RIP - one of my drives :(

[kopite]

Well last night the worst thing that could happen happened.

I have a number of drives in my computer each of which has a different purpose.

One of the drives has been playing up a bit lately and i`ve known I need to replace it but kept putting it off.

Last night I got on my computer to check something on the drive only to find it not being listed in my computer.

Rebooted the computer a few times and sometimes the drive showed but other times it didnt. Each time though windows wouldnt boot.

I opened my pc and listed to the drives and could hear the offending drive grinding like floppy discs do when they are bad. Unplugged the dirve and the pc now boots.



Only problem is there is stuff on the drive I need so I have a couple of questions.

1. Whats the best drive available atm. I have heard good things about the new seagate drives .11 ones. Will be looking at 500 gb drives. The drive will be going into a file server at some point so really needs to be ok for always on useage

2. is there any way of getting the data off the drive? I am thinking maybe if I give the drive a rest and try it again on anothe board it might let me on

[peterb]

Hmm - difficult to define what is 'best'. I guess you mean 'most reliable' but no matter how good a manufacturer's reputation is, the fact remains that a hard drive is a mechanical device that will fail at some point - either because of mechanical failure or because all the spare internal un-allocated sectors get used up as teh inservice ones fail over time. The only unknown is when this failure will happen, and although SMART monitoring may help predict that, it isn't infallible.

Seagate dio have4 a good reputation - and a 5 year warranty - however since that is limited to the drive and not the data that is on it, that is pretty meaningless IMHO.

Drives do come in different classes though, with enterprise grade drives (costing typically twice a desktop class device - size for size) designed for 24x7 operation. However Google (who use thousands of drives) published some results that showefd that the overall reliability of the desktop class drives wasn't that much less than the enterprise class and certainly (for them) not worth the premium cost.

For your situation, RAID 1 sounds an ideal solution. For about the cost of one enterprise drive you can get two normal drives and have them in a mirrored configuration. I do that with a web server. However it is NOT a substitute for backing up - it only protects against a single drive failure - if another component fails (such as memory) and corrupts the file system, then the file system on both disks is corrupt. For what it is worth, I use Samsung drives.

As for recovering the data off the failed disk. It sounds as if it is mechanical failure, but difficult to tell what. If the bearings on the platter spindle are failing, then placing the drive in an antistatic bag, then in a 'zip' type freezer bag in a freezer overnight may shrink down the mechanical bits and thicken any remaining lubricant sufficiently to get some or all data off the drive. (Have the machine opened up - plug available, and just hang the thing off the cable - supported so nothing is shorted and work quickly) No gurantees though.

If it is the head mechanism touching the disk, then really the only option is a data recovery company. They can dismantle the drive in a clean room, remount them on a jig and get some data back that way. As you might expect, it won't be cheap. Think in terms of starting at about £350 going up to... low thousands, depending on work involved.

I had cause (corrupted data - on a RAID 1 array!) to contact

Redacted

for data recovery, recommended by another Hexite who used them. I didn't need to use them in the end (got the data back myself), but they were quite helpful.

Hope that helps.

[kenne]

Sounds like some mechanical fault with the drive. If your hard drives are configured in RAID, you need to contact RAID Recovery Services. Do not try to access the drive again and again, as this may further worse the situation. Raid Recovery is one of the most complicated recovery processes. If you want to be sure that it will be ok rely on expert attention.

Well, I had an experience with Disk Doctors Labs Inc to get stuffs out off my failed RAID5 array. You can contact them for help.

[kopite]

LUckily its not raid atm.

The drives are all used as separate drives.

At the end of the month i`m gonna invest in 3-4 500 gb seagates and raid 5 them. Seems to be the safest solution.