My 200gb SATA drive crashed :(

[syeuk2002]

Hi all,

I've been going mad over this!
The only thing that I REALLY want to keep are the family photos taken on mother’s day. The only time I have had all of my family together for about 6 years.

I have a 200gb SATA (extra) internal hard drive. It's only about 9 months old.
The other day my pc started up reaaallllllyyyy slowly (about 15mins).

Confused face!

After a bit of tinkering I figured out that the notice at start-up telling me that my SATA drive had loaded properly was gone.
I unplugged the drive & reset, everything was back to normal (minus the SATA).

Now when I plug the drive in it goes back to being slow & the hard drive makes a nasty grinding noise.

If there is anyone here who can help I’d appreciate it a lot.

What I’ve already tried...

- Removed the sata raid drivers
- re-installed them
- upgraded bios
- cleared CMOS (by removing battery)
- Tried to boot drive on another machine (exact same model motherboard)
- replaced power supply
- re-installed XP (complete format)

Even if I were to be able to retrieve just the photos I’d be happy.
I'm not sure if it's worth buying an external Sata-usb case to try.

Please help

Thanks for your time


Simon

[Whiternoise]

If it's grinding about, best thing imo would be to leave it for a while and take it to a specialist. You don't want to put it in, only to possibly damage the platters further.

Does the drive show up in the BIOS or in Windows?

[kopite]

It sounds like the bearings are going. THere is a cheap way to get the stuff off and you can do it at home.

IF you just want to get the photos off and you have another drive in the computer to copy them onto.

Take the drive out and wrap it in an anti static bag and seal it tight. Wrap it in a few bags if possible. You want it so the drive itself is completely sealed

Drop it in the freezer for a night.

Plug it in and get the info off sharpish you should be able to get about 20 minutes use before the metal expands and causes it to crash again

[Blitzen]

It sounds like the bearings are going. THere is a cheap way to get the stuff off and you can do it at home.

IF you just want to get the photos off and you have another drive in the computer to copy them onto.

Take the drive out and wrap it in an anti static bag and seal it tight. Wrap it in a few bags if possible. You want it so the drive itself is completely sealed

Drop it in the freezer for a night.

Plug it in and get the info off sharpish you should be able to get about 20 minutes use before the metal expands and causes it to crash again

That would be my advice aswell
I have tried this twice before and it worked long enough to retrieve important stuff.

REMEMBER though.....make sure everything is airtight before placing in the freezer.

[peterb]

Kopite's advice has been known to work - if it is the drive motor bearings that have failed. The risk is that if the head arm has crashed, you may be damaging the surface of the platters. Unfortunately there is no way to determine that for certain, without using a clean room.

If the drive has sustained a shock (computer been dropped) then a head crash is the most likely scenario. If not, then drive motor bearing failure is probably more likely, and the freezer trick may work.

Professional recovery where the disk is opened in a clean room will be expensive. Straightforward recovery from a working drive tends to start at about £300 upwards. Opening the thing up is going to take more time - and consequently cost more.

You need the balance the risk of saving money and trying the freezere trick, against causing more damage. If you think that £300+ is more than the data is worth, then the decision is easy - if not....

The only plus side is that most data recovery companies will assess the disk first, free of charge, and bill you on completion of the recovery,. Prices do vary. I have never had to use one myself, but I did have an occasion to contact one, and they seemed OK. I can give you the link if you are thinking of going down that route.

If you do try the freezer (as others have said) make sure the bag is airtight, and when you take it out, work quickly, preferably in a dryish atmosphere to avoid condensation. have the computer dismantled and ready to go so you can plug and boot before it warms up.