Hard Drive Repair?

CGI_3

Laptop hard drive stopped working. Have most of my data backed up, but am sure there's some stuff on it that I would like to get back.

Was lucky enough to find an exact same hard drive from a friend so was able to swap the controller board to try that. Same result unfortunately.

The motor / disk seems to be trying to turn and is failing. (i.e., most likely motor failure?)

What's the chances of getting it fixed? or getting data off it?

Expensive? Any recommendations as to recovery specialists?

RUCKING FETARD

http://www.ontrackdatarecovery.ie/

^^^They'd be the big guys. May not stop at a grand though.:eek:

Good few at it now though it seems so ring round I suppose...

http://www.criticaldata.ie/
http://www.datarescue.ie/
http://www.datarecovery.ie/

bluferbl

This has never worked for me (and I've tried it a few times) but it might be worth a go. Put the drive into a plastic bag and then pop it into a freezer for a few hours. Once it's good and cold, stick it back into the laptop and see if it can be read. The theory is that parts contract when cold and if something has seized, this may temporarily unseize them.

robgreensmith

Try freezing the Drive first as suggested above. I have done this a few times and managed to recover data from a drive. If this fails and there is critical data on the drive then use someone like critical data. The company I work for have used them a few times and every time they have recovered all data from the drive. VERY expensive though!!

CGI_3

You really mean Freeze it?

Any issues with condensation?

Any other potential problems? Don't want to make matters worse!

RUCKING FETARD

http://lifehacker.com/5515337/save-a-failed-hard-drive-in-your-freezer-redux

riclad

its in a sealed bag,condensation is not a problem,
if it works, copy the most important files first.
second time you plug it in, it may not work,as drive parts reach room tempeture.
leave pc,on until files are copied if you can acess the drive.

If you get it going, I would use a Linux Live CD, and get another hard drive and then use ddrescue to clone the dying hard drive.