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Data Recovery

Iceman.USAFIceman.USAF MajorEast CoastRegistered User regular
edited February 2011 in Help / Advice Forum
So, I'm a bad nerd. My hard drive with lots of pictures died and I did not have it backed up. I could have sworn I put it onto an external drive, but alas it would seem otherwise.

There are a ton of "data recovery experts" looking to suck $500 out of me, but does anyone have experience with any of these companies? I mean its a 500gb drive, but I probably only need about 20-30gb recovered.

Thanks folks.

Iceman.USAF on

Posts

  • TychoCelchuuuTychoCelchuuu PIGEON Registered User regular
    edited February 2011
    What does "died" mean? Can you see it in Windows? Does it make evil noises?

    TychoCelchuuu on
  • MushroomStickMushroomStick Registered User regular
    edited February 2011
    Does it spin up and you just can't see it in windows? Or did it make terrible grinding noises and now it does nothing?

    MushroomStick on
  • Iceman.USAFIceman.USAF Major East CoastRegistered User regular
    edited February 2011
    It spins up and clicks, but is not detected by windows. I've tried other drives with the USB connection and they work fine.

    Basically it spins, clicks, spins, clicks, spins, clicks then spins down. Then nothing.

    Iceman.USAF on
  • TychoCelchuuuTychoCelchuuu PIGEON Registered User regular
    edited February 2011
    What kind of clicks? It's likely dead in terms of what you can get off of it, and any more trying on your part is probably only going to make it less likely that anyone else can recover something.

    TychoCelchuuu on
  • FantasmaFantasma Registered User regular
    edited February 2011
    Try booting your machine from a linux Live CD, such as Ubuntu, and see if you can actually access the hard disk from there.

    Fantasma on
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  • Iceman.USAFIceman.USAF Major East CoastRegistered User regular
    edited February 2011
    TychoCelchuuu wrote: »
    What kind of clicks? It's likely dead in terms of what you can get off of it, and any more trying on your part is probably only going to make it less likely that anyone else can recover something.

    It's a single click, then it spins again. Rather it continues spinning, single click, spinning, single click about 4 times then stops spinning entirely. I've stopped trying to access it, only tried it maybe 3 times so hopefully I didn't jack it up that badly.

    Iceman.USAF on
  • cmsamocmsamo Registered User regular
    edited February 2011
    What make and model of drive is you hard drive?

    I had a Seagate that one day just stopped working with similar symptoms to what you describe. I thought it was mechanically broken. I googled the make and model, and it turned out to be a firmware bug.

    Luckily for me, the company I work for has a data forensics team, and they fixed the issue in about 10 minutes, because they had a whole bunch of people needing the same fix. However, the guy who fixed it said that I could have done it myself following the various tutorials on YouTube.

    With regards to the data recovery companies - They *do* charge a lot of money for what they do, but apparently the licenses and hardware you need to get hold of to recover data cost an absolute fortune - at least that's what I got told by the guys who fixed my drive. The guys I dealt with were so good that they could recover data from a drive that had been smashed and dunked in water (i.e. somebody was trying to permanently damage the drive)

    Hope you can get it sorted.

    cmsamo on
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  • ben0207ben0207 Registered User regular
    edited February 2011
    You can always try Recuva - but if it's clicking and not mounting you'll probably need some fairly serious stuff to get files off of it.

    ben0207 on
  • Iceman.USAFIceman.USAF Major East CoastRegistered User regular
    edited February 2011
    cmsamo wrote: »
    What make and model of drive is you hard drive?

    I had a Seagate that one day just stopped working with similar symptoms to what you describe. I thought it was mechanically broken. I googled the make and model, and it turned out to be a firmware bug.

    Luckily for me, the company I work for has a data forensics team, and they fixed the issue in about 10 minutes, because they had a whole bunch of people needing the same fix. However, the guy who fixed it said that I could have done it myself following the various tutorials on YouTube.

    With regards to the data recovery companies - They *do* charge a lot of money for what they do, but apparently the licenses and hardware you need to get hold of to recover data cost an absolute fortune - at least that's what I got told by the guys who fixed my drive. The guys I dealt with were so good that they could recover data from a drive that had been smashed and dunked in water (i.e. somebody was trying to permanently damage the drive)

    Hope you can get it sorted.

    That...is a really good point. I'll ask around at work.

    Iceman.USAF on
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