Can a HDD be brought back to life

cubix

So a mates internal 3.5" Seagate 500GB drive is no longer being picked up by the PC. We put a donor HD in the box and all go so issue is his HD. There is power going to his drive as you can feel it whiring away. He is going to organise a ned HDD but would ideal like to be able to get all files from the old unit if possible. So what software if any would be useful to inpect the drive if I had in a windows box as a slave drive. Thanks

Spear

Not being detected in the BIOS, or not by Windows?

riclad

Go to bios , press del or f11 in pc startup, look at devices hard drives if it's not detected in the bios its probably unusable you could try and use a livecd boot up Linux cd, see does it show up in Linux os.windows can only use a hardrive if it's visible to the pc bios you can go to control panel administration. . Hardware. drives is it visible there? Even if it does not show up in My computer

Try putting it on a Different sata or ide cable after the pc is powered off

Sata is the data cable that goes to the rear of the drive to allow files to be read by the os

riclad

You could try and put it in a 3.5 inch caddy , you will probably need a caddy with its own power supply cost 35 to 40 euros

https://www.currys.ie/ieen/computing-accessories/components-upgrades/hard-drive-enclosures/dynamode-2-5-3-5-sata-hdd-usb-3-0-docking-station-10155977-pdt.html

There's no guarantee it will work in a caddy so it's up to you to decide is it worth spending 40 euro

riclad

Drives have a limited life span 3 to 4 years that's why it's important to backup any important files to the cloud or have files on 2 or 3 external drives I have an old USB drive 6o gig I'm recovering data from it it does not show up on my Windows 10 pc at all

If I plug it into a Windows 7 pc it shows up in my computer as drive f 60gig empty space no data

Easus data recovery says there,s 3000 files on it mostly mp3s

https://recoverit.wondershare.com/harddrive-recovery/how-to-recover-data-from-external-hard-disk-not-detected.html

Free download in link above

riclad

https://tutonics.com/2012/07/how-to-create-bootable-live-cddvd.html

https://tutonics.com/2012/07/how-to-create-bootable-live-cddvd.html#steps-for-creating-a-live-cd-with-windows

create a live cdrom disc info ,boot pc from cd, see if the old hdd can be acessed

riclad

https://recuva.en.softonic.com/download?utm_source=SEM&utm_medium=paid&utm_campaign=EN_desktop_RegionA_conversions_DSA&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI38fJhK7k9AIVqYBQBh3YwA0QEAAYASAAEgKQr_D_B

Recuva free very easy to use set deep scan to look for video ,music,audio or documents ,it takes 3 hours to scan my 60 gig Usb drive on a windows 7 pc .

photorec and testdisk are also useful

or look on easus free data recovery www.easeus.com .

Capt'n Midnight

Is the drive making hard or noises ? Soft chugging noises are OK, but Klicking or klunking are bad. Worse still are ball bearing dropping noises. If it's a laptop drive shake it gently near your ear, if you hear tinkling glass then it's gone forever.

A gentle tap while powered on may coax a drive back to live if the head is sticking, but could also cause damage. YMMV

If the drive is very old and you have an exact same model this might just work - but only if you are comfortable with sacrificing a good drive on the off chance and it may make commercial data recovery impossible

https://hackaday.com/2021/12/11/controller-swaps-can-save-an-hdd-if-you-do-it-right/

swapping the board out might bring things back to life. Back in the day, this was a common hacker trick. However, it often fails with modern drives, which store a great deal of drive-specific calibration data on the controller board. Without this specific data, another controller will be unable to access the data on the drive, and could even cause damage.

spurious

On a slightly related note...is there any point keeping old 'dead' drives in the future hope that perhaps technology advances enough to retrieve data, or is it a bin job?

spurious

Ah it's important sentimentally, but the budget wouldn't stretch to commercial retrieval. I think on one drive the 'arm thing' (technical term) scraped one of the actual discs.

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118394781#Comment_118394781

Depends

one point though is that new drives are larger, 30TB drives are on the roadmap, so you can try to image an old drive using ddrescue and then do data recovery on the image later

Esel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118396310#Comment_118396310

Why do you think head/disk contact occurred? Noise?

spurious

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118397227#Comment_118397227

Yes it was doing this repetitive ticking noise and someone who knows more about these things than me made a really terrible face, told me it was banjaxed and to disconnect it straight away. He took it away and connected it to these various programs and said there was still some data on it, but there had been damage to the disk because of the arm thing moving back and forth in the one place, which was the ticking.

Esel

A 'dead' HDD can sometimes be revived temporarily for file recovery purposes by freezing it overnight in a ziplock bag. I have done this successfully. Not saying this will work with OP's disk.

Replacing the controller board (if you have a donor) can work too.

Poster above who said disks have a lifetime of 3 or 4 years is wrong.

Esel

Also, if you have an old unwanted (or dead) HDD, it's a good exercise to open it to get the two *incredibly* strong magnets that are used to float the heads. There is usually one hidden screw on the external backplate that is under a sticker.

Interesting to see the internals, and you can remove the actual disks and use them as cool coasters! Your data is now fairly safe too...

The safest bet if those files are vital is to stop messing with it and send it off to a professional data recovery specialist. The more you fiddle with it (or attempt to run the drive if there’s internal damage or defects) the higher risk you’ll be unable to recover anything.

if they’re the type of files that losing would be a pain but you’d live (ie no treasured memories, important work/college stuff or the likes), then it’s probably worth trying to use a recovery program, but that’s only if the drives detected by the bios if it’s not even showing up there forget it.

Back in the day of smaller HDDs I used to keep a couple of them with back-ups. Out of sheer curiosity I must retrieve one out of the old drawer of ancient technology and see what I had on it.

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118406719#Comment_118406719

you can make clocks faces or wind chimes out of the platters if they aren't glass

riclad

There's the freezer trick put the drive into a freezer in a ziplock bag sealed then plug it in to pc to recover data recover important files first it may only work for a limited time have programs installed on pc before you start, recuva, test disk, photorec. I recovered data from 2 USB drives I found it easier on a pc using Windows 7 os. Google drive freezer truck

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.instructables.com/How-to-recover-data-from-a-hard-drive-stuck-heads-/%3famp_page%3Dtrue

Drive

Driv could be stuck, eg arm is not moving across the platters

We have the tech to recover data from almost any drive the question is do you want pay a professional to do it in a clean room using special equipment and software.

is the data valuable to you or is it just random mp3s , data, music that you can replace

Easus data recovery is free up to 2gig I have a program free data recovery it recovered 1gig of data from a USB drive in 10 seconds people show know ide or Sara drives are designed to lasted 3 to 4 years approx Make backups have data in 2 or 3 places if its important to you. I have 5 old ide drives 60,80 gig they still work I just keep up cos there's old mp3s on them

I have program free data recovery that's the name I can't find the link I found the program zip file on an old pc used it 3 days ago I have to use on it a 60 gig drive to recover mp3 files I did a scan easus says there's 5000 files on the drive drive shows up in Windows as 60 gig no data formatted , no files

Clicking from hardrive means drive is nearly dead I think old Sata, ide drives will still work if you keep em in clean dry place drawer etc

Using recuva look for video or audio or docs click deep scan

I don't think the cost of data recovery will fall its just hardrives keep getting cheaper and larger than 10 years ago SSD drives are much faster than older drives with no mechanical parts to wear out

https://www.thundershare.net/free-data-recovery/

this program is very easy to use, with deep scan option for mp3 ,doc, or video files .

i installed the program on my pc today it opened the link above.