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How do I salvage a dying hard drive?
RockinX
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
My brother's power supply got burned, which also burned his mainboard. His hard drive was working fine and we knew because I tested it on my computer.
But now he bought a motherboard whose brand name is Asrock or something (why he would choose not to wait instead of getting a unknown brand is beyond me, but that's really not the point anymore). Apparently, the manual had wrong instructions, which made his computer not work. He even tried to take out the processor, and all the pins got stuck in the mainboard when he pulled it out.
The thing is, he has valuable stuff (work, portfolio, drawings, 3D models) in his hard drive, and I want to salvage that information. But I can't boot the hard drive for the life of me. The bios detects it, but when I try to boot it, instead of getting the Windows XP logo, I get a black screen, and when I boot it as slave having my own hard drive as master, it won't even appear on My Computer.
Is there anything that I can do to salvage that data?
But now he bought a motherboard whose brand name is Asrock or something (why he would choose not to wait instead of getting a unknown brand is beyond me, but that's really not the point anymore). Apparently, the manual had wrong instructions, which made his computer not work. He even tried to take out the processor, and all the pins got stuck in the mainboard when he pulled it out.
The thing is, he has valuable stuff (work, portfolio, drawings, 3D models) in his hard drive, and I want to salvage that information. But I can't boot the hard drive for the life of me. The bios detects it, but when I try to boot it, instead of getting the Windows XP logo, I get a black screen, and when I boot it as slave having my own hard drive as master, it won't even appear on My Computer.
Is there anything that I can do to salvage that data?
RockinX on
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Is the drive spinning up at all?
http://www.anandtech.com/weblog/showpost.aspx?i=606
The only thing I would say is as long as the drive is spinning up, as japan said, make sure to check your jumpers, and that your BIOS is set to allow slave drives.
I'M A TWITTER SHITTER
Oh, I had forgotten to change it to slave with the jumper. I'll do that right away, thanks.
The drive makes a weird noise. Like a machine gun that shoots 2-second spurts.
Edit: I tried with the jumpers set to slave, and the bios detects the hard drive, but when I boot Windows, the hard drive doesn't appear at all.
For one moment, though, it appeared to have detected it, but it said it was not formatted, then I saw the driver installation dialog pop up and it was installing it but it stopped detecting the hard drive.
BTW, I'll take some pictures of the processor and the socket later. My brother's words were "When I connected the processor to the mainboard, I felt that it clicked too hard. I took it out and instead of finding the bunch of pins that processors normally have, the processor was smooth." The pins are now stuck to the socket... Man, it looks sucky. I'll take some pictures of it later.
If I understand what you're saying... your brother installed everything... but never actually booted it, right? ("When I connected the processor to the mainboard, I felt that it clicked too hard. I took it out and instead of finding the bunch of pins that processors normally have, the processor was smooth.") and you tested the drive prior to him putting together this new hardware... (meaning that the condition and state of the drive should be exactly the same, if I'm understanding this correctly)
Try a different IDE cable on your computer, and use a different power connector. double check and make sure there are no conflicts with your jumper settings on any of your devices connected
When he turned the computer on again, he heard the 2-second spurts coming from the hard drive, and that's where the problems started.
I've already tried different IDE cables and power connectors, too.
Well, even though I don't like linux... using a liveCD is probably going to be your best bet
intel socket 775 and up (core2 chips onwards) use a new packaging in which the pins are part of the socket, the processor just has little pads that sit on top of the pins.
also, check in drive management (right click on 'my computer', select 'manage') to see if the drive is actually detected in windows. Could be that the file system is hosed, which is making windows not assign it a drive letter, but the drive itself is sound.
Tall-Paul MIPsDroid
Oh boy, now the warranty has definitely been voided, as he tried to remove the little pins and failed. Now they're all ruined.
I'll try all of those when I get the chance. Is Linux free or does it cost money?
Edit: He swears the processor itself had the pins. He also found a picture of the same processor having the pins (I looked up another picture myself, and the other one I found had the pins as well.
Linux is free.
Now, having said that... no offense is intended here, at all. Your not knowing that Linux is free is a seriously huge indicator that you are in way over your head and that you might want to consider stopping now before things become any worse.
I have a feeling that your brother or yourself are leaving out far too many details. And I also agree that at this point you two are in way over your heads and might be better off seeking someone local to provide assistance.
I only just want to salvage the HDD because the motherboard is pretty much broken since he wanted to remove the pins he thought were stuck. I have been lazy today, but after seeing this I'm going to look for a place where I can download Linux.
No, the motherboard isn't the only thing broken. I can't even boot the HDD, as it doesn't appear on the BIOS anymore and it has increased the frequency of the weird ticking noise. I can hear the sound coming right from the HDD itself.
I appreciate your help, but please don't insult my knowledge on this kind of thing. I'm aware that you should rub your hands on a metalic surface so that nothing gets damaged by static. I know you can't connect or disconnect anything to the motherboard without unplugging the cable from the outlet or it can suffer damage.
Knowledge about Linux and knowledge about hardware do not necessarily correlate. I have never had any kind of contact with Linux because I've never had the need to have it until now. So which Linux distro would be the best choice for me to download and burn at the moment?
Also, I was pretty sure I once read there was one Linux distro that needed to be paid in order to be used, and not all of them. I'm probably thinking of a PS2 or PS3 Linux distro or something, but I can be mistaken. I'm not the most knowledgeable guy, but trust me, I'm far from incompetent at this kind of thing.
Sorry if I sound (or, well, write) irritated but you'll have to forgive me, as I'm having a really hard time dealing with depression (NOT caused by this) at the moment.
Your knowledge of this kind of thing? Please spare us. Putting together a computer now a days is pretty trivial and it is obvious your knowledge is incredibly limited. Secondly, if you had actually ever done any serious troubleshooting of hardware you'd have heard of a linux live cd as they have been around for quite some time and are solid troubleshooting tool. Next, rub your hands on a metalic surface and unplug the cable? Wow, welcome to the first page of any A+ cert book. Except the whole rub your hands thing, that is just plain funny. If you are worried about static then get a wrist strap and ground yourself. Lastly, if you knew about troubleshooting you'd know that the first thing you do is isolate and verify individual components are good when more than one component is suspect. Your PSU may be bad. Your mb may be bad. Your cpu may be bad. Your hdd may be bad. Not to mention your story keeps changing. Use all known good components to verify one suspect one, doing otherwise needlessly complicates things for your troubleshooting process.
Jubal nailed it with the first post. Pull the drive, get an adapter, take drive+adapter to a known good system and see if you can access it within Windows. If the drive really is on the verge of mechanical failure, then every time you power it up could be its last. Stop mucking around and do it right. I got a 2.5&3.5 IDE/SATA adapter for $15 at Microcenter just last week to replace my old one that I loaned out and never got back. Invaluable troubleshooting and backup tool for hdd's. But, of course, you already know that with all of your vast knowledge of this kind of thing right?
And don't apologize for sounding like a jerk, just fess up, admit you really don't know as much as you think you do, ask for help, provide detailed information about what you have tried, and be thankful for advice given and your knowledge base expanded upon. Again, building a computer with all new components and having it work just fine is trivial these days, so you can stop holding that up as proof you know what you are doing. Troubleshooting, while easier than it use to be, is still wrought with pitfalls that snag even us old farts that have been doing this for years. It is not a knock to your pride to say I don't know.
But I have salvaged my hard drives before, just not something this doomed. The one thing about getting a USB adapter is that I haven't seen many of them in Venezuela. So yeah, I'm going to get off my lazy ass and try to find some of those adapters.
I will need one anyway since my old hard drives start failing after a day of being connected. What's funny is that they revive after not being used for months. What I do is store videos and music I am not watching or listening to anymore in there so I can have more space for new stuff in my actual hard drive.
Thank you very much for your responses.
BTW, I learned about rubbing my hands on a metallic surface (from the computer) from the person who taught me how to build computers. He said that static could damage computer components. Funny how ground pokémon are not immune to static, WTF (totally different topic, yeah).
Really? That's really nice to know. Thanks.
The drive is clearly bad and the chances of retrieving any data off of it are very small. That combined with the apparent fact that he's, at least, inexperienced increases his chances of accidentally damaging his good hardware or corrupting his OS.
OP make sure your brother learns that this is why it's necessary to create backups of important files.
Does it show up in Drive Management or not?
Ideally, use a grounding wrist strap. Here is a good pic of one. Make sure the wrist strap is snug, then apply the alligator clip to the chassis. The next best thing is to always have skin touching the chassis, ie work with one hand while the other touches the chassis. The next best after this is simply to discharge built up static by touching the chassis. This is somewhat effective, but keep in mind that any new static you build up can be transferred to components, so each time you go to pick one up I would reground. Also avoid wearing anything that builds up lots of static like wool and certain synthetics. Keep in mind that you don't have to see a little static discharge like lightning bolt for static to do damage. Microcontrollers and memory chips on memory sticks, motherboard, video and sound cards are especially vulnerable to static shocks, so always handle them by the edges and keep them in their anti-static bags as much as possible.
As to you two having constant power issues, I would very seriously consider investing in a good UPS. The UPS will condition the power coming through the line, and in the event of an outage can prompt your PCs to shut themselves down gracefully instead of just crashing. You just need one powerful enough to run the two PCs for a couple minutes so they can shut down, not the printer, monitor, router, etc; just the PCs. Your situation is proof positive that crappy power destroys components over time and in the long run the UPS will save you money from not having to replace things so often.
Nope. It won't even boot with my bro's HDD connected. It doesn't even show up on the BIOS anymore.
My friend has one of those USB adapters, and brought it to my house. When we connected that adapter to the power outlet, it started making a constant beeping noise. He claims it won't hurt either my PC or the HDD, so he left it in my house in case I decided to man up and use it. The sound is just too loud for me to consider using it, so I'm just going to the store tomorrow and check if they have some.
I'm going to have to buy a UPS before they raise in price here. I think it's the best moment to buy stuff while things are at this price point, thanks. (I don't live in the US)
1. This is a weird step, but has proven to work many times for me in real world settings (even with SAS and fibre channel drives): pop it in the freezer for about thirty minutes. After you remove it, immediately go to step 2.
2. Pop it into a functioning system. Don't try to read it yet (Windows will want to write a signature to it which might screw some data up if it's already hosed and Linux might even corrupt something)
3. (EDIT actually, you should do this first....) Get a good disk imaging solution. In fact, get several on-hand. Only those that allow you to boot from a CD.
4. Take an image of the disk, if you can. If whatever imaging solution doesn't work (throws an error for whatever reason that you can't easily resolve) try another.
5. Pop the drive back into the freezer.
6. Try to access the image, if your solution allows. If you can, extract as much data as you can. If not, drop the image onto a new disk.
7. If it's all Windows data and you could extract from the image, copy the data onto a new functioning disk (or onto a new partition you create on yours - again, a working one) and run a chkdsk /f x: (where x: is the new partition). If you have to drop the image onto a new disk from the imaging solution, see if it works.
One trick I know people have tried is to find one cheap because the batteries have died, and then simply find replacement batteries for it. Again just dont get suckered into thinking you need a big huge UPS, you don't. Just enough juice to give the PCs time to shut down. That should save you money as well.
Colored for the ADD people out there. tl;dr After reading your last post about it no longer showing in POST, you're fucked.
EDIT: What Teth said. I've seen some drives in your situation get fully recovered after a grueling 60 hour copy. YMMV.
I had a 500GB Western Digital MyBook that 'died' about a year ago. It was connected via FireWire to my iMac G5 and one day, it just didn't mount.
The light on the front kicked in, and started cycling, and just never stopped. It whirred, no clicking, and nothing happened. Disc Utility didn't see it at all (but occasionally I could find it when I checked my ports - it would show up as "WD External Hard drive", not what I named it), so I couldn't even run a Disc Warrior type program on it - because it was never selectable, and never appeared anywhere.
I know next to nothing about Hard Drives, so I passed it off to my brothers friend - because it seemed my only other option was to pay a shit ton of money to try and recover things. My online research led me to believe it was a chip that was fried when it was suddenly shut off in a power outage.
My brothers friend (who works repairing computers) said he couldn't get anything out of it, and he thought it was dead, and that he didn't think that the drive itself was damaged, but without more money to buy some stuff, it was dead (he was working for free as a favor to my brother, so I have no idea how hard he actually tried).
So all that said, I just saw the same exact external HD on newegg for $65. What are the odds that I could buy that, and swap the hard drive from the dead one into this new one, and it will work?
Im asking because i know NOTHING about how possible this is. Without the drive clicking, and with it failing to mount, is it possible to get that data off there? I remember asking him if he thought a new case would work, and cant remember why he didnt...but would the same exact case make a difference? I seem to remember a specific chip being the problem (from what I read) - does that sound right?
It happened a year ago, but that drive has all my college projects on it - and those would look good on a resume - in addition to the nostalgia factor, so Ive just never done anything with the drive, hoping that someday there'd be some way to get it up and running again.
Any ideas?
The trick was.. I'd freeze it and it would work for a while, and I'd copy a few things off of it, and then it would lock up and any transfers off of it would fail. (was using an ubuntu live cd).
What I ended up doing was putting it in a plastic ziplock bag, freezing it overnight, then feeding the cabling in through a tiny hole in the bag, i sandwiched the whole thing between two big bags of frozen peas. It kept the drive super cold, and I managed to recover everything off the drive. It took forever, and I ended up swapping the bags of peas out for some other frozen vegetables as they began to thaw.
That's why you need to put it in a ziploc bag with as much of the air squeezed out of it as possible. It'll minimise the condensation.
Right. We'd exhausted all other options (short of transferring platters, which we weren't going to do). So we were of the opinion that there wasn't anything left to lose at that point, either we'd get the data off, or the drive would be ruined.
Really? Funny cause every hdd I have owned has a nifty little air hole on it. You know the one that says not to block? The platters are manufactured in a clean room, but your drive isn't magically sealed from outside air. You just need to make sure you dont touch the platters when swapping out the pcb.
Having said that I have known DIY drive controller swaps to be successful, but it carries the very real danger of destroying the drive beyond repair. It's only really worth it as an absolute last resort when having the data recovered professionally isn't an option.
We already got the USB adapter, and it boots the HDDs of mine [the ones that die and then revive after a while] just fine, but his hard drive doesn't even look like it's going to be detected any time soon.