Failed hard drive – Options?

Avoriaz

Before returning a disk for a warranty replacement, is there anything I can do to hopefully recover data from a failed disk?

My brother in law uses 2 x 2.5 inch Maxtor Basics external USB drives for backing up his data. One of the drives has failed. It isn’t a disaster because most of his data is either on the other working drive or on his computer, but there is some stuff that was only on the failed drive. He isn’t computer literate and made the mistake of not having at least two copies of everything. He won’t do that again with a bit of luck.

All he has lost are some scans (jpg pictures) of his business orders taken since year start. It will only take him a few hours or so to redo all the scanning work so it is not worth spending money on a data recovery service.

He brought his computer and drives to me today to see if I could help.

The failed drive is no longer seen in Windows. It powers up and the platter can be heard and felt spinning but the computer doesn’t see it. I have also tried it on my computer with no success.

I opened up the Maxtor plastic case, removed the disk (a Seagate Momentus 5400 SATA) and tried it in some of my caddys. Still no joy so the fault is clearly in the disk and not the Maxtor caddy circuitry.

There is nothing obviously wrong with the disk, no loose or bent pins, obviously burnt parts of the circuitry etc.

As a last resort I tried putting it in the freezer for a few hours to see if that cured it. No joy with that either.

So it is time for him to send it back for a warranty replacement and redo the scanning work unless anyone has any suggestion of anything else I might try.

Any suggestion would have to be DIY at home rather than spending money and also not invalidate the warranty. (Seagate won’t know I put it in the freezer )

Thanks.

diable

I had the same thing with a drive and managed to get a bootable version of Knopix (linux) that booted up and managed to access the drive, managed to get some data off.

Ximian

I've heard mixed opinions about the hard drive in the freezer, it's worked for some but not for others, I guess it depends on extent of the fault. Some hard drives will make a "clunking" sound when they start failing and I think the freezer trick is good for those types of faults. But with your BIL's drive it sounds like the circuitry is faulty. Data recovery companies aren't cheap either. Diable's suggestion sounds good, a Live Distribution of Linux might work, it's worth a shot.

BillScarab

You could try Hiren's Boot CD. It has lots of utilities for disk diagnostics and data recvoery. Some of the stuff on it is of doubtful legality though so it's up to you.

Shimrod

Have you tried seagate's own diagnostic tools? I had a western digital HD that showed as a general read failure, and the WD tools were able to recover the drive.
http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?locale=en-US&name=internal-downloads&vgnextoid=3170aa08362e3210VgnVCM1000001a48090aRCRD

totalsolutions

you could do worse and try https://www.grc.com with their Spinrite product. I have a copy so you could be in luck as we are both on the same planet, ATM.

closed

Putting it in the freezer was a bad move, condensation and a spinning head don't go together well, opening the case may also void the warranty. Some of the bigger capacity drives have a firmware bug and fix, and a free data recovery service from Maxtor/Seagate if that is the cause, but after it's been in a freezer, don't hold your breath

Avoriaz

diable wrote: »

I had the same thing with a drive and managed to get a bootable version of Knopix (linux) that booted up and managed to access the drive, managed to get some data off.

BillScarab wrote: »

You could try Hiren's Boot CD. It has lots of utilities for disk diagnostics and data recvoery. Some of the stuff on it is of doubtful legality though so it's up to you.

Thanks, those are useful to know. It may make more sense for my brother in law to get the disk replaced under warranty and rescan his missing documents. If it had valuable data on it I would try those but they are probably going to be more time consuming than just rescanning the missing docs.

Thanks anyway. The suggestions are appreciated.

Avoriaz

Shimrod wrote: »

Have you tried seagate's own diagnostic tools? I had a western digital HD that showed as a general read failure, and the WD tools were able to recover the drive.
http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?locale=en-US&name=internal-downloads&vgnextoid=3170aa08362e3210VgnVCM1000001a48090aRCRD

Thanks, I'll try that but I don't think this is a read failure. Windows can't even see the disk to attempt to read it.

I'll give it a go anyway. I might get lucky.

Avoriaz

closed wrote: »

Putting it in the freezer was a bad move, condensation and a spinning head don't go together well, opening the case may also void the warranty. Some of the bigger capacity drives have a firmware bug and fix, and a free data recovery service from Maxtor/Seagate if that is the cause, but after it's been in a freezer, don't hold your breath

I didn’t just put it on top of the ice cubes. It was wrapped in absorbent tissue and inside a plastic bag and there was unlikely to be any significant moisture inside the bag to condense. It was dry as a bone when I took it out.

The drive is knackered anyway and contains no vital or irreplaceable data so I told my brother in law there was nothing to lose by trying the freezer trick, which can work sometimes as a last resort for failed electronics.

There are no warranty issues. The plastic case is just a snap fit and once reassembled there is nothing to show that it has been opened. Only obvious tampering with the disk itself might risk warranty refusal.



PS: Anyway, I only froze a disk drive. This guy freezes an entire computer.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=2261617

:whistle:

closed

It's not the outer case you have to worry about, it's the air inside, one blob of moisture on the platter as it heats up, and it will ruin the head, it's a last resort out of warranty, as I said, some drives have a firmware problem, if yours is one of them, then new firmware may fix it - see the Seagate website.