Hard Drive Repair/Data Recovery

DaveyDave

I moved recently and upon setting up my PC, two of my hard drives failed to power on at all. Nothing happens and I have tried different power connections, despite this, my main hard drive is working fine as is everything else in my PC.

There's got to be something I can do, how can 2 drives just stop working when the other one is fine? The drives in question are a 160GB Western Digital Caviar SE and a 1TB Samsung EcoGreen F2, which is less than a year old. All was fine the other day before the move, I took the 160GB out as there was smoke coming from the drive cage it was in and there was a horrible smell though no visible damage.

I quickly Googled for data recovery and got one company saying "€550+" for "Advanced Data Recovery" and another site is quoting €225-€300 for drives that are physically damaged.

I'm looking for somewhere in Dublin to repair my hard drive since it appears to be physically damaged. I am however, not willing to pay ridiculous fees for 2 hard drives. I need to buy a new hard-drive to get the data, and that will cost me €140, I would prefer to spend less than €200 on this as I'm unemployed and the money I got recently I've been waiting on for months to buy DJ equipment.

I apologize if this is in the wrong section.

Viper_JB

Unfortunatly in this case the 550 quoted from the english company would be very cheap and probably a pretty poor service, when it comes to data recovery the sky is the limit price wize and if there is an irish company that does it, which I don't think there is then you could be sure that they'd be more expensive then abroad. Wish I could be of more help only thing you could try would possibly be a pcb replacement for the pcb under the disk drives, would be awkward and require a steady hand.

bonzodog2

If they are external disks, you might consider getting a replacement enclosure, cheap enough on eBay. Smoke is definitely not a good sign. If the data is valuable (i.e. cant download it again) then a replacement PCB from an identical drive may work for you.
Good luck !

ressem

I'd suggest trying to borrow a cheap/disposable external Sata to USB enclosure or adapter to try out the disks, especially the 1 TB one, to rule out damaged motherboard connections.

Failing that
http://www.amazon.co.uk/USB-SATA-Adaptor-Cable-Power/dp/B000R18ZNQ/ref=pd_cp_ce_2
£15.99

dbrowne9212

Smoke coming from the dirve is not a good sign at all.

I'd suggest trying to borrow a cheap/disposable external Sata to USB enclosure or adapter to try out the disks, especially the 1 TB one, to rule out damaged motherboard connections.

Good sugestion. Definately try that first anyway because if you just buy a new drive and it turns out the problem was on the moterboard you will have just wasted a load of money on something you never needed. If you want to do this as cheaply as possible you could actually get the USB bridge for a sata drive from an old/disposable 3.5" external HDD if you dissasembel it carefully (most sata external HDDs are just a combination of a USB bridge, a sata drive and some pretty packaging. if you are doing this take your time, some of them slide or click appart and some have hidden screws that are not immediately obvious -like under rubber pads on the base or something and if you can find a guide to dissassemble that particular drive online all the better) or alternatively get an old/disposable sata drive and connect it up and see if it powers up --or goes on fire Either way you will rule in or out damaged motherboard connections.

If it is in fact the drive rather than the motherboard connection that has failed then I think you might have to accept that the data is gone and just get some replacment drives. or maybe one big drive and a tough external flash drive for backup. Generally speaking its a horrible lesson to have to learn the hard way but when it comes down to it hard drives are actually very fragile and they can and do fail sometimes the most innocuous little knock is all it takes.

Data recovery is a possibility but the first reply you got is right in saying that the prices you found are very cheap. The process has to be done in a static free clean-room (in other words completely dust free --that setup alone is massively expensive and a major contributor to generally astronomical data recovery prices) and almost always results in the destruction of the original drive. the casing needs to be opened and they aim to only have to read the entire drive once copying data to a new drive.

It's really only an option for large companies who can afford to shell out the cash (or often more accurately; can't not afford to shell out the cash)

I would say for the prices you have seen the work would not be done in an environment as outlined above and as such success rate would diminish massively. Good data recovery companies live and die on the quality of their work and will usually tell you that if they cant recover the data they will not charge you so if the companies you are looking at dont give this assurance then stay well away.

i found myself in your position a few years ago and had to just accept that it was really my own fault for not backing up important data. Having never had a hard drive fail on me i never really saw the need to back-up, but as i say it's a horrible lesson to have to learn the hard way I now back up my most important data about once every other week and back up most all of my personal data once every month or so. the one thing i would say about backing up is to be selective and methodical about it, someday it will save your ass.

Cabaal

Smoke and burning smell, thats not good at all on any level.

The prices you've been quoted were very reasonable

ressem

The irish crowd datarecovery.ie have been mentioned a few times on the site but thats €95 per drive just for the evaluation before they try to fix anything.

Haven't used this company myself.

Triangle

Trying talking to the HD's manufacturers - a mates brother 'seemingly' did this and he got the data recovered.

I wouldn't say they would and this guy was spouting sh1t - but for the cost of an email - it may be worth a shot.

patchrick

This is out of left field a bit but we have had some success in the past with replacing heads on hard drives.
Basically we get an exact copy of the damaged hard drive and replace the heads/controller board. Its worked for us several times when all was lost and the only other option was to bin the drives as the data wasn't valuable enough for full service data recovery (cleanroom etc).

If you are interested, get in contact with us at Teleport.ie. Bear in mind this service comes with absolutely ZERO warranty and is to be considered a complete last resort. Pricewise the only cost you would pay is the cost of a replica drive (for parts) and the time involved.

Really you should make backups of everything you have because hard drive failures are the single most prevalent source of hardware failure we come across. Rule of thumb (at the very least)... if you want n TB of storage you have to buy 2Xn TB of storage and mirror your data.

Patrick

mia2010

Hi all where would I get a western digital passport bus powered 320g hard drive????