Hard drive data recovery

[martyyn 2]

Booted up my wifes laptop yesterday to get the following message

No primary hard disk found

Its making a fair bit of noise too

Now its only used for email and internet stuff so I couldnt care less, but it also has all of our home video and pictures and I seriously dont want to lose those. I normally back up every couple of months but what Ive lost now I desperately want back.

Ive got hold of a data recovery place off the web with a no data no fee arrangement, but do any of you have any experience with data recovery ? Any tips that I can try myself ?

[entscheidend 0]

Best guess would be the hard drive has failed, hence all the noise it makes. You can actually take a hard drive out of a laptop and connect it to a desktop computer using a device called a USB Hard Drive enclosure. That way you can use the harddrive from the laptop through the USB port on another computer. Not a 100% guarantee, but definitly worth a try....

[martyyn 2]

Yep tried that, no luck

[hybrid 1044]

basically .. _don’t_ try yourself unless you really know what your doing .. The best chance to keep your data is to give it to one of these places who have the physical gear to do it..

I use to dabble in it myself and the more the disk is un-touched the better chance you have. Its usually just a mechanical failure of the armature.

[Carl 3]

So long as you've got legit software on the disk take it in to a pro, there's no way you can fix a mechanical problem yourself.

[martyyn 2]

Jaysus, Im in the wrong business.

Just heard from the recovery bloke and he believes he'll be 100% sucessful and if so it will cost between 1000-1500 dollars

Do I like my photos that much ?

[Guest Ken]

"Noise" is NOT good!!! If the head mechanism is in any way damaged then continual start-ups could well be damaging the disk platter, much reducing any chances of recovery at all.

I have, in the past, managed to swap the onboard drive controller with another from an exact model drive but I suspect the odds of doing that are very slim with a laptop HDD.

You don't want to hear this but the best way to recover is from a backup - NO EXCUSES!!!

See ya next week?

[Andrew 30]

I've used data recovery about 10 times now

Cost is AT LEAST 2k per disk.

[Deftones 0]

I agree with Ken. Nothing beats an old fashioned backup. I have one of those USB HDD enclosure things. Does the trick.

[hybrid 1044]

I wrote a lil bat file that copies all of our studio's Music HDD and Samples HDD to a 250Gb HDD ... its sitting down on the tray icon all I have to do is click it .. and it mirrors the data ... perfectly .. do this right after a recording session without fail ... already been caught with my pants down before... never again

[Gus 5]

a lil bat

been caught with my pants down before

hah

[E30stz 0]

I suggest you do what was mentioned early and put the hard-drive in a USB enclosure, if you can run it as a slave drive, your desktop might be able to repair it for you.

Or you could get a IDE removeable tray drive for your desktop, get a IDE -> Laptop HD converter and then run it as a slave HD if running it as USB formfactor doesnt work.

Running it as a slave, it should detect inconsistancys on the drive upon startup, and automatically try and bandage up the harddrive, keep in mind sometimes you can lose data, but generally its enough that you can run it at least as a secondary drive and retrieve all your information off before it dies for good.

Edited April 26, 2007 by E30stz

[OLLIE 26]

it sounds as though it is mechanical which means 1-2k to recover data, you decide whether it's worth it.

suggestions

find out the brand of the hard drive, go to their website (on another computer) and download the drive diagnostic software which most brands have, plug the drive into the other pc in an enclosure and run the test.

Backup!!! Norton ghost, genie backup, have a look on google for a good one, and invest in a DVDRW collection or an external drive to back up to.

[nz320i 0]

On Track Easy Recovery professional - from katz.com

worked for me to get most of data from my so called "corupt" hdd.

[martyyn 2]

Hate to drag up and old thread but thought Id post about what Ive been up to tonight.

Decided to bite the bullet and try the urban myth of sticking the drive in a plastic zip-lock bag and sticking in the freezer. Didnt even need to bother doing that, stuck it in a bag between two ice packs whilst connected up to an external usb enclosure and job done

Drive works well and Ive just dragged off everything of any value. So now its all going onto DVD for safe keeping.

[bravo 35]

While we're back on this, what is the easiest way to backup assuming you don't have a RAID array?

For instance, I have an external HDD I can backup to. I have a partitioned drive with Windows and Apps on the left and Data on the right. How can I most effectively (read easy and quickly) backup remembering if it is not quick/easy I probably won't.

[Guest Ken]

While we're back on this, what is the easiest way to backup assuming you don't have a RAID array?

For instance, I have an external HDD I can backup to. I have a partitioned drive with Windows and Apps on the left and Data on the right. How can I most effectively (read easy and quickly) backup remembering if it is not quick/easy I probably won't.

Check out Robocopy - a freebe from MS. I use this in conjunction with Windows scheduler to a USB external drive. It produces a very nice log of progress too.

[walker 0]

Hate to drag up and old thread but thought Id post about what Ive been up to tonight.

Decided to bite the bullet and try the urban myth of sticking the drive in a plastic zip-lock bag and sticking in the freezer. Didnt even need to bother doing that, stuck it in a bag between two ice packs whilst connected up to an external usb enclosure and job done

Drive works well and Ive just dragged off everything of any value. So now its all going onto DVD for safe keeping.

Thats awesome. Nice to know something works!