HELP!! Power Spike took out hard drive

[joydale]

I know that the drive is toasted, but can anyone tell me if my data is recoverable? Should I try myself or take the hard drive to a specialist? Any help would make me very happy. TIA

 

[knporter]

Your not really describing your problem other than saying it is "toasted" so I cannot say if data can be easily restored or not. The best way to test it is to put the drive in a working machine as a secondary drive and see if you can access it. There are shops that can recover data from almost any drive but they can be very expensive, $1,000 and up. Unless the drive contains critical data I doubt it would be worth the investment but I guess that is up to you to decide

Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people.

--Admiral Hyman G. Rickover

 

[joydale]

Sorry about that...the computer had a power spike and the electronics are gone. The drive is a 10GB Western Digital 102BA.

 

[knporter]

Sounds bad... I would say the info will not be easily recovered. You would have to take it to a data recovery shot I think.

Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people.

--Admiral Hyman G. Rickover

 

[joydale]

We're currently trying to locate another hard drive so that we can switch out the platters and try to read the data. Anybody know if this will work?

 

[knporter]

I am no where near an expert in that area but my understanding is that this sort of work needs to be done in a "clean room" environment with the intel "bunny suits" to prevent dust and other contaminets from getting on the platters. This is why data recovery services are expensive. Once again this may not be totally correct though.

"Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people."

--Admiral Hyman G. Rickover

 

[joydale]

Okay. That makes sense. I'm just wondering if maybe switching out the electronics might mean that we don't expose the platters and therefore won't have to worry about that. This is a nightmare, and I am ready to scream.

 

[edfair]

Better not to try swapping platters as there are alignment problems waiting to bite you.
Maybe you could try swapping the electronics if you find a duplicate drive.
But unless you see burns on the drive electronics you might want to see if the drive itself survived even though everything else fried. Ed Fair
unixstuff@juno.com
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[joydale]

Thanks edfair, we have checked it out pretty throughly now. The elecontronics smell burned and all the other components are ruined as well. We're hoping that the electronics switch will work.