Crashed HDD... Suggestions?

[Tyger]

Hi guys, I'd like to hear your opinion on something. A several years old Samsung 80Gb (can't be any more exact at the moment, but could check) HDD has crashed for my friend, here's the story: she told me there were some strange noises coming out of the HDD for a week or two, and then one day the comp wouldn't start up. I've seen the thing myself, it does make some interesting noise when connected, something like it hits something on the way every couple of spins, or maybe tries to spin but is stuck (damn, I'm not good at describing sounds:) ). So anyway, the problem is that BIOS won't recognize the thing, even though the CD-ROMs are recognized OK (and the cable is good too, I've tested it).

There were some personal data on that disk, which was (obviously) not backed-up (don't ask why). So my question is, what could have caused this, is the data recoverable in some way, and if yes, could it be done without professional hardware? If no, what could it cost then? Thank you so much for any help/advice you can give :)

[Stryker]

Sounds like a mechanical failure if I've ever heard one! :(

Data recovery is EXTREMELY expensive in most cases. Try freezing the hard drive and then installing it. In some cases, the parts will shrink slightly and it will allow for some data recovery. Doesn't always work though.

Good luck... and next time a hard drive starts making crunching, clicking noises... BACK UP THE DATA. ;)
Stryker :)

[Tyger]

next time a hard drive starts making crunching, clicking noises... BACK UP THE DATA.
Yeah, that's what I told her :D

And about that freezing, what temps are we talking about? 0 - 5 C, or negative?

[Stryker]

Any time I've heard of it, it's been the freezer.
Again, no guarantee, but might be worth a shot.

If you do need to replace the drive, I would recommend a Seagate drive. They have a 5 year warranty on their drives, which is virtually unmatched in the industry. Western Digital is trying to match it, but not on all their drives. Only a select group.

[Tyger]

Thanks a bunch, I'll give it a shot on my next visit to this unlucky friend of mine :)

[Digitalic]

I`d give it a shot trying to connect it to a good machine using an external USB device to try data recovery first before doing the freezer trick. That is last resort as it changes drive geometry and may be irreversible..

[glc]

Professional data recovery will START at $1000 US with a mechanically failed drive like that. If you freeze it, put it in a Ziplock bag and suck the air out. Don't even try to boot with it - put it in another computer on a separate IDE channel from its boot drive to try to recover the data or maybe try a USB housing. If the freezer trick works, you can only count on about 5 minutes of running before you have to freeze it again.

[green3500]

GLC, What is a USB housing? Is that the external USB device that Digitalic referred to? How costly would that be? Is it accessed like a flashdrive?

My HD partition is not being recognized by Windows XP, and I can't hook the HD up as a slave because XP won't boot from the primary driver with this one attached. (See my other thread for more details.) Would the external USB solve that problem? Can I hook it up after XP has booted?

Thanks for the help.
-Patti

[glc]

Patti, let's keep it in your other thread, please.