the data recovery company do? do they take the disc plates out and transplant them into another hard disk? or do they have some kind of special data recovery machine?

has anyone ever been able to fix their own hard disk by opening it up?

[kaled]

The action taken for data recovery will depend on the fault. If the motor or heads have died then the disk platter will have to be removed, however, if they are still functioning, this is pointless.

If the control circuitry is at fault, this can be replaced and no further action is necessary, however, copying the data to a replacement disk would be normal practice in case a fault elsewhere caused the failure.

If the mechanism is working correctly, but a critical area of the disk failed, then recovery would require advanced software and/or human intervention (but no hardware changes).

Under no circumstances should you ever open a hard disk. They are constructed in super-clean rooms and even the tiniest of dust particles can caused total failure of the disk.

Kaled.