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Thread: 2.5" Hard Drive Failure - how to reciver my data?!!

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    Unhappy 2.5" Hard Drive Failure - how to reciver my data?!!

    Hi All,

    OK. I'm an idiot and haven't backed up my data from my laptop in ages. Now the hard disk has failed (it starts to spin up, then goes 'click' and the motor stops; then it repeats all over again). I have placed it in my external bay and it does the same thing. So the drive has died. Ar$e.

    But, how do i get my data off? I've read somewhere about cooling / freezing the drive to give it a shrink and see if that fixes it. But i have no idea how long to cool it for.

    Or if there are any other ways of attempting to fix it before freezing it?!!

    All ideas are welcome!!! Cheers,

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    jim
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    Re: 2.5" Hard Drive Failure - how to reciver my data?!!

    Depends how much you value your data.

    If you're prepared to send it to a data recovery firm, leave it well alone, any additional usage could damage it further.

    If it's not a big deal, you can try putting it in a sealed plastic bag and freezing it for 24 hours, but it probably won't work even after you've done that. You're working against the clock in that instance - if it works, it'll get worse as it warms up, so you just need to get the most valuable data off it as soon as possible.

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    Re: 2.5" Hard Drive Failure - how to reciver my data?!!

    Hmmm. How much does it normally cost to send to a data recovery?!! I'm in the UK, if that helps!!

    24 hours in the freezer ... seems like a long time!!! Has anyone got any experience of doing this for real?!!

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    Re: 2.5" Hard Drive Failure - how to reciver my data?!!

    £400-500 maybe? Bit of a stab in the dark to be honest, but I know others have been quoted around that figure.

    The whole point of putting it in the freezer is to get the entire drive as cold as possible. Popping it in for 10 minutes is completely pointless.

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    Re: 2.5" Hard Drive Failure - how to reciver my data?!!

    I'd expect £500 (and more likely £1000+) for a physical disk repair from ontrack.
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    Re: 2.5" Hard Drive Failure - how to reciver my data?!!

    Quote Originally Posted by cocksy_boy View Post
    Hmmm. How much does it normally cost to send to a data recovery?!! I'm in the UK, if that helps!!

    24 hours in the freezer ... seems like a long time!!! Has anyone got any experience of doing this for real?!!
    Yes and yes it does work, for 10 mins lol tried again but failed, still have the drive (years later now) and still it wont work...maybe one day!
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    Re: 2.5" Hard Drive Failure - how to reciver my data?!!

    someone had a desktop 3.5inch drive done in canada for fairly cheap recently including return postage to the ul. it impressed me somewhat
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    Re: 2.5" Hard Drive Failure - how to reciver my data?!!

    Quote Originally Posted by mikerr View Post
    I'd expect £500 (and more likely £1000+) for a physical disk repair from ontrack.
    Right, looks like its going into the freezer for the night then...! Do you think my home insurance covers data recovery.....?

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    Re: 2.5" Hard Drive Failure - how to reciver my data?!!

    I would be amazed. Hard drives fail way too easily, and recovery costs a fortune.

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    Re: 2.5" Hard Drive Failure - how to reciver my data?!!

    Quote Originally Posted by muddyfox470 View Post
    someone had a desktop 3.5inch drive done in canada for fairly cheap recently including return postage to the ul. it impressed me somewhat
    Any ideas who with?!

    Also, would there be any mielage in getting a small torx screwdriver and opening it up to see if there is anything stopping the movement?

    The drive is a WD Scorpio 120GB and was made on 4 Aug 2006, so more than 4 years and well out of waranty!

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    Re: 2.5" Hard Drive Failure - how to reciver my data?!!

    its a long shot but sometimes i have had luck using linux to get data off drives i couldnt with
    windows. I use puppy arcade http://scottjarvis.com/page105.htm get a usb stick and use this
    with the iso http://www.pendrivelinux.com/univers...easy-as-1-2-3/

    once its done boot off the usb drive and once at the desktop there are two start like buttons
    bottom left. The second one has browse drives open that and then see if it can see your hdd
    if so mount it and try and transfer the data to another usb device. I use drag and drop to do it.

    if that doesnt work then there are two options send it to a recovery place OR try and find the
    same model drive on ebay or something and swap the logic boards over, obviously that only will
    work if the logic board is the problem

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    Re: 2.5" Hard Drive Failure - how to reciver my data?!!

    Quote Originally Posted by Kumagoro View Post
    its a long shot but sometimes i have had luck using linux to get data off drives i couldnt with
    windows. I use puppy arcade http://scottjarvis.com/page105.htm get a usb stick and use this
    with the iso http://www.pendrivelinux.com/univers...easy-as-1-2-3/

    once its done boot off the usb drive and once at the desktop there are two start like buttons
    bottom left. The second one has browse drives open that and then see if it can see your hdd
    if so mount it and try and transfer the data to another usb device. I use drag and drop to do it.

    if that doesnt work then there are two options send it to a recovery place OR try and find the
    same model drive on ebay or something and swap the logic boards over, obviously that only will
    work if the logic board is the problem
    might be worth a shot! I'm not holding out much hope as the motor appears to keep restarting every 2-3 seconds with the clicking sound so i dont think the hard disk even gets fully 'booted' before it restarts!

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    Re: 2.5" Hard Drive Failure - how to reciver my data?!!

    Only problem is that I'm away from home for the next few days with work so this might take a while to sort out!!

    I'll post here when I'm back and let you konw how it goes!

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    Re: 2.5" Hard Drive Failure - how to reciver my data?!!

    Right, I'm back from work stuff so I'm gonna put it in the freezer tonight.

    By the sounds of it I'm only going to get one shot at this, so I need some advice on how to extract the data i need to keep:

    Some of the stuff was on the desktop, and my log on had a password. I think i recall that if i plug the disk into me external housing and access it on my desktop I wont be able to access the 'Desktop' folder as it will be encrypted? The laptop was running windows Vista 32 bit, all up to date, if thtas any help!

    Other than that, if i try to take an image (assuming the disk works) it might stop working half way through and the image wont be useable?

    Any other ideas / thoughts? Cheers!

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    jim
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    Re: 2.5" Hard Drive Failure - how to reciver my data?!!

    You should be able to use a Linux boot cd to make a direct copy of the dead disk to a working one.

    Then when you've done as much of that as possible, you can start worrying about passwords and the like.

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    Re: 2.5" Hard Drive Failure - how to reciver my data?!!

    Quote Originally Posted by snootyjim View Post
    You should be able to use a Linux boot cd to make a direct copy of the dead disk to a working one.

    Then when you've done as much of that as possible, you can start worrying about passwords and the like.
    My concern is that the disk wont keep going for long enough to take a complete image!! if I can go directly to the files I want to keep it will only take a few minutes to copy what i need, as opposed to 45 mins (guess there?) to take an image of the whole disk!!

    Any thoughts?

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