Need *HELP* retrieving data off failed hard drive - sources of info greatly appreciated

Anyone know of any great web sites or discussions boards for reviving hard
drives which have failed fir data retrieval?

I have two hard drives which failed within 2 weeks of each other before backups
could be made of certain data. I'd like to research the best ways to recover
the data.

In each case, it's a hardware failure and NOT accidentally deleted or otherwise
corrupted data.

I'd appreciate any discussion boards where some experts might hang out or maybe
some COMPREHENSIVE websites dedicated to this. So far I've found a lot of
information but it's all pretty basic and none of it worked. The more
information I can get, the better chance I have.


Let me mention just ONE of the cases here, just in case in addition to
information, someone here has some adivce:

The first drive is a 40GB Western Digital, 2-1/2 years old. It's been used a
lot in the past couple years. Last weekend it quit spinning up. I'd like to
get it to spin up JUST ONCE to get the data off. Right now, you can often feel
the drive 'jerking' in an attempt to start. Just a little vibration here and
there, sometimes hard enough to feel the drive try to rotate in your hand. I've
tried twisting the drive as fast as I could by hand to get the platters to spin.
While this caused more 'jerking', it didn't spin up. I tapped it as hard as I
dared without wanting to cause damage. I put it in the freezer for a while in a
static bag without change. Naturally I've tried different power connectors and
a different power supply. It behaves the same whether the drive is hooked up to
a contoller or just to a power supply alone. I just need ONE good spin-up.

Any ideas and any sources of such info appreciated (and desperately craved)!!!

P.S. The other hard drive is a stranger situation. I didn't want to dilute the
issues by mentioning both at the same time; I will mention the other situation
if someone of considerable expertese responds to this post.

"Stellijer" wrote in message
...

I'd appreciate any discussion boards where some experts might hang out or
maybe
some COMPREHENSIVE websites dedicated to this. So far I've found a lot of
information but it's all pretty basic and none of it worked. The more
information I can get, the better chance I have.


Maybe see it like this: As there are no web sites with step by step
procedures for DIY heart transplants, there aren't websites encouraging
people to open up their disks and do head transplants. In the end performing
physical repairs on disks that contain important data is risky. Any website
suggesting that people should give it a go, by providing instructions are
playing with fire. It's probably the reason you don't find any.

It seems there are 3 options open:

- accept the dataloss
- sent disk to professional data recovery
- take a risk and start fiddling around yourself, and find that when it goes
wrong it's all your own fault, not any website stupid enough to suggest you
could do it yourself.

--
Joep

Joep j o e p @ d i y d a t a r e c o v e r y . n l wrote in message
...
"Stellijer" wrote in message
...

I'd appreciate any discussion boards where some experts might hang out or
maybe
some COMPREHENSIVE websites dedicated to this. So far I've found a lot of
information but it's all pretty basic and none of it worked. The more
information I can get, the better chance I have.


Maybe see it like this: As there are no web sites with step by step
procedures for DIY heart transplants, there aren't websites encouraging
people to open up their disks and do head transplants. In the end performing
physical repairs on disks that contain important data is risky. Any website
suggesting that people should give it a go, by providing instructions are
playing with fire. It's probably the reason you don't find any.

It seems there are 3 options open:

- accept the dataloss
- sent disk to professional data recovery
- take a risk and start fiddling around yourself, and find that when it goes
wrong it's all your own fault, not any website stupid enough to suggest you
could do it yourself.


Thanks for the response.

As for the comparison to heart surgery; I'm hardly holding a person's LIFE in my
hands, just my hard drive! Thus if I botch it up, I'm actually no worse off
than when I started, just without the avenue of going to a professional, which
is not cost effective anyway. It's also not quite as daunting as heart surgery


I would hope there would be SOME information on this. It would be rather
arrogant for people with such knowledge to assume no one but them could possibly
put it to use. It's not like sharing information is tantamount to a
recommendation to try it. Heck - I can go to the library and get a book on the
manufacturing of dynamite; it doesn't mean by publishing such information it's
expected we will try it.

It would truly be a shame if those were the only 3 options, considering the
information is obviously out there, somewhere.

It's not THAT difficult a task, depending on what's wrong. The only thing which
makes it risky is a lack of good information. Maybe I'll get lucky and find
some hard disk experts here in this newsgroup.

If the data is really important, I'd call up Ontrack data recovery and get
a price quote.


"Stellijer" wrote in
:

Anyone know of any great web sites or discussions boards for reviving
hard drives which have failed fir data retrieval?

I have two hard drives which failed within 2 weeks of each other
before backups could be made of certain data. I'd like to research
the best ways to recover the data.

Mr. Grinch wrote in message
3.159...
If the data is really important, I'd call up Ontrack data recovery and get
a price quote.


It has some personal value but I checked with a couple data recovery services;
they're WAY too expensive for this kind of data. They start at over $500 and
only go UP from there (usually $1000 a drive). Unless I win the lottery, I will
NOT use one of them.

On Fri, 12 Dec 2003 15:27:54 -0500, "Stellijer"
wrote:

It has some personal value but I checked with a couple data recovery services;
they're WAY too expensive for this kind of data. They start at over $500 and
only go UP from there (usually $1000 a drive). Unless I win the lottery, I will
NOT use one of them.

Also it is not really known what the companies can do, compared to the
price of an evaluation. An example. It is in Danish, but it should be
possible from the videos to figure out why I would see some evidence
that the disk platter read machine works, before I will believe it:

http://www.ing.dk/apps/pbcs.dll/arti...6/IT/109260062

--
Svend Olaf

"Stellijer" wrote in message
news

Thanks for the response.

As for the comparison to heart surgery; I'm hardly holding a person's LIFE
in my
hands, just my hard drive! Thus if I botch it up, I'm actually no worse
off
than when I started, just without the avenue of going to a professional,
which
is not cost effective anyway. It's also not quite as daunting as heart
surgery


In your case it may not be, however in other cases where important, vital
data is at stake, people may be tempted to try if such information was
available.

It's maybe a bit more like the DIY TV shows, where they show you how they
completely replace an entire kitchen. They take 15 minutes for that. In a
small country like Holland, per year 20 people die, and 30000 are
hospitalized because of performing 'simple' DIY jobs in their houses.
Besides that, many people will find while DIY-ing things are a tad more
difficult than they expected and waste money and have to hire a professional
to undo the damage they did themselves.


I would hope there would be SOME information on this. It would be rather
arrogant for people with such knowledge to assume no one but them could
possibly
put it to use. It's not like sharing information is tantamount to a
recommendation to try it.

This I dare to question.

Heck - I can go to the library and get a book on the
manufacturing of dynamite; it doesn't mean by publishing such information
it's
expected we will try it.

It would truly be a shame if those were the only 3 options, considering
the
information is obviously out there, somewhere.


Sure, it's there probably.

It's not THAT difficult a task, depending on what's wrong.

Indeed.

The only thing which
makes it risky is a lack of good information.

What I tried to illustrate is that depite information it's still risky.

--
Joep

"Svend Olaf Mikkelsen" wrote in message
...

Also it is not really known what the companies can do, compared to the
price of an evaluation. An example. It is in Danish, but it should be
possible from the videos to figure out why I would see some evidence
that the disk platter read machine works, before I will believe it:

http://www.ing.dk/apps/pbcs.dll/arti...6/IT/109260062


Well, there are of course good ones and bad ones. 2 experiences I had with
'well established' data recovery companies:

1. 20 Gb harddisk, to recover all data several 1000 US Dollars would be
charged. The diagnostic 'report' the user received was the piped output of
the fdisk/status command. We found out that the only damage was corrupt
partition table, the disk was partitioned in one big FAT32 partition, it
took a few minutes to repair.

2. RAID 0 array suddenly showed up as 2 seperate disk and the array setup
wanted to re-innit the array. It warned that by doing so data on the disks
would be lost. User decided to try anyway, and indeed, the entire array
appeared as one unpartitioned disk. Both disks were sent to a data recovery
firm which concluded there was physical damage. What damage that would be
was not specified, cost of recovery: $6000 USD. User then consulted us and
decided to take the drives back. We could find no proof of physical damage,
re-inntiting the array took a fraction of a second so we knew data still had
to be there. It took after some examination about 20 minutes to gain access
to the data.

On the other hand, I know a Dutch data recovery firm, and I know they work
with expensive and in the house developed equipment to work with physical
damaged disks. I also know that they deploy advanced techniques to puzzle
back data that goes beyond what commercial data recovery tools can recover,
per case utilities are developed and coded if needed. Noting can beat the
trained and experienced human eye. I think you yourself are a nice
illustration of that as well (meant as a compliment), it's your choice to
help people without charging them, however some deploy their knowledge to
make a living.

--
Regards,
Joep

Joep j o e p @ d i y d a t a r e c o v e r y . n l wrote in message
...
Stellijer wrote

As for the comparison to heart surgery; I'm hardly
holding a person's LIFE in my hands, just my hard
drive! Thus if I botch it up, I'm actually no worse off
than when I started, just without the avenue of going
to a professional, which is not cost effective anyway.
It's also not quite as daunting as heart surgery

In your case it may not be, however in other cases
where important, vital data is at stake, people may
be tempted to try if such information was available.

Yes, but that can be adequately dealt with by sufficient warnings.

Its never going to be viable to attempt to censor any
information that can result in an undesirable outcome now.

That hasnt been feasible ever since the invention of the printing press.

It's maybe a bit more like the DIY TV shows,

Yep, a much more sensible analogy. Or a DIY web site, anyway.

where they show you how they completely replace
an entire kitchen. They take 15 minutes for that.

And you are welcome to use the alternatives like books and magazines
and other sources that can provide a more comprehensive coverage.

In a small country like Holland, per year 20 people die, and 30000 are
hospitalized because of performing 'simple' DIY jobs in their houses.

So ? Likely just as many end up with that result when gardening
too. Makes absolutely no sense to be telling people that they
should always employ professional gardeners instead.

The only thing that makes any sense
is to point out where the dangers are.

True in spades with sports, far more than 20 a year die
when playing sport or getting exercise, 30K hospitalised too.

Besides that, many people will find while DIY-ing things are
a tad more difficult than they expected and waste money and
have to hire a professional to undo the damage they did themselves.

And plenty do a very decent job too.

And some build their entire house from scratch, including me.

Plenty build light aircraft and boats too.

Plenty do their own car maintenance too.

I would hope there would be SOME information on this.
It would be rather arrogant for people with such knowledge
to assume no one but them could possibly put it to use. It's not
like sharing information is tantamount to a recommendation to try it.

This I dare to question.

Doesnt change a thing.

Heck - I can go to the library and get a book on
the manufacturing of dynamite; it doesn't mean by
publishing such information it's expected we will try it.

He does have a point.

It would truly be a shame if those were the only 3 options,
considering the information is obviously out there, somewhere.

Sure, it's there probably.

It's not THAT difficult a task, depending on what's wrong.

Indeed.

The only thing which makes it risky is a lack of good information.

What I tried to illustrate is that depite information it's still risky.

Sure, but in some situations, most obviously where the
cost of pro data recovery isnt going to be paid, its better
to try the obvious approaches than do nothing at all.

On Fri, 12 Dec 2003 07:45:52 -0500, "Stellijer"
wrote:

The first drive is a 40GB Western Digital, 2-1/2 years old. It's been used a
lot in the past couple years. Last weekend it quit spinning up. I'd like to
get it to spin up JUST ONCE to get the data off. Right now, you can often feel
the drive 'jerking' in an attempt to start. Just a little vibration here and
there, sometimes hard enough to feel the drive try to rotate in your hand. I've
tried twisting the drive as fast as I could by hand to get the platters to spin.
While this caused more 'jerking', it didn't spin up. I tapped it as hard as I
dared without wanting to cause damage. I put it in the freezer for a while in a
static bag without change. Naturally I've tried different power connectors and
a different power supply. It behaves the same whether the drive is hooked up to
a contoller or just to a power supply alone. I just need ONE good spin-up.

On Fri, 12 Dec 2003 15:27:54 -0500, "Stellijer"
wrote:

It has some personal value but I checked with a couple data recovery services;
they're WAY too expensive for this kind of data. They start at over $500 and
only go UP from there (usually $1000 a drive). Unless I win the lottery, I will
NOT use one of them.

I cannot help much in that matter, but:

Do you have the software and another disk ready to copy the disk
sector by sector in the case you can access it? And keep track of how
far the copying is done, for the case that it is interrupted.

If I had a disk, which could not spin, I guess I would try heat in a
working computer before the freezer. Next step would be to open a
similar disk and get some experience about dust and things like that.

It would be kind of fun to try that.
--
Svend Olaf