Data Recovery?

newegg sell magic cables than can be used to remote power and attempt to read the data. unless there is something physically disconnected or broken, this method usually works. not sure what the cables are called.

are these sata or ide? harddrives? i have never had an issue with Seagate drives? they are sensitive to high temps, you need to watch your temps and see if you have a overheating issue. cheap drives seem to fail due to heat, before the cpu or ram.

 

1. Put drive into a different PC to verify dud/not dud.

2. No clue on data recovery outfits.

3. PCB: http://onepcbsolution.com. Head crash? Don't try to fix that at home if you want to ever see that data again.

 

Does it "spin up"?

I've never used it, but apparently many of the data recovery places use a tool called "spinrite" from Gibson Research - Google will find 'em - Be aware it can take *days* to work its magic, so you want to do it on a 'puter that's not needed for anything else......

Good luck, cheers,
Ian

 

I have and it's overrated. Besides taking a zillion years it didn't find any more data then the regular apps.

 

Interesting - Thanks for the comment. The (few) people I know who've used it say it really saved their asses. [Albeit slowly.....]

What "regular apps" have you had success with?

Cheers,
Ian

 

As somebody said the HD could be checked on another box or in the same box if you
boot with somethnig like AVast, if the drive is visible it might be just the boot area
and stuff, meaning if you just care about the data you can copy it over and there you go.

I had a similar issue (old XP-SP2) the machine would not boot completely dead, started with
avast but the HD had boot issues, got it to boot up but then it had no user to log and in safe mode it'd say no logins allowed, didn't feel like rebuilding the box, after many unsuccesfuul tries the solution was to do a restore from a previous snapshot backup , but that is only supposed to run when the box comes up(logged in which it would not let me), after digging a bit I found that ERD Commander actually does that boots from the CD and looks on the HD for the previous backup and allows to restore and back the the last backup state. That app was a bit hard to find and found it on a Torrent.


Cheers

Becker

 

If you do find a do-it-yourself solution, whatever it is, BE SURE TO KEEP YOUR DRIVE COOL!

I had a data drive failure, and sent it to a local "technician" to save the data. He managed to begin extracting data slowly, which was great news.

The bad news was that after several hours of spinning, the drive essentially cooked itself. End of story, no more data available. "Technician" - my a$$.

Use a fan to blow air across it, put it up on a frame to allow air passage, put it on a notebook cooling accessory... whatever works to KEEP THE DRIVE COOL.

Good luck!

As a good friend in IT has always said to me regarding frequent data backups:
"Jesus saves, and so should you"

 

Did you try the "put it in the freezer for 15 minute" trick?

 

Freezer trick doesn't work on...anything really, and much less so on bad IC's. It's a bad PCB or a bad motor.

And besides, modern drives run so cool that blasting a part of it with a can of compressed air is the last thing you want to do to something that's dodgy.

I have a few 7200.11's and 12's and the PCB is simple enough, just be careful of the ribbon cabling coming from the motor...you can slowly work these off the PCB with eyeglass screwdrivers.

Replacement PCB must be exact as well as the firmware or you are wasting your time.

 

Well, I've had different results. I was in Belize last year and had to put a laptop into the freezer to get it to boot so I could grab the data off of it.

If you have a scope or a meter, and chip pin outs you could at least verify voltage in and out on the components, may be able to replace a single component on the board.

Maybe a call to seagate's tech support? Give me the model number and I will see if I have any spares laying around.

Except in laptops, I never shut off my computers - they runs for years and years without problems.

We are switching over to SSD now on our workstations.

I've used seagate Baracuda drives for years in servers without issue, use IBM SAS drives now.

A friend uses data recovery companies, if you need I will get you the company info that he uses.

Good luck with it.

 

You didn't have different results. You weren't in Belize and you didn't put your laptop in a freezer and you didn't retrieve imaginary data via a some illusory method that only your friend knows about.

Shut up and go away.

 

Have you talked to seagate about it? I know they are more likely to just give you a replacement but the website does offer data recovery. If you talk to the right person(yelling and asking for managers usually works... haha) they might be able to recover the data without a fee.

Fast_ian: I don't remember the apps off hand I have them on the other pc(which is currently dead... haha) but I have been successful with http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk (same company).

 

It wasn't my laptop, it was a local's.

Your picture looks funny.

"Holistic Computer Repair" is a proven science.

Go back to your web tv.

 

I beg to differ. Used successfully on many drives over the years.

 

Why so hostile and rude?

 

To the OP: If the data is really important I know of a very small company that can do physical repairs of the hard drive. They (he actually) can replace heads, motors, transfer platters to a working drive, etc. It is not cheap but is a lot less than what the typical big name lab charges. He can also repair damaged files - recovered pictures are often still damaged and must have the header information manually recreated in order to be viewable by standard programs.

 

I was wondering the same..... I'd say that's very close to timeout land as an unprovoked attack.

Cheers,
Ian

 

Ontrack Data Recovery
9023 Columbine Road
Eden Prairie, MN 55347
Toll Free: 800 872 2599
Phone: +1 952 937 5161
Web:

www.ontrackdatarecovery.com

 

OnTrack is good (I've used them several times) but they certainly ain't cheap! I've also used DriveSavers but there are many others.

 

Seagate has a well known firmware problem with some of their ST Barracuda drives. It causes the drive to 'lock up' and not even be recognized by the BIOS. There is a way to fix the drive requiring some fancy MacGyver style work. I have done it 2-3 times now and have the cables made and the know how. If this sounds like your problem let me know.

Sean