External hard drive death!

mishelle · 24th March 2008, 11:52am

Ok, my hard drive has died. I shall explain..

Started clicking like a maniac, when I plugged it into the laptop it wouldnt read some folders, so I disconnected and tried again and it doesnt even recognise a hard drive being in existence. I had an inkling that the reader itself has gone kapoot. Got a recovery program for it, but becuase the nature of the death, it obviously cant read it to recover any data.

Small note. All my work, photos (very important photos) and music is in that drive, really desperate to get it back!

Anyway, took it to PC world jus to have a chat. And im hoping this isnt true but they guy said the last resort is to take it into a clean room and remove the drive itself and put it into another drive and get the info from it, but he said it would cost £700.

Im hoping he was just talking shit cos he thought I would either just go away or be daft enough to pay that.

So is this true? Does it really cost that much? Or does anyone know any alternative to get my data from the drive?

My god what a rant..

**Shannow** · 24th March 2008, 12:02pm

I can guarantee that you will remember to make backups of all your stuff after this experience.

Wrap your hard drive in a plastic bag, making sure it's airtight. Pap it in the freezer for a couple of hours. Remove. Coonect. Pray.
And have something to offload all your data onto nearby, as you might not get a whole lot of time out of it.

If that doesn't help, you are lookign at silly money for data recovery, and will be slapping yourself in the face for not making regular dvd bckups.

Fren · 24th March 2008, 1:03pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by mishelle

Anyway, took it to PC world jus to have a chat. And im hoping this isnt true but they guy said the last resort is to take it into a clean room and remove the drive itself and put it into another drive and get the info from it, but he said it would cost £700.

for the love of god! this is a reason, in black and white, why people should never resort to PC World.

In all seriousness though, try get more opinions off of other smaller computer and technology shops, if all else fails.

I've been through it all before and know how much of a pain in the ass it is. It was a tough lesson in teaching me to keep backups regularly. (everything on my pc gets backed up to our shared LAN drive automatically every week!)

Best of luck.

**PapaZeb** · 24th March 2008, 1:26pm

This is why I rant and rave about externals being the worst choice for data storage. I see this at work a few times a week.

The freeze-it option is one of the best for home users, especially in the case of a clicking (you're looking at physical hardware failure rather than just corrupted data) - other bits of advice for mechanical failure like this would include:
* crack open the external hard drive shell, pull the drive inside of it, and connect it directly to your computer instead of over IDE
* try standing it on it's side
* try tapping it gently on startup - sometimes the arm can be stuck and you can gently dislodge it into service

Ultimately though, you're looking at replacing your external drive. Big tips for that are to never think of it as a safe thing - they have the highest rates of failure compared to internal (due to extra exposure to shock/temperature change/accidental kicking, etc)

mishelle · 24th March 2008, 1:36pm

I thought about the freezer thing, but thought tha would be pointless as its a mechanical fault, nothing to do with corrupt data. As im guessing that I have managed to knock the reader out of place, mibbe a cheaper solution was to swing it off a wall, maybe knock it back! But thats just my aggression and impatience talking.

And I know that PC world really isnt a place to rely on opinions, thats why I posted this!! :P But thanks for the tips. I was nieve enough to think that when I bought the hard drive, that WAS the backup for when and if my pc maybe blew up or got an awful virus. Ah well...

**Shannow** · 24th March 2008, 1:39pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by mishelle

I thought about the freezer thing, but thought tha would be pointless as its a mechanical fault, nothing to do with corrupt data. As im guessing that I have managed to knock the reader out of place, mibbe a cheaper solution was to swing it off a wall, maybe knock it back! But thats just my aggression and impatience talking.

And I know that PC world really isnt a place to rely on opinions, thats why I posted this!! :P But thanks for the tips. I was nieve enough to think that when I bought the hard drive, that WAS the backup for when and if my pc maybe blew up or got an awful virus. Ah well...

It's BECAUSE it's a mechanical fault that the freezer thing works.

**PapaZeb** · 24th March 2008, 1:40pm

No - for corrupt data there are plenty of software tools. Hirens or TestDisk being the preferred cheap solutions - but for mechanical failure you're looking at freezing, rotating, or tapping in the hopes of getting the hardware back to a workable state.

mishelle · 24th March 2008, 1:43pm

aaAAAh.. yeah not brightest spark, you may notice. I may try that soon, need to buy another drive first though.

mishelle · 24th March 2008, 7:21pm

Ok I have thought about it, and I have a question: Isnt there a threat that freezing the hard drive will bugger up the electronics? Like if ice gets into the plug or usb port? Or am I being nieve and daft again? I may try this technique, jus worried that il wreck it forever, mind you its not goin anywhere sittin doing nothing i know...

karbon14 · 24th March 2008, 7:45pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shannow

Wrap your hard drive in a plastic bag, making sure it's airtight. Pap it in the freezer for a couple of hours. Remove. Coonect. Pray.

this should mean no ice....

**GreatKingRat** · 24th March 2008, 8:27pm

So what do you guys all use to back up?

mishelle · 24th March 2008, 8:37pm

Ah yes, plastic bag part is useful. I shall try it.

i know you said to back stuff up on disc, but i always worry that discs scratch, and even though im prety anal about keeping discs in their cases and freak out when they sit about, they pretty easily get ruined, but mind you who am i to talk, the person whos hard drive died!

crusher · 28th March 2008, 1:41pm

I can honestly tell you that if you have to take it to a cleanroom then £700 would be cheap. 6 months ago the cheapest I could find was £1200 for a 80 meg hard drive to be dismantled and recovered and the company who paid for that thought it was worth it

However from your description I think you will be able to recover the data yourself - try a program called "Partition magic " and see if you can get rid of the errors by doing a fix - if not you will have to teach yourself drive recovery techniques - mess and learn

I would imagine its all to do with what is called the drive geometry and you merely need to get some program that will fix that without destroying the data

heres a tip :
when you recover the data or whatever. next time fit two or four identical drives and set them up in a raid array and that way you will not lose data again

mishelle · 28th March 2008, 4:07pm

That would be pretty easily done, but it sounds like your thinkin the data is corrupt. Its the mechanics thats fucked. IF thats what you mean then I apologise.

Zero · 28th March 2008, 4:51pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by crusher

heres a tip :
when you recover the data or whatever. next time fit two or four identical drives and set them up in a raid array and that way you will not lose data again

That's not much use if your house burns downs / floods / gets burgled, etc.

Offsite backup is the sensible solution.