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Hard Drive cooked.

TankHammerTankHammer Atlanta GhostbusterAtlanta, GARegistered User regular
edited December 2006 in Help / Advice Forum
Recently I was fiddling with my computer, re-organizing the wires and whatnot and hooking it up to a newer, more-suited surge protector. In the process I decided to remove one of the extra hard drives from the machine, as I wasn't using it and figured it would be better off without the added heat and power-draw.

In the process I unhooked my 300 gig secondary hard drive (a Segate internal drive I use to store my design work, picture and video files). Upon reconnecting it I failed to realize (since I was working without an adequate light source) that I had bent in one of the little pins on the drive. I guess the electricity shorted the hardware and now it's going to be somewhere around $2000-$3000 or probably more to get my important files back. I realize how retarded I am for not having a backup drive but up until this point I never considered it that immediate a need to drop the cash on it.

I don't think there's much advice that can be given in this situation, so my advice to you is to back up your data if you aren't already. I think I'm going to have to find the money for this somewhere, and I guess I won't be getting a car like I wanted to with the cash my new job has netted.

This whole thing is really unfortunate and I felt like I had to vent it now before cry to someone in the office.

TankHammer on

Posts

  • FyreWulffFyreWulff YouRegistered User, ClubPA regular
    edited December 2006
    Have you carefully tried to bend the pin(s) back? I actually did this to one of my harddrives (accidentally pulled it to the left too much, bent two or three pins, Windows wouldn't recognize the drive). Bent the pins back and it worked.

    FyreWulff on
  • LodbrokLodbrok Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    Ok, I'm no expert on data recovery, but if it comes to that and the above advice does not work, I do not think it will have to cost that much. IF it is only the controlling electronics that are fried, it should be possible to just replace those. This might be possible to do yourself if you have some electronics knowledge and you can find an identical drive to take parts from.

    Like I said, I'm no expert but I am pretty certain that I've read about people doing this thing. If you do not feel up to doing it yourself, I do not think a recovery business will charge as much as 2000-3000 for the job, especially if you can provide the parts yourself.

    Anyway, might be worth your time doing some searches for this problem. Hope it works out, good luck...

    Edit:

    Yup, found what I had in mind. Check this out:

    http://www.dansdata.com/io026.htm

    What you want is a bit down on the page. Apparently you need a controller board from an identical drive, but apart from that a torx driver should be enough for the job... maybe you will get that car after all!

    Lodbrok on
  • TankHammerTankHammer Atlanta Ghostbuster Atlanta, GARegistered User regular
    edited December 2006
    FyreWulff wrote:
    Have you carefully tried to bend the pin(s) back? I actually did this to one of my harddrives (accidentally pulled it to the left too much, bent two or three pins, Windows wouldn't recognize the drive). Bent the pins back and it worked.

    I'll try to explain more clearly. I had the drive plugged in improperly. The electrical current traveled along the pin in a bad way (also the data ribbon whatever it's called fell apart when I removed it for some reason).

    I bent the pin back to where it was supposed to go, got a new ribbon and hooked it up. The drive runs, but the computer can't even detect it. I have turned it into a tech rescue place on Saturday. They called me today and told me they can't recover the data but they can send it to a lab with a clean room that will recover the data.

    Doing a basic diagnostic will cost roughly $300 from this place and all that gets me is a list of things they can save from the drive. The actual data recovery varies but I got the impression from the numbers he threw at me that we're talking into the thousands of dollars, more than my computer cost me.

    The whole drive is about 80gigs full I figure and only 20-30gb is really necessary information. If anyone has gone through this before (I know Mike and Jerry's HD caught fire once and they had to go through this process at high expense) and can give me an idea as to what it may cost before I drop $300 to have them tell me I'm too poor to afford it I would greatly appreciate.

    ALSO: Thanks Lod, I will check that out but not until I have ruled out the more-professional option. If I drop another $200 on another identical HD and then the problem isn't even fixable that way it only makes it worse. I will ask around about it though, so thank you for providing this alternate option.

    TankHammer on
  • LodbrokLodbrok Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    Yes, if the data is important I would a bit hesitant to do it myself as well. However, I have the feeling that those numbers are for cases where they have to physically transfer the platters to a new enclosure, hence to need for a clean-room. If you are lucky it is only a matter of installing a new controller board and clone the drive, something that shouldn't be that expensive... on the other hand they are in it for the money, so who knows.

    Lodbrok on
  • robaalrobaal Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    300GB drives cost ~$90 :P and you could check places like eBay for the same model with broken mechanics.

    robaal on
    "Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra when suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath.
    At night, the ice weasels come."

  • TankHammerTankHammer Atlanta Ghostbuster Atlanta, GARegistered User regular
    edited December 2006
    Lodbrok wrote:
    Yes, if the data is important I would a bit hesitant to do it myself as well. However, I have the feeling that those numbers are for cases where they have to physically transfer the platters to a new enclosure, hence to need for a clean-room. If you are lucky it is only a matter of installing a new controller board and clone the drive, something that shouldn't be that expensive... on the other hand they are in it for the money, so who knows.

    Yes, the prices are to transfer to a new enclosure.

    TankHammer on
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