My heart is in pieces :(

[wap32]

Sorry about your loss Tigress. It's happened to me and I know how much it sucks to lose everything.

As for recovery, the best solution I can think of is buying exactly the same harddrive model you have, and try exchanging the platters. If you're careful enough it should be doable.

And of course, remember to backup in the future!
For that I can recommend SyncToy (for Windows), I schedule it to synchronize data across 3 pc's every 10pm and it works pretty well.

 

[Nebby]

I can personally vouch for the freezer method, it works. I've used it more than a few times, and it's mostly reliable in that you can access the drive, however it generally won't stay up for too long and you can do the freezer trick once or twice before it won't work anymore. In my opinion it's worth a try before going and paying however much money for a true data recovery service

 

[LostOne.TR]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RockCity /img/forum/go_quote.gif This phenomenon reminds me of my old Rio Karma. The reading head will occasionally get stuck to the disc. A swift twack and the thing will work for a few more days.

heh. I'd be afraid to try that to my HDD though.

 

[wrx591]

There are people who can repair hard drives.

What they do is they buy the exact same model as yours and replace all the faulty parts. Although this is a hit and miss as the guy couldn't repair my friends hard drive I didn't try to get anyone else have a look at it. Find a technician who doesn't charge you if he can't repair it.

Data recovery is very expensive but $700 is very steep. In Australia I got quoted $350 but if they don't recover anything it's free of charge.

Good luck as it's a very agonizing experience loosing all your important data.

 

[apatN]

Sad to hear..

Most of the times however a lot can be restored. Hope you get lucky.

 

[appophylite]

Sorry too hear about it Tigress...If the info on the drive is as important to you as it sounds, I'd seriously consider looking into finding someone who can either fix the drive or restore the data on the drive. If you are able to fix it, I'd recommend immediately backing up that data to another storage medium as well.

Good Luck!

 

[lmilhan]

Sorry to hear of your loss.

Now that you have unfortunately learned the hard way, here are a few suggestions to help you out once you get back on your feet that will prevent such a disaster from happening again:

Assuming you are a PC user:

1) You want a backup program for important files, I use SyncBack, and it is wonderful. Learn how to use the software properly, and schedule it to backup all of your important files (such as the ones you lost) on a regular basis to every PC that may be on your network, and to all of your PCs local drives (assuming your PC has more than 1 hard drive). Also, schedule it to backup the files to an external drive (dirt cheap these days). If you have storage space online, have Syncback backup your data there as well. If you don't have storage space at an online location, backup to your external hard drive once per month, then after each backup, store your external hard drive at an offsite location (friend or family members house). This is a pain in the ass, but it is imperative to have an offsite backup solution. If your house burns down, and you only have local backup copies, they burn down with the house, and then there goes all of your data again. Another solution may be a fireproof safe that is rated to protect media for 1 or 2 hours in a fire - make sure the safe is waterproof as well. You can store your external hard drive in this safe as an alternative to storing it at a friends house.

2) Get yourself a disk imaging tool. I use Acronis True Image Home 2009. It works wonderfully, and is very simple to use. Once your PC is rebuilt and back to normal, with all of your files recovered, take a backup snapshot of your disk. Be sure to save the image backup to a location OTHER than your main "C" drive. Schedule True Image to save incremanetal snapshot images of your system on a regular basis. Same applies to step 1: make as many copies as you can to other PCs on the network, to an online storage location if possible, or an external hard drive that you keep in a fireproof & waterproof safe, or at an offiste location, such as a friend or family members house.

Once you have SyncBack and True Image scheduled and working properly, they become a "set it and forget it" type of routine. They will quietly work in the background, and you will rest easy knowing that you have all of your important files safely backed up, and a snapshot of your system that you can recover very quickly in the event of a disastrous system / OS meltdown.

In summary:
SnycBack = $30
True Image = $50
2 Internal Hard drives in whatever size you prefer = $Varies
1 decent Fireproof / Waterproof safe rated to protect data for up to 1 hour in a fire = $150
Peace of mind knowing that your system and important files are robustly backed up and fully recoverable = $Priceless.

Let this also be a lesson to everyone who does not regularly backup their system and files both locally and to an offsite location. Heed my advice and devise a backup strategy and GO AND IMPLEMENT IT RIGHT NOW. It isn't a question of IF your hard drive will fail, it is a question of WHEN it will fail.


For the Original Poster: Do you happen to own an iPOD, and if so, are your music and photos currently stored on it? If so, then there IS a way to pull the files from the iPOD back onto a computer hard drive. At least this would recover some of your files in the meantime...

 

[eclectic]

with my eee netbook. My 1st thought was music files, but you are right-family and friends 1st... well, family.

 

[insyte]

Sorry about your loss.

Hope you get to fix it.

 

[olblueyez]

Leave it off, turning it back on may cause more data corruption. Sorry this happened to you.

 

[iriverdude]

Tigress I would go on a PC course, or if there's a free PC tech video watch that. So you get a idea what's in a computer and can identify, replace and fit components yourself.

 

[acidbasement]

Quote:

Originally Posted by iriverdude /img/forum/go_quote.gif For a non PC geek to recover it's quite tricky. I would recommend using another wokring hard drive to boot off from, or perhaps a Ubuntu Live CD. Connect your faulty harddrive as a addtional drive. See if you can access data - copy as much as possible to another drive. If you can't see it at all then it's probably beyond most people and you'll need to send it to a data recovery business. Controller board is probably the most favourable hardware failure, just buy another identical HD swop boards and away you go. Motor or drive head is pretty terminal.

If it's clicking, it's almost certainly a head crash, not the controller board. The clicking sound is caused by the head impacting on the disk platter. I've never done the freezer trick, but I did a lot of research on hdd recovery a few years ago and it seemed to be the way to go for a head crash.

Tigress, if you can afford the $$$, it's probably best to leave the recovery to the professionals. If you can't afford it, do you have any friends who are computer geeks? If so, I bet they'd like to try out the freezer trick.

Good luck!

 

[acidbasement]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wap32 /img/forum/go_quote.gif As for recovery, the best solution I can think of is buying exactly the same harddrive model you have, and try exchanging the platters. If you're careful enough it should be doable.

Only in a clean room with a LOT of technical expertise should this be attempted. For a head crash, try the freezer trick first.

 

[skiflyer]

Leaving it off and waiting for a pro is the best advice you're getting here... but if you're anything like me it would be impossible to follow.

The freezer trick is solid, the idea is the click of death happens when either the head mechanism gets stuck. By freezing the whole thing you're hoping the metal in the head is different than the metal in the movement mechanisms, then they'll contract at different rates and you may unstick the stuck.

It sounds silly, but the click of death is often fixable for short times... but if you're going to try any of this stuff, have your second drive all setup to copy to. Don't do this, and say wow it worked, now I'm going to drive to the store and hope it's all still working when I get back with a new harddrive.

Second, prioritize what you copy off by importance. If you have a 250 or 500gig drive you may not have it up long enough to copy everything off so don't waste time copying the OS files or the web cache!

Third, an uplifting story. Last time I had the click of death I was able to get the computer running again by just turning the harddrive upside down. It ran for a good 3 weeks that way.

 

[manaox2]

I've done the freezer trick, its wonderful. First, you put the harddrive in a static proof bag and seal it, you don't want moisture freezing in your harddrive and expanding ruining things further. You want to have a tested book disk on hand because you definitely do not want to boot from that drive, have an extra hard drive ready to copy to. Leave the case off to keep the computer running as cool as possible. If you do it overnight, you'll have anywhere from 15 minutes to 90 to backup your data. Its really worth a try since it seems your platters aren't bricked and can still turn. Good luck.