Hard drive failed... any way of getting the data back?

tmcd

Hello there,
Last week my hard drive failed as in clunk clunk noises, I had a lot of the information backed up. I did however loose the last 3 weeks of work which is a killer. Is there any way possible in the world I can get this information back ? The hard drive is only 18 months old, 13 gig quantim fireball in a gateway system.
Any help would be great

Thanks

Tom

WhiteWashMan

is there anyway of setting up as a slave drive?otherwise if it truely is buggered youcan try takingout the disk and putting it into a similar drive chassis, but this very very very rarely works....

Kali

Hmm i cant see it even working as a slave drive if (as it sounds) the actual motor or drive heads are messed up.

You can always try the latter suggestion by WWM.. but any dust or anything on the surface of a disc (while changing chassis) is going to be an extreme problem, older disks it can be done alright but with modern ones and the extreme accuracy of the heads its highly unlikely (aren't they actually in a near-vacuuum these days?)

Neil_Sedaka

I put in a search for "data recovery" in Ireland and found this http://www.renaissance.ie/ontrack.htm

Maybe, maybe not, I'm sure there's more places in Ireland that offer a similar service.
Hope this helps.

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OOOHH,I hear laughter in the rain.

MrRR

I have often used a program called DD
Discdoctor and it remakes your master bitmap again

It maybe that this is all it needs.

I can EMail it to ya if you want.

My Ezboard Forum and ALL Ezboards are down at the moment for a day for maintenance to the server, to give the URL, but you can EMail me from here,
http://www.rr-electronics.freeservers.com

Yes the Drive IS in a Vaccum NOT a near vacuum.

NO dust will be present AT ANY time on the heads or disc area when changing chassis.

Rab

tmcd

Thanks lads,,,,,,
all suggestions are good ones and I got really excited when neil posted this site http://www.renaissance.ie/ontrack.htm
There sure are worth a look if anyone else were in a similar situation, Their prices just didn't meet my needs to recover the information I lost. £95 to find out if they can get the files back and £450-£900 sterling if I wanted it back. I actually think the prices are ok if the files I had lost were worth that money. I'll just plod along on my new hard drive and do a couple of extra hours every day to catch up.
MrRR "I have often used a program called DD
Discdoctor and it remakes your master bitmap again" This sounds ok but can I get that far? When I had the hard drive on the pc I would hear the clunking noise then a message saying "no operating system found"
Also wwm & kali If i were to put the hard drive back in my pc as a second hard drive do you think just out of chance it might ever kick in ? Thats just kinda a long shot question. I used to have a old system that had a faulty second hard drive, One day it would work the next day it wouldn't.

Thanks very much

Tom

mayhem#

Have a look on some of the warez newsgroups for a copy of "Tiramisu" it's the same kind of software that Ontrack uses. Easy to use and recovers quite a lot of date.

WhiteWashMan

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by tmcd:

Also wwm & kali If i were to put the hard drive back in my pc as a second hard drive do you think just out of chance it might ever kick in ? Thats just kinda a long shot question. I used to have a old system that had a faulty second hard drive, One day it would work the next day it wouldn't.

Thanks very much

Tom</font>

very very very last resort.
most modern hard drives are indeed almost vacuum, but do have very small air holes. however, ther problem isnt changing the media, its keeping it clean. as the heads on a hard drive 'should' park thenselves when closed down, theres no problem there, but since the disc spins at about 5400 times a minute, and the fact that the read head is less than a fingerprint distance away, the slightest forign matter will instantly destroy your disc, and youre back to square one.....
the only reason i suggested the slave drive is becase sometimes, just sometimes it works and is worth the try. even if you can keep it going for 5 minutes while you access data.
of course, at this stage its probably corrupt anyway

Megatron

I've always been handy at getting data back from a knackered hdd, as wwman said the swaping of the system boards on the hdd doesnt always work. esp if the hdd is making a clunking sound. what i usually do is to open the drive up brak the vacum seal and see what i can get. cus if the hdd is knackered it can't get much worse. you might be surprise at h ow much data you can get.
a tip if you do go this way is to get a fan and keep that blowing on the exposed hdd as that will stop any over heating problems !!!

well that's me spent !!!

later skaters

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No !!!!! I will crush you with my Bare hands