Data Recovery HDD Stopped working

[KLewisBPM]

I have a desktop PC 14mths old. Came in yesterday morning to find that the Computer no longer recognised the HDD. I tried it in 3 other machines still no joy. On switching the PC on the HDD spins for about 2 secs then stops. When the bios runs "Auto Detect HDD" it try's to spin about 8 times (like 8 half spins) and the PC says no drive detected. I have sent Emails to 4 data recovery companies.

One company came back saying they would recover the Outlook.PST file I need for £499+VAT. No recovery No Fee - I presume from my analasys they think it will be a walk in the park. (easy money)

The only other reply i got was it sounded like the bearings had gone and that i could get some WD40 and try to run it for enough time to get the data off.

Any ideas people!! Im stuck.

Cheers in advance Kind Regards

Kelley Lewis

 

[tep0583]

Try putting it in the freezer for a couple of hours. Sometimes this will allow the drive to run just long enough to get data off of it. You will need to connect the HD right after you get it out of the freezer and then attempt to get data off of it before it warms back up. This is one of those last-ditch effort type things, but it does work every now and again.

There are companies like Ontrack that can probably get the data off, but it will be expensive. I believe that Ontrack charges a $100 inspection fee and then the recovery, if possible, will run $500-$4000 or so.

 

[Crustyoldbloke]

Hello Kelley

I assume that you've written this post from another PC, which is good because I am going to suggest that you download POWERMAX onto a PC and then load it onto a floppy. You can then test the bad HDD on the machine you're currently using it as a slave on primary IDE channel. Those nice people at Maxtor allow this programme to be useed for any make of HDD. here's the link:

http://www.maxtor.com/en/support/downloads/powermax.htm

It won't do anything for your data, but it will tell you what's wrong with your HDD, and I would have thought that the makers will replace it under warranty at 14 months of age. They may even help you as regards data retrieval. Good luck. Error! Keyboard not attached. Press F1 to continue
Phil
Si fractum non sit, noli id reficere.