Recovering a blown hard drive without spending major $$$$$

[Kelvin Mace]

You turn on the computer and your system won't boot. You get one of those dreaded messages like "Can't find boot drive" and since you somehow never got around to that backup, you are royally screwed.

There are two types of disk failures: Hard failures and soft failures.

Soft failures are usually caused by power disturbances (surges, dips and failures) which cause spurious data to corrupt the drive making it unable to boot. In many instances, if you have created a rescue disk, you can insert it, boot up and repair the damage. If not, there are a couple of simple solutions.

1) Hook up the drive as the SLAVE drive on another computer with the same OS. 95% of the time you then access the partition and copy critical files off the drive to the boot drive, a CD/DVD, or USB drive.

2) Buy a USB drive enclosure and insert the bad drive into enclosure, then plug the USB cable into another computer and recover your files.

3) Make use of a drive recovery tool like ZAR.

A hard failure means the drives electronics are fried and you can't access the data. Normally, your only hope would be to pack the drive off to OnTrack or some such facility and fork over $500+ to get your data back. This just happened to me and I came up with a solution which worked like a charm and cost $35.

I had an 76GB IBM DeskStar drive that was damaged by a blown power supply which damaged my drive so bad that simply plugging it into the drive cable brought down the entire computer. While pondering how much time I was going to have to spend recreating the files on the drive it occurred to me that I could fix the electronics.

I jumped on another computer and searched eBay for the same model drive. I found one for $35 (with shipping) and bought it. When the drive arrived, I removed the circuit board from the good drive (4 torx screws, you'll need the right tool found at your local hardware store for a few dollars). Disconnect the data cable that runs from the board to the drive proper (a tiny ribbon cable) and install the new board (four screws and re-connect the ribbon cable).

I plugged the drive back into my computer (which also had a new power supply) and it booted right up!

This solution is not for everybody, as you have to be comfortable handling the components (I'm a computer tech, but if you have installed your own drive, you can do this).

Anyway, I hope this solution can help someone else out of a bind. By the time a drive would fail in this manner, it is likely a few years have passed which means the drive can be bought for a fraction of its original cost.

Standard disclaimers apply to this post. Your mileage may vary. If you aren't comfortable trying this, take your system to someone who is.

[Richard Steele]

1. Hmmm...that's an "outside-the-box solution I hadn't considered.

90% of my favorite stuff is on a dead LaCie external
right now.

That's something I'll have to look into. THANKS Kelvin! :thumbsup:

[Kelvin Mace]

3. Actually

an external drive can probably be opened up and the drive inside plugged into your computer's slave position. If the problem was the LaCie's hardware, it should start right up. If not, then my solution can be tried.

[Richard Steele]

13. I don't think this iMac actually -has- a slave position....

...but I've got a couple older boxes sitting here that do.
One of them is already slaved to this one, to run my antique scanner.

Man, DU is just giving me all sorts of assistance lately!

[Kelvin Mace]

16. Most of the drive controllers made these days

support "cable select" for the master/slave designation, which means the first connector is the master, the second is slave. This has been true at least for drives made in the last seven years.

[Richard Steele]

21. Well, I just did a few minutes of googlin'...

And it looks like I should be able to pick up an identical
used drive for $75 or less (plus shipping), so that's probably
what I'll try first. I'm relatively certain that the disk
and data are still OK; a new board should do the trick.

Heck, I should actually get TWO while I'm at it, and keep
everything backed up on BOTH of them next time.

I kinda screwed myself by putting my iTunes library on the external;
I could probably get a couple terabytes of storage for less than it
would cost me to buy all my music again!

[Kelvin Mace]

35. I have a love/hate relationship with iTunes

It kind of makes sense to store your library on a portable device so you can move if it you need to.

Just don't have a crash.

[undeterred]

2. A professional service I'd recommend

is this one. I've sent out a physically damaged drive from a laptop and a 500GB hard drive that I'd actually re-imaged at work. They recovered over 99% of the data from each for under $2K. And they will tell you if they can do it or not for $100 before they start. Highly recommended.

http://www.ontrackdatarecovery.com/0707_data-recovery-software/?psearch=google

[Kelvin Mace]

6. Yeah, I mentioned OnTrack in my post

But most folks are hard pressed to justify $2000 to recover data outside a business situation. My solutions are less expensive, but if you MUST recover the data, stick to the pros unless you are comfortable trying my solutions.

[undeterred]

9. Yeah, I did that at my job

For a company, thats cheap. When you consider the cost of all the lost hours of work, its a bargain. I thought their service was fantastic and I was amazed that a lot of people hadn't heard of them. One HD had a programmers files, the other had an engineers. Both were in trouble for not storing their stuff on the network, but once everybody is through yelling about it, they're pretty happy to have a solution that is that fast and cheap. At least a months work would have had to be redone for each= a lot more than $2K.

[Kelvin Mace]

15. I still have my OnTrack DiskManager software disk

on my bench, I got it in '86 I think.

[skids]

4. Make sure you get the exact same model if you trythis fix...

...the fix does work and is an old trick of mom and pop computer shops. However in the newer lines a lot of the time you need to get a backplane (which is what the circuit board is called) from a drive that is as close as possible to the old one, right down to the revision number and if you can, in the same batch of serial numbers.

Which is why when you buy hard drives it's a wise thing to buy more than one from the same place at the same time.

Fortunately, on the upside, the new drives almost all use pressure contacts which makes the circuit board much easier to replace than in the days of plugs and wires.

This won't help for head crashes, but a large number of drive failures are not head crashes.

Other tricks include using linux to dd the drive in "ignore errors" mode all in one continuous pass to a larger drive, for drives that can read but cannot "seek" very well due to overheating, and chilling drives can sometimes work. Some drives that won't spin up will spin if they are tapped firmly while powered on, though I've only seen that behavior on the older ones personally.

Some people have had success with a "last ditch" approach of destroying two drives to get the platters into an identitcal drive to fix head crashes, but you are taking big chances doing that and the frankendrive will die shortly so you just hope you can get some of your data off.

[Kelvin Mace]

7. Absolutely!

Read the model number off the drive, and try for the same revision number as well.

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

5. The best part about the replace-the-electronics scenario is

the circuit board/bios is generally good for the entire range of capacities- say, for instance, you have a certain style Maxtor drive, and its capacity is 250gb. You can get a 60gb drive of the same type and the electronics will work. They do it that way to save money- one electronics package services the entire range of drives.

I've begun saving fried drives if the boards are still good for just this reason.

Start saving them now- the EIDE drives aren't being made any more, and are beginning to disappear. You can't buy one at a store any more- you have to track 'em down.

[Kelvin Mace]

8. Yes, but this requires a bit more knowledge

about drives, drive types and BIOSes. Which is why I recommend just getting the same model.

As to obsolete drives, I still have my MFM/RLL controllers on the shelf with my Seagate ST-506.

[skids]

12. Bah. I still have a 22x, youngster!

Actually I think I only have one 220 left. The rest I took apart for stuff like this:



http://abrij.org/~bri/hw/stspin.html

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

Not really.

As you said- simply match the model. All it takes is a close eyeball of the board to see if it matches- they don't redesign the board in the middle of a drive's lifetime, so a visual match is a good bet. The numbers are all there and should be easy to compare.

Not hard at all.

[skids]

10. maybe for certain brands...

...I have had less luck -- couldn't recover a WD with a backplane from an identical drive just one revision away. Same circuit board, but probably different stuff flashed into the chipset.

[Kelvin Mace]

17. If you can't find an identical revision level

then get a later revision, since it will USUALLY support an older revision, but an older revision may have problems with a drive that was run with a newer revision level.

[skids]

29. it was a later revision...

...the problem was that I couldn't buy the old revision anymore. I actually have two of these drives still sitting in a box, both blown out due to a power supply problem, and I still haven't recovered the data and probably won't until I can find the right backplane.

[Kelvin Mace]

30. Odd. The newer revisions are usually

backwardly compatible.

Weird.

[MikeDuffy]

11. Replacing the drive's circuit board has worked for me also

a couple of times in the past.

It might be a worthwhile strategy to buy two drives of the same model, using one as the primary drive and the other as a secondary backup drive in which you copy important files from the primary from time to time (if you don't use backup software). If the primary drive fails and you fail to find some important files on the secondary drive, there is the possibility of recovering via moving the secondary board to the primary drive.

I'm not saying this is the best approach to backup, but may be one that appeals to some users...

[DeSwiss]

14. Absolutely excellent!!!

I've had the "fried drive" problem before a few years back and now wish I had considered the idea of replacing the circuit board. But as the drive was still under warranty, they replaced it with a new one. Since then I've learned my lesson and got into external storage drives big time, and now have three externals with a total of 720 GB of space.

I'm saving this thread info and will back it up on one of the externals! :D

- K&R!!!

[The Vinyl Ripper]

18. And then there is Unstoppable Copier..

If the drive still spins but is giving errors when trying to read some data, give Roadkil's Unstoppable Copier a try, it's freeware so the price is right.

It also works for getting files off optical disks that have been damaged..

For other ideas on getting data off damaged optical disks see my website.

http://www.roadkil.net/unstopcp.html

[tuvor]

23. Thanks for that, and thanks for your vinyl ripping information.

I don't need either right now, but it's nice to know they're there assuming they work as advertised!

Oh, and welcome to DU, TVR! :hi:

[The Vinyl Ripper]

27. Thanks for the welcome.

I've used Unstoppable Copier myself so I know it works. It just keeps going and going.

If the data is readable at all UC will get it. But not all data is readable so sometimes other methods have to be employed.

[Stinky The Clown]

19. Avoiding the heartbreak of disk failure, for me, is a RAID system.

I've had RAID systems set up as mirrors in my last two boxes. I rely on my computers to earn a living, so it is vital that I never lose data.

Each of my boxes have the same software and the same critical data. The RAID protects me from disk failure while a weekly backup from Box A to Box B makes sure even whole computer failure isn't catastrophic.

Its like wearing suspenders and a belt on your pants.

I have had several drive failures over the years. The RAID tells you when one disk has failed. At that point, no matter when, I do a data backup to the other box and bring the bad box to Sam (the young guy who builds my computers and takes care of them) to get it fixed.

Your solution is perfectly elegant, however. And I agree with your assessment. Anyone who is modestly handy can do it.

[Richard Steele]

22. That's something I'll need to implement once I solve my current problem.

I'm definitely gonna want two identical backups in the future.

It's not a 'job critical" thing for me...but I hadn't really thought
about how much I've spent just on music over the last 4 years, until
the HD I keep it on went south.

I thought I was a clever monkey for copying my HD to the laCie external
every once in awhile; it never occurred to me that the laCie might die first. D'oh!

At today's prices, a second 200 gig drive is DIRT CHEAP insurance
for something like that. I've been kicking myself for not realizing
that until now. I don't think it's "too late" to recover my mu$ic,
(and my 9000-pic iPhoto library) but it easily could have been.

[Kelvin Mace]

36. RAIDs are great

and more people should use them since they are not that hard to install. Best to order them with your machine when you get a new one.

Used to be admin on a system with mirrored RAID-5, and redundant power supplies. The was a pretty hardened system.

[KoKo]

20. Thanks David...I've bookmarked in case of Emergency.

And even if I have to call in Tech Help ...maybe your tips will save me some money.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

24. Thanks for this thread. k/r

[byronius]

25. What if I'm using a Data General? There doesn't seem to be a USB port.

The hard drive is a whopping 5MB, about three feet wide, and weighs one hundred pounds...

(Just joking. It actually died a long, long time ago.)

Ah, the old days. I remember when there were no Internets.

I also remember when there were only 11,000 websites on 'em.

Mostly pages devoted to cannabis, porn, and the grateful dead.

What's that? Still?

[Gregorian]

26. Hey, thanks.

I just got a new machine. I will probably toss in a second drive and just mirror everything.

But I love solutions like yours. I'll spare my stories. But it's the kind of thing I get the most enjoyment out of.


Long live solder suckers!

[ToeBot]

28. I applaud your ingenuity, but why is it that tech heads never, ever backup their data? nt

[Kelvin Mace]

31. Well, we do on backup data

just not as often as we should.

[ret5hd]

32. Because tech heads trust tech...it's our failing.

[Kelvin Mace]

33. And because

all our time is eaten up fixing other folks systems.

The cobbler's children have no shoes. :)

[Oilwellian]

34. One of my drives crashed recently

Probably my most important drive because it had all of my music & a family video I was working on. Fortunately, my son is a techy and has that machine (I call it a machine because I haven't a clue what exactly it is) that recovers data at his workplace. He said it would take 2 days straight to recover the data, and in the meantime I should buy one of those new separate tower drives that offers 250 GB of memory. Which I did and was amazed at how easy it was to set up...no going into the computer, just plug it in and voila, you have a huge amount of storage with relative ease for about $130. For that amount of money, you can buy an extra one and store all of your data on it...just in case. It's sure a lot easier doing that rather than copying all of your information to disks.

In the meantime, before my son could get around to recovering my data, the drive that went down just magically reappeared with all of my information intact. weird eh? You can be sure when I saw it, I immediately transferred everything to my new drive, and I'm going back out within the next couple of weeks to buy another tower as a backup system for all of my hardrives.

One thing that's always amazed me about computers, and I'm totally ignorant of their inner-workings, when I watch my son go into my computer for general maintenance, and see the inside of it, it's quite a jolt to see something you think of as being alive, is really just a bunch of metal & circuitry. I just sit there and think, wow, that's where my friends at DU and other places I visit reside....a very very odd juxtaposition. :D

[Kelvin Mace]

37. Maybe its just me, but when you work with them

and on them long enough, they seem to develop personalities. I name mine, but them like most geeks, I'm a little odd.

[The Vinyl Ripper]

38. You can do it for a good bit less than that ..

If you don't mind spending a half hour to put it together yourself.

The drive $54.99:

http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=ST3250820A-R&cat=HDD

The usb case $14.50:

http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=AP35OTB&cat=HDD

I have nothing whatsoever to do with this company except as a satisfied customer.

[Larkspur]

39. Thanks for sharing this information

Last week on Monday morning we had an unexpected thunderstorm roll through. Since then my Compaq Presario boot up because it can't find the operating system. The words COMPAQ still come up so I'm hopeful that the other data is still there.

There's a local company that caters to home users and businesses that will help me out. Wish me luck.

[Kelvin Mace]

42. The boot sector is probably

blown. This is an example of a "soft" error I mentioned in my original post.

[dkofos]

40. And remember to always do your backups!!

[Kelvin Mace]

41. I now run my browser and email

off a USB memory key. I back up the setting, bookmarks and mail to my desktop.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

43. I Have A Slave Drive Right Now That I Had To Disconnect. Computer Would Hang Up During Booting

when it was enabled. I had to disable it in the bios in order for my comp to boot with its main drive. The slave drive has soooooooo much important stuff on it, including my first born's baby pictures, and I was just about to look into sending it off. I'm hoping what you just said in your OP, about buying a new drive and replacing the board, will work.

As long as you're careful, there's no real risk of damaging the actual drive data?

[Kelvin Mace]

44. The symptoms you are describing

sound like the drive circuitry is fried. This is very similar to the problen I had, so I would say go for it.

As you can't get anything off the drive now, you have zero to lose and everything to gain by trying.

What model drive is it?

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

45. It's A Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 8. Just Almost Fried My Computer With It Too, After This Thread LOL.

Last night, after seeing this thread, it motivated me to explore trying to boot it again. I tried hooking it up in different configs with different jumpers, and it wouldn't take. I then tried attaching it to the middle connector on the cable coming out of the CD ROM, which is the secondary master drive. That would make the maxtor the secondary slave. When I did this, the whole system crashed when booting. I got a blue screen that said a problems been detected and windows has been shutdown to prevent damage to your computer etc. Even after disconnecting the drives and putting the configurations back to where they were, I still got the screen. Scared the shit out of me!

In any case, I've been offline since then and just now by some miracle got it working! I used the XP cd to boot from CD and then at the command prompt, ran chkdsk \r. Thank God I brought my system back to life. My wife was about to kill me! LOL

I still have no idea why that configuration would've impacted the boot sector or whatever on my main drive, but I do know I ain't gonna fuck with it again. I'll try the circuit board replacement thing maybe, but that's about it.

Anyway, thanks for the info!

[Kelvin Mace]

46. By all means

back up your files and keep an eye on it. I still suspect the hardware since soft failures don't act that way.