Hard Disk Failure

I bought a hard disk and put it in an enclosure, transferred all my important stuff onto it, all was going great until it fell off the table and smashed.

It holds some irreplaceable files. I went to PC world and they told me that since the hard disk shell punctured they cant fix it because it has lost its air pressure.

Anyone know where I could get this fixed? Is it possible?

Hal1

You might be able to recover from the hdd you copied from. Just have a look on google. I dont know if anything can be done for the damaged hdd. If it where possible to remove the platten maybe you could transplant it into another hdd of similar make. Something like this.

They are not turntables so dont go scratching them.

SouperComputer

Whoever you spoke to in PC World (unsurprisingly) is an idiot. HD's are not pressurised, they run at ambient pressure. The air is vital to keep the heads from contacting the platters however.

If it was running and was dropped, then naturally it will have suffered physical damage. The bad news is that it is going to cost circa 1K+ to have the data professionaly recovered.

If you feel the data is not worth that much, there are a few things you can try.

What kind of noises is it making? You could just be lucky and it may be the USB board (IE enclosure) that is damaged, rather than the HD, but thats clutching at straws.

Changing platters, aside from the fact that its risky and not simple may be pointless as it could be the platters themselves that are damaged.

Hal1

Do you hear any noise from the damaged hdd? That can tell you if the platten is being scratched by the needle. If thats the case I'd say its beyond repair.

Its making a clicking noise. The enclosure broke but so did the part of the actual hard disk

Hal1

You might be able to set the failing disk as a slave drive and copy over files you need that way. I should have suggested this first but from you first description of what pc w*rld said I didn't see the point.

not just the enclosure but the actual hard disk is punctured and it doesnt click anymore a part of the needle fell out of the hole today when i picked it up

Ok I have just bought the exact same hard disk.


I am considering putting the circular spinning thing from the banjaxed hard disk into the new one to see what happens?

Any comments before I do this?

Diarmuid

Deleted User wrote:

I am considering putting the circular spinning thing from the banjaxed hard disk into the new one to see what happens?

Any comments before I do this?

circular spinning things? you mean the platters? Well if you goal is to end up with two dead hard drives then keep going. If not, I wouldn't try that.

mukki

Diarmuid wrote:

circular spinning things? you mean the platters? Well if you goal is to end up with two dead hard drives then keep going. If not I wouldn't try that.

it would have to be done in a clean room, and i still doubt there is any chance you'd get anything off it


to be totally honest there is nothing you can do, you can never ever rely on 1 hard drive for important files

Anti

Deleted User wrote:

Ok I have just bought the exact same hard disk.


I am considering putting the circular spinning thing from the banjaxed hard disk into the new one to see what happens?

Any comments before I do this?

May the force be with you young jedi.....

Hal1

I wouldnt try it unless you where in some kind of lab like in intel . What you should do to future proof your data is setup a raid array with mirroring, and have a third (hot swap) replacement drive on the ready in the system. You can garantee the saftey of your data with that setup.