ROT - dead hard drive

This site contains affiliate links for which LandyZone may be compensated if you make a purchase.
T

Tim Hobbs

Guest
Embarrassing, but I've just had a drive failure in my wife's laptop.
She's now asking awkward questions about how topical my backups
are.... The answer is 'not topical enough', although much better than
nothing.

The drive is spinning and isn't making any nasty noises. It was
working OK, then the machine simply hung. On reboot, the BIOS doesn't
see the drive.

Same result in a different laptop.

Seagate's own diagnostic bootable CD image just says 'no drive in
machine'. Obviously the $50 tools for drive recovery aren't going to
work either, because the BIOS doesn't think there is a drive there.
My only option at this point seems to be 'send the drive to an
expert'.

Any other ideas?





--

Tim Hobbs

'58 Series 2 88" aka "Stig"
'03 Volvo V70
 
Tim Hobbs wrote:
> Embarrassing, but I've just had a drive failure in my wife's laptop.
> She's now asking awkward questions about how topical my backups
> are.... The answer is 'not topical enough', although much better than
> nothing.
>
> The drive is spinning and isn't making any nasty noises. It was
> working OK, then the machine simply hung. On reboot, the BIOS doesn't
> see the drive.
>
> Same result in a different laptop.
>
> Seagate's own diagnostic bootable CD image just says 'no drive in
> machine'. Obviously the $50 tools for drive recovery aren't going to
> work either, because the BIOS doesn't think there is a drive there.
> My only option at this point seems to be 'send the drive to an
> expert'.
>
> Any other ideas?

1. Try it in a Mac, this can work!
2. Put HD in a plastic bag and freeze for a few hours (this really can work
but only in about 2% of the times you try it)
3. Search the network for more tools, can cost lots of money unless you find
"evaluation" versions.

Sending a drive to an expert can cost thousands.

Nigel

--
nigel@leginDOTorg
1979 Lightwieght


 

>
>1. Try it in a Mac, this can work!
>2. Put HD in a plastic bag and freeze for a few hours (this really can work
>but only in about 2% of the times you try it)
>3. Search the network for more tools, can cost lots of money unless you find
>"evaluation" versions.
>
>Sending a drive to an expert can cost thousands.
>
>Nigel

I've got quotes between £139 and £899 so far...

I haven't found any software that can cope with the drive not
appearing in the BIOS. I suspect I need some dedicated hardware -
i.e. send it away to someone with the dedicated hardware.

I need to compare the cost against the invoices we won't raise without
the data....

arse....


--

Tim Hobbs

'58 Series 2 88" aka "Stig"
'03 Volvo V70
 
Tim Hobbs wrote:
>>1. Try it in a Mac, this can work!
>>2. Put HD in a plastic bag and freeze for a few hours (this really can work
>>but only in about 2% of the times you try it)
>>3. Search the network for more tools, can cost lots of money unless you find
>>"evaluation" versions.
>>
>>Sending a drive to an expert can cost thousands.
>>
>>Nigel
>
>
> I've got quotes between £139 and £899 so far...
>
> I haven't found any software that can cope with the drive not
> appearing in the BIOS. I suspect I need some dedicated hardware -
> i.e. send it away to someone with the dedicated hardware.
>
> I need to compare the cost against the invoices we won't raise without
> the data....
>
> arse....
>
>

Can you actually hear/feel the drive spinning up when powered? Can
you feel the heads actuate when the drive is powered? It may only be
the drive electronics, which if the case, can be swapped with another
drive of the same type/model. This can be a cheap fix to attempt if
the drive is old enough to now be cheap or obsolete. You will need
surgeon like skills to swap the ribbon cable, but it's doable, and if
the PCB was the fault you should have a running drive for at least
long enough to get the data off. If the drive isn't even seen by the
bios it sounds like the electronics have fried, so it may be worth a try.

--
Regards,
Danny

http://www.gaggia-espresso.com (a purely hobby site)
http://www.dannyscoffee.com (UK advert for my mobile espresso service)
http://www.malabargold.co.uk (UK/European online ordering for Malabar
Gold blend)
swap Z for above characters in email address to reply

 
In article <[email protected]>, Danny
<[email protected]> writes
>Tim Hobbs wrote:
>>>1. Try it in a Mac, this can work!
>>>2. Put HD in a plastic bag and freeze for a few hours (this really
>>>can work but only in about 2% of the times you try it)
>>>3. Search the network for more tools, can cost lots of money unless
>>>you find "evaluation" versions.
>>>
>>>Sending a drive to an expert can cost thousands.
>>>
>>>Nigel
>> I've got quotes between £139 and £899 so far...
>> I haven't found any software that can cope with the drive not
>> appearing in the BIOS. I suspect I need some dedicated hardware -
>> i.e. send it away to someone with the dedicated hardware.
>> I need to compare the cost against the invoices we won't raise
>>without
>> the data....
>> arse....
>>
>
>Can you actually hear/feel the drive spinning up when powered? Can you
>feel the heads actuate when the drive is powered? It may only be the
>drive electronics, which if the case, can be swapped with another drive
>of the same type/model. This can be a cheap fix to attempt if the
>drive is old enough to now be cheap or obsolete. You will need surgeon
>like skills to swap the ribbon cable, but it's doable, and if the PCB
>was the fault you should have a running drive for at least long enough
>to get the data off. If the drive isn't even seen by the bios it
>sounds like the electronics have fried, so it may be worth a try.

This works (I've done it with 100% success). You'll probably need tiny
Torx screwdrivers, from a really good tool shop (even RS didn't carry
the right size when I last looked). IBM/Toshiba drives are T5. The HDA
is T6, which is commonly available, but do NOT open that under any
circumstances!

If it's a SW issue, don't, whatever you do, try any 'automatic' repair.
You are risking the data. The advice to connect to a Mac (or Linux) is
good - it won't try any silly formatting ruses - but I don't think you
can mount NTFS directly (haven't tried). FAT should mount though.

If you want contact with a good (but not necessarily cheap) data
recovery service contact me off list.

Regards,

Simonm.

--
simonm|at|muircom|dot|demon|.|c|oh|dot|u|kay
SIMON MUIR, BRISTOL UK www.ukip.org
EUROPEANS AGAINST THE EU www.members.aol.com/eurofaq
GT250A'76 R80/RT'86 110CSW TD'88 www.kc3ltd.co.uk/profile/eurofollie/
 
SpamTrapSeeSig wrote:
>The advice to connect to a Mac (or Linux) is
> good - it won't try any silly formatting ruses - but I don't think you
> can mount NTFS directly (haven't tried). FAT should mount though.
>
NTFS can be mounted with a couple of commands like
(as root)

mkdir /mnt
mount -t ntfs /dev/Hda1 /mnt -ro


If you use a Knoppix live CD thats incredibly good at handling all this
without doing ANY write to the HD.

Steve
 
In article <[email protected]>, Steve
<[email protected]> writes
>SpamTrapSeeSig wrote:
>>The advice to connect to a Mac (or Linux) is good - it won't try any
>>silly formatting ruses - but I don't think you can mount NTFS
>>directly (haven't tried). FAT should mount though.
>>
>NTFS can be mounted with a couple of commands like
>(as root)
>
>mkdir /mnt
>mount -t ntfs /dev/Hda1 /mnt -ro

I'll give that a go when I get a moment - would be very useful. I wonder
what it does with the permissions, etc.

>If you use a Knoppix live CD thats incredibly good at handling all this
>without doing ANY write to the HD.

That's the key aspect - not writing to the target at all.

Regards,

Simonm.

--
simonm|at|muircom|dot|demon|.|c|oh|dot|u|kay
SIMON MUIR, BRISTOL UK www.ukip.org
EUROPEANS AGAINST THE EU www.members.aol.com/eurofaq
GT250A'76 R80/RT'86 110CSW TD'88 www.kc3ltd.co.uk/profile/eurofollie/
 
SpamTrapSeeSig wrote:
> I'll give that a go when I get a moment - would be very useful. I wonder
> what it does with the permissions, etc.

The permissions will be OK, if you are root. Knoppix is great for
bringing your system up well enough to connect it to something else to
extract everything to.

Steve
 
SpamTrapSeeSig wrote:

> If it's a SW issue, don't, whatever you do, try any 'automatic' repair.
> You are risking the data. The advice to connect to a Mac (or Linux) is
> good - it won't try any silly formatting ruses - but I don't think you
> can mount NTFS directly (haven't tried). FAT should mount though.

A cheap (and pretty good) tool to boot off for data recovery (if you can
get the drive to recognise) is at http://www.sysresccd.org/ It supports
CD/DVD burning so saving the data is easy.


--
EMB
 

"Tim Hobbs" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Embarrassing, but I've just had a drive failure in my wife's laptop.
> She's now asking awkward questions about how topical my backups
> are.... The answer is 'not topical enough', although much better than
> nothing.
>
> The drive is spinning and isn't making any nasty noises. It was
> working OK, then the machine simply hung. On reboot, the BIOS doesn't
> see the drive.
>
> Same result in a different laptop.
>
> Seagate's own diagnostic bootable CD image just says 'no drive in
> machine'. Obviously the $50 tools for drive recovery aren't going to
> work either, because the BIOS doesn't think there is a drive there.
> My only option at this point seems to be 'send the drive to an
> expert'.
>
> Any other ideas?

for about 2 and a half quid you can get an adaptor to plug the drive into a
proper IDE channel on a PC.

Try that - sometimes the PC bios will find it - its how I recovered my
laptop

Si


 
Tim Hobbs wrote:
> Embarrassing, but I've just had a drive failure in my wife's laptop.
> She's now asking awkward questions about how topical my backups
> are.... The answer is 'not topical enough', although much better than
> nothing.
>
> The drive is spinning and isn't making any nasty noises. It was
> working OK, then the machine simply hung. On reboot, the BIOS doesn't
> see the drive.
>
> Same result in a different laptop.
>

I had exactly the same problem with my laptop in early August. I
removed the HDD and found (quite by chance) that it managed to read the
disc if I held it vertically and then *very gently* squeezed the HHD
case, which presumably brought the read-heads back into contact with
the disc. It still fell over from time-to-time but, with patience over
the next couple of hours, I managed to keep reviving it for long enough
to transfer all the files over to another machine.

Good luck - a total HDD failure is not a pleasant experience.

- Tom Bennett

 
On Mon, 17 Oct 2005 16:46:48 +0100, Tim Hobbs wrote:

> I need to compare the cost against the invoices we won't raise
> without the data....

<ouch> My books are essentially paper based. I simply use the computer
to produce invoices (via a WP), track expenses and do the maths for my
accounts and check that being on the VAT FRS is still profitable. A
HDD failure would be a pain but would cost me any money, a fire
though...

--
Cheers [email protected]
Dave. pam is missing e-mail



 
In news:[email protected],
Thos <[email protected]> blithered:
> Tim Hobbs wrote:
>> Embarrassing, but I've just had a drive failure in my wife's laptop.
>> She's now asking awkward questions about how topical my backups
>> are.... The answer is 'not topical enough', although much better
>> than nothing.
>>
>> The drive is spinning and isn't making any nasty noises. It was
>> working OK, then the machine simply hung. On reboot, the BIOS
>> doesn't see the drive.
>>
>> Same result in a different laptop.
>>
>
> I had exactly the same problem with my laptop in early August. I
> removed the HDD and found (quite by chance) that it managed to read
> the disc if I held it vertically and then *very gently* squeezed the
> HHD case, which presumably brought the read-heads back into contact
> with the disc. It still fell over from time-to-time but, with
> patience over the next couple of hours, I managed to keep reviving it
> for long enough to transfer all the files over to another machine.
>
> Good luck - a total HDD failure is not a pleasant experience.
>
> - Tom Bennett

Definition of a backup: exercise started 10 mins after you need it!

--
"He who says it cannot be done should not interrupt her doing it."

If at first you don't succeed,
maybe skydiving's not for you!


 
In article <[email protected]>, Thos
<[email protected]> writes
>I had exactly the same problem with my laptop in early August. I
>removed the HDD and found (quite by chance) that it managed to read the
>disc if I held it vertically and then *very gently* squeezed the HHD
>case, which presumably brought the read-heads back into contact with
>the disc.

It was more likely something to do with the head actuator and/or the
motor bearings, and the change of orientation was just enough to keep it
going.

Disk heads never touch the disk in normal use. They fly over it at a
carefully controlled height. There's a landing zone set aside for
switch-off, that carries no data. If they do touch it's often goodbye
disk (in that section) and heads. This is why radial shocks are usually
not damaging, whereas axial ones can be.

Regards,

Simonm.

--
simonm|at|muircom|dot|demon|.|c|oh|dot|u|kay
SIMON MUIR, BRISTOL UK www.ukip.org
EUROPEANS AGAINST THE EU www.members.aol.com/eurofaq
GT250A'76 R80/RT'86 110CSW TD'88 www.kc3ltd.co.uk/profile/eurofollie/
 
"SpamTrapSeeSig" wrote in message >
> It was more likely something to do with the head actuator and/or the motor
> bearings, and the change of orientation was just enough to keep it going.
>
> Disk heads never touch the disk in normal use. They fly over it at a
> carefully controlled height. There's a landing zone set aside for
> switch-off, that carries no data. If they do touch it's often goodbye disk
> (in that section) and heads. This is why radial shocks are usually not
> damaging, whereas axial ones can be.


Sorry, I should have added that. The symptoms were the same, however: The
machine wouldn't recognise that a HDD was there, but I could hear the disc
spinning (virtually constantly).

- Tom.


 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

T
Oswestry - Lake Vyrnwy
Replies
17
Views
1K
Lee_D
L
T
OT - TR8
Replies
10
Views
1K
Austin Shackles
A
T
drums vs discs...
2
Replies
21
Views
2K
Lee_D
L
T
removing 2.25 block without a crane....
2
Replies
31
Views
3K
EMB
E
T
wheels and tyres for sale
Replies
3
Views
2K
Austin Shackles
A
Back
Top