Guest Simon* Report post Posted October 14, 2009 (edited) Does anyone have any experience of having data retrieved from a dead hard drive? My laptop seems to have given up and I'd really like to get at least some of my photos back. And does anyone have a 2.5" SATA HDD USB caddy thing I could borrow to plug it in and try? Edited October 15, 2009 by Simon* Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
DRTDVL 0 Report post Posted October 14, 2009 (edited) There is a fantastic program called R-Studio that you can use. Whats happened to the drive? Is it making any sounds? Depending whats wrong with it i can walk you through how to do a couple things... Edited October 14, 2009 by DRTDVL Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Simon* Report post Posted October 14, 2009 No noise, doesn't hit bios or anything. HDD light illuminates at power on, then __________________ flatline. Nothing. Won't even boot from install CD and I'd pre-selected CD ROM, then HDD for boot check ages ago Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
martyyn 2 Report post Posted October 14, 2009 Dont laugh at me, but Ive done this twice and it worked a treat. You have two options. The first one is to just give it a gentle (but firm) tap on a hard surface. I didnt have the guts to do that..... The second is to put it into a ziplock bag and stick it in the freezer for 24 hours. I think it was 24, but you might want to search on the web just to be sure. It shrinks the internals and gets it all going again. I took mine out, stuck it between two chilly bin iceblocks and got two hours of use out of it before it died again. More than enough to get off the family photos and videos. Once done, you got and buy yourself one of those external, one press backup, drives and make sure you never have your photos on a single drive again ! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Simon* Report post Posted October 14, 2009 Already given it the "love tap" Born of frustration that one. Freezer method sounds scary, but ok. I have a little external HDD that I use for backing up my photos, but hadn't for about a month I guess. I have the majority of stuff still on my camera, but still - would have liked to retrieve it from the lappy if possible. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
*Glenn* 854 Report post Posted October 14, 2009 Once done, you got and buy yourself one of those external, one press backup, drives and make sure you never have your photos on a single drive again ! Thats what I have too. I bought 2 X 500gig external drives and everthing I have on my home, work & laptop is duplicated Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
DRTDVL 0 Report post Posted October 14, 2009 The second is to put it into a ziplock bag and stick it in the freezer for 24 hours. I think it was 24, but you might want to search on the web just to be sure. It shrinks the internals and gets it all going again. I took mine out, stuck it between two chilly bin iceblocks and got two hours of use out of it before it died again. You don't need 24hours... 30+ min is usually enough to get it running well enough to get some data off it... 2hours is gold, you do have to becareful of condensation on the circuit board when your running it... Also DON'T run it as the main drive... plug it in as a second drive. Also turn off your anti-virus so it doesn't auto-scan the hard drive this will help with keeping the heat down to start with. Perry, it's kinda funny the minute people remove the harddrive from their pc, espically laptops people treat them with kids gloves, but look at the abuse a laptop gets being thrown around, the drives are hard mounted into the laptop so they still get the shock in them... Most drives have to survive a i think it's something like 90 or 120g impact. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mtech1e30 0 Report post Posted October 14, 2009 The second is to put it into a ziplock bag and stick it in the freezer for 24 hours. I think it was 24, but you might want to search on the web just to be sure. It shrinks the internals and gets it all going again. I took mine out, stuck it between two chilly bin iceblocks and got two hours of use out of it before it died again.Some people suggest 2 hours max, some say overnight. The important thing is to make sure there is as little air as possible inside the zip lock bag. Less air = less condensation, and condensation is bad for computer components.Recovery program wise theres also "GetDataBack" but thats more for if you format it and then decide you didnt want to format it. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
DRTDVL 0 Report post Posted October 14, 2009 No noise, doesn't hit bios or anything. HDD light illuminates at power on, then __________________ flatline. Nothing. Won't even boot from install CD and I'd pre-selected CD ROM, then HDD for boot check ages ago Can you try anouther hdd in the machine? Could be the hdd controller on you motherboard. Probably the drive but it could be other things... If you leave the case of the HDD cover and put a finger on the drive can you feel the drive spin-up? Know anyone with the same HDD as you? you could try swapping over the circuit board to see if it's just the circuit board thats gone, anouther common problem... Had to do that a few times at work... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Simon* Report post Posted October 14, 2009 No other compatible stuff around. At this stage I'm looking at buying an external portable 2.5 SATA enclosure complete with 500GB drive like this Then I can rip the drive out and try mine in the enclosure and I'll have a new 500GB to chuck in the laptop Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Simon* Report post Posted October 14, 2009 OK I've been reliably informed that because the 2.5 drive is SATA I can plug it into anything with SATA drives. About to give that a crack and see if it's really dead Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
DRTDVL 0 Report post Posted October 14, 2009 yup that is correct... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
martyyn 2 Report post Posted October 14, 2009 Drive enclosures for laptop drives are only 30 bucks or so Simon. I use one as an external drive for work with a 120Gb laptop drive it in. Youre right Jon, My laptop gets thrown around the place, my external laptop drive in its enclosure is in the same bag and gets the same abuse. Its been a while since I froze the drive but the others have pointed out the pitfalls. Get all the air out of the bag, and try it for 2 hours first. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Simon* Report post Posted October 14, 2009 Drive enclosures for laptop drives are only 30 bucks or so Simon. It's even better than that. On pricespy they start at $9 incl GST! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest FrantiC Report post Posted October 14, 2009 Sounds to me like your laptop is F'd, not the actual HDD. If it's not even opening BIOS, You may have a dead CMOS battery. Unplug the harddrive and cd drives from the motherboard and try boot it up that way. A working motherboard will always boot to BIOS regardless of having storage devices connected or not. Atleast that way you can determine if the laptop has the problem, or if an external storage device is at fault. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Simon* Report post Posted October 14, 2009 Q? Can I hot swap SATA drives? don't wanna shutdown Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest FrantiC Report post Posted October 14, 2009 Q? Can I hot swap SATA drives? don't wanna shutdown Yes SATA is hotswappable. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Simon* Report post Posted October 14, 2009 Sounds to me like your laptop is F'd, not the actual HDD. If it's not even opening BIOS, You may have a dead CMOS battery. Unplug the harddrive and cd drives from the motherboard and try boot it up that way. A working motherboard will always boot to BIOS regardless of having storage devices connected or not. Atleast that way you can determine if the laptop has the problem, or if an external storage device is at fault. I wondered about that. BIOS is embedded flash right? So a dead HDD shouldn't stop me seeing BIOS splash screen Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest FrantiC Report post Posted October 14, 2009 (edited) I wondered about that. BIOS is embedded flash right? So a dead HDD shouldn't stop me seeing BIOS splash screen Exactly. But it is possible in rare cases bad HDD's cause your laptop/pc's to do funny things. But a no BIOS issue is almost always to do with something else, such as bad CMOS battery (not all laptops have I don't think). Would be worth trying to reset the CMOS if your motherboard has the jumper to do so, would be suprised how much times that fixes things. But try disconnect the drives and see if that helps. Oh also bad memory can do the same thing. Edited October 14, 2009 by FrantiC Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Simon* Report post Posted October 14, 2009 OK chucked laptop HDD in this machine's SATA CDROM slot and felt it spool up - so it doesn't look like it's that Bad RAM you say? Hmmm don't have another bit I can try Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest FrantiC Report post Posted October 14, 2009 OK chucked laptop HDD in this machine's SATA CDROM slot and felt it spool up - so it doesn't look like it's that Bad RAM you say? Hmmm don't have another bit I can try Hard to say without it infront of me.. I have mostly worked on heaps of desktop computers. Bad RAM can cause a whole lot of issues, including the BIOS not loading.. In a desktop this is where the PC would beep at you indicating a fault. Laptops usually don't though. Try unplugging drives first. See if that does anything. Then try removing, reinserting RAM. If you have more than 1 stick, try 1 , or swap them around etc. Try locate a reset CMOS jumper, or maybe replace the CMOS battery. Again, I don't know if your laptop has these. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Simon* Report post Posted October 14, 2009 There is no noticeable difference to the failed startup with or without the RAM DIMM in it. Hoping that this points to bad RAM Will try someone else's and see how I get on. So apart from that, what symptoms could I expect from a crook mboard? The CD ROM still spools but I get nothing onscreen and the HDD light stays off. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Simon* Report post Posted October 14, 2009 Hard to say without it infront of me.. I have mostly worked on heaps of desktop computers. Bad RAM can cause a whole lot of issues, including the BIOS not loading.. In a desktop this is where the PC would beep at you indicating a fault. Laptops usually don't though. Try unplugging drives first. See if that does anything. Then try removing, reinserting RAM. If you have more than 1 stick, try 1 , or swap them around etc. Try locate a reset CMOS jumper, or maybe replace the CMOS battery. Again, I don't know if your laptop has these. Yeah I'm the same. Pulling apart PC's is easy. It's bloody hard just exposing the mobo in this thing! Only one stick - am gonna go try someone else's DDR2 and see how that works. Will do the full pull-apart thing later if nothing else works and start playing with the mobo Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest FrantiC Report post Posted October 14, 2009 There is no noticeable difference to the failed startup with or without the RAM DIMM in it. Hoping that this points to bad RAM Will try someone else's and see how I get on. So apart from that, what symptoms could I expect from a crook mboard? The CD ROM still spools but I get nothing onscreen and the HDD light stays off. Could do. I suggest checking the CMOS battery first. There is a certain chain of event's the motherboard goes through when it powers on. I can't remember if RAM was right at the start or not, I guess it can differ between boards though. I can tell you common causes to common issues though, they are hard to relate to a laptop though as they are different in some cases. A bad motherboard is very rare, but can happen. Usually a no screen, no boot up 'coma' state is caused from a bad CMOS battery, bad power supply or bad RAM. In a desktop pc, to diagnose you would plug only PSU, and motherboard together, and on/off buttons etc and speaker. If all components are working, the motheroard will beep. Add RAM and the PC should boot to BIOS, no furthur as there are no storage or boot devices to proceed. What sort of laptop is it anyways?? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Simon* Report post Posted October 14, 2009 Yeah the absence of the PC beep kinda throws me. Isn't there enough flash memory on a mboard to hit bios even without any RAM installed? It's a Dell XPS There's like 20 bloody screws and lots of plastic to bend to get it all apart! Pisses me off Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
