Thread: Hard Disk Crash

I had a hard disk crash last week.

After a couple of days pissing about I found two excellent applications which got me out of trouble.
Data Recovery Wizard Pro and PTDD Partition Table Doctor
Two very user friendly programs and can be downloaded free as torrents.
I managed to recover the bulk of the data.

Now I am left with a hard disk that cannot be formatted.
Any suggestions or should I just bin it ?

Originally Posted by Thetyim

Any suggestions or should I just bin it ?

Yes. Or you can do as I do and put it in the cupboard with the other 3 bad ones. Never know it may in time resurrect itself.

I currently have 4 HDD's at home that either do not work or just do wierd stuff wehen i install them, most of the stuff was backed up, hoewever one of the disks I would really like to get stuff off.

Thetyim, could you fgive me a very brief outline of the procedure, ie, is it just another drive and you go from windows, or do you boot from this software into this as the only drive etc.

Appreciated.

Put it in the freezer for one week,

download the Low Level Format from the manufacturer,

Re-assign bad blocks during the format,

another 2 years of use, no problem

^Another quality advice from Butterfly.

It may work for a short time on 1-2% of faulty hard disks.

The other 98% are dead forever usually due to head crashes.
The 2 most common faults with hard disks are either a faulty controller board on the disk or pivot/bearing problems.
The latter often makes the head crash onto the magnetic surface.

Should you ever be able to get data out of it after cooling it, then thank your lucky star but don't use the disk any more afterwards!

Originally Posted by Bobcock

Thetyim, could you fgive me a very brief outline of the procedure, ie, is it just another drive and you go from windows, or do you boot from this software into this as the only drive etc.

They both run under windows.
It explained things as I went and made suggestions.
It found a partition error and fixed it and then found an MBR error that was not fixable.

If you do try the freezer trick
1. Put it in a ziploc/freezer bag to try and eliminate any condensation.
2. A week seems a long time, you could try it back in the comp after a few hours but it might not work for long.
3. Blame butterfly not me if it doesnt work

Thets, please, please tell me all your images are safe...

Anyway, if you can find an identical (working) drive, swapping the boards and trying to access the data eliminates any faults with the controller. If this doesn't work you are left with a mechanical error that requires lab-based recovery from a company such as Vogon (who we used to use in UK).

Mine has been in the freezer for 2 months already, I expect it to work for another 10 years when I take it out

Originally Posted by lom

^Another quality advice from Butterfly.

What did he say? I have him on ignore in the computer forum

^ hehehe, another quality red from Butterfly

Originally Posted by NickA

What did he say? I have him on ignore in the computer forum

He said I should connect the hard disk to the firewire socket

^What he said

Hard disks are cheap, your data is valuable. Don't gamble!

OK thanks, in the bin it goes

Originally Posted by bkkandrew

Thets, please, please tell me all your images are safe...

I know that no-one believes me but I don't have a disk full of images.
The only piccies I got are in the TD gallery

I wasnt suggesting the freezer trick to fix the hdd. Its a homebrew way of trying to recover data.

I think I misunderstood, I thought you were trying to recover your data. Ignore my earlier advice re. data recovery.

^
Yep, I managed to recover most of the data and wanted to pass on the software that worked so well for me.

I was just asking if I should bin the disk or try and do something with it

^Other posters are 100% right. Bin.

I have reconnected the drive that I am desperate to recover data from.

It doesn't show at all on boot up nor in File Manager.

However Data Recovery Wizard Pro found it immediately. Unfortunately my machine locked up when it was 90% into the partition data listing.

So far no further luck.

It's hot now so best to leave it for another go tomorrow.

Originally Posted by bkkandrew

Thets, please, please tell me all your images are safe...

That was exactly my thought too when i read this title...

Originally Posted by bkkandrew

^Other posters are 100% right. Bin.

Along with Butterfly's advices, bullshit anyway.

Originally Posted by Bobcock

It's hot now so best to leave it for another go tomorrow.

Chuck it in the icebox. Worked for me.

Originally Posted by Bobcock

However Data Recovery Wizard Pro found it immediately. Unfortunately my machine locked up when it was 90% into the partition data listing.

See I told you it was good.
You should now have listed a large chunk of recoverable data.

well...I should, but I don't, I may try the icebox, but not quite yet

The gamble is will the machine boot when this drive is connected, so far it has 2 out of 4 times.