Extract info from a dead hard disk

[xwb]

Is it possible to extract information from a dead hard disk? I can feel it spinning but it doesn't want to talk to the disk controller. It used to until two months ago when it just stopped. I've tried it on other disk controllers and even IDE-USB converters. No luck.

It is a Western Digital Caviar set in master mode.

 

[edfair]

Probably better to post in the data recovery forum or the hardware, hard drive issues forum since they will have more likely support.
Worst case is a hard drive recovery company. But be prepared for the shock of the cost.

Some have had success swapping out the board on the drive but that is somewhat iffy as you need to match revision levels most of the time.

If you can take the drive out far enough to listen closely, you would want to hear the drive spinning up, then a recalibrate of the heads towards the middle of the cylinders and back to the outside. Getting to the recalibrate is an indication that the board is still doing some processing.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[goombawaho]

If the drive is making grinding or scraping noises, turn it off as you may toast any data that is on there. If it's just spinning and not readable, then you probably have recoverable data on there, but by which means is the only question.

 

[xwb]

Right now it is just a metal brick. Data on it isn't that important: just wondering whether the disk could be revived easily. I'm not a hardware person so I'm not even going to attempt replacing the board.

 

[BadBigBen]

Right now it is just a metal brick.

makes a great paperweight, doorstop, or wall deco...

Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[QuadWhore]

Well if it is dead, as in DEAD DEAD, you cannot extract data from it, but if the computer is dead you can.

 

[Sympology]

Ignore what Quad says, you can recover data, but the costs are way beyond what your likely willing to pay.

If your not that fussed, let it spin up and give it a good whack. Bit of a kill or cure, worked twice for me in the past. Sometimes the grease degrades in the drives and the heads get stuck. If you get it working it will fail again, so get the data off asap.

Most people spend their time on the "urgent" rather than on the "important."

 

[goombawaho]

Agreed with Sympology - the data can be recovered about 90% of the time by professional recovery techniques. BUT...... if the data is not that important, you can try things like plugging it into another system (doubt it will work), scanning it with the free trial version of GetDataBack (won't work if you can't "see" the drive).

If the drive is not spinning up then, for sure, the above won't work and hitting it or freezing it (not recommended) won't help either, but could be fun.

 

[edfair]

I'm generally not enamored of "percussive maintenance" but have used it on machines that failed to spin up, specifically by rotating the drive in the same plane as the platters and stopping the rotation sharply. If heads were sticking this would free the platters.

This was on older drives where the heads were larger and there was lubricaton on the platters leading to the heads sticking.

So far as freezing, some claim to have had success. I've used the technique of older MFM drives with external steppers as a temporary track relocation to get a drive back up. But that was followed by by an "on the fly" reformat to get the data relocated to where the heads were tracking.

Even though the drive is spinning there are still issues. There is speed control that is required. Drive specifications need to be read off a track. There has to be a recalibrate to find track 0. The recalibrate is my first step in evaluation. The ones I've dug into use the index pulse to step a counter through 512 or 1024 rotations then step the head in a predetermined amount, then back to track 0.



Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[UUVGuy]

I have a 180GB Seagate that quit working and I froze about a year go and it's still going strong. I don't put any data on it that I would hate to lose as I figure it's going to fail sometime, but so far, no problems since it's 24 hrs in the deep freeze.

 

[xwb]

By freezing, do you mean leave it alone or do you mean stick it in a freezer. My wife will kill me if it is the latter

 

[BadBigBen]

He means sticking it in a freezer (preferable in a Ziploc bag)...


Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[xwb]

OK, I'll try the brother-in-law's freezer, since it was his disk anyway. He's got a big walk-in freezer.

 

[UUVGuy]

Yes, it was in a Ziploc type bag in the deep freeze for 24 hrs. On the other hand, the Western Digital drive that caused the whole problem refused to come back to life after its soak in the freezer so it's a paper weight.