Dead HDD

[tokenuser]

I had a 300GB HDD sitting in an external drive enclosure.
It was my backup drive for my laptop, and for various reasons (ie lack of space on my local machine, and the original media being stolen, was my sole copy of photos we took in Europe). I went to copy them elsewhere ... and my backup is dead.

The drive still spins up, but is not recognised by XP.

I have removed the drive from its external enclosure and attached it to a known other working enclosure, but its still dead (spins up, but not being recognised).

Anyone got some suggestions on this?

Any suggested bootable linux iso that might be worth a shot? I did have backtrack iso around here ... on the backup drive.

[mikec]

Freeze the drive?

A friend had her primary drive fail and we made several attempts to get it to be recognized, finally one day Windows and the drive just connected. We were able to get data off but I could see the drive was slowing down as time went on.


Literally we tried maybe six to eight times over four or six weeks, each time no luck, then POOF, it worked.

Good luck.

[tokenuser]

The drive freeze trick is normally only when there are stuck heads. Mine isn't making clacky clakcy sounds. If its dead, I guess it can't hurt ...

[bani-banan]

How about spinrite? It has saved my ass a couple of times.

You could pirate it, but I think it's worthy of its $70
http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm

I only know how to use the "security penetration" tools on backtrack so no help from me, sorry.

Good luck!

[assid]

first off I would suggest you check if the drive is being detected in BIOS.
I totally agree, SpinRite is a great tool. It should be a great tool for you to go in and check if your drive is totally gone. You can use it to check your drive and even check for bad sectors if i am not mistaken. One thing you gotta remember that once its started doing this, you may want to shop for another drive. Trusting data on a drive that has already failed once, isnt that good of an idea.

[treeh]

first off I would suggest you check if the drive is being detected in BIOS.
I totally agree, SpinRite is a great tool. It should be a great tool for you to go in and check if your drive is totally gone. You can use it to check your drive and even check for bad sectors if i am not mistaken. One thing you gotta remember that once its started doing this, you may want to shop for another drive. Trusting data on a drive that has already failed once, isnt that good of an idea.

Yeah, I wondered why not one said that:P

Is the drive recognized in the BIOS? If it is, first try SpinRite, and if that's unsuccessful, format the drive, and see if XP recognizes it then.

[tokenuser]

Yeah, I wondered why not one said that:P

Is the drive recognized in the BIOS?

Very simple reason it is not detected in BIOS ...

I had a 300GB HDD sitting in an external drive enclosure.


It was my backup drive for my laptop

If it is, first try SpinRite, and if that's unsuccessful, format the drive, and see if XP recognizes it then.

Formatting the drive kinda defeats the purpose of trying to recover the files off the drive. I dont care about the drive itself. I care about the files on the drive. The drive can be replaced (and already has).

[treeh]

[QUOTE=tokenuser;396596]Very simple reason it is not detected in BIOS ...

Ah, sorry. If it's not recognized in the BIOS, and it's a mechanical failure, I don't see how you will be able to retrieve you data. Too bad. :(

If your drive is under 3 years of age (and you don't tell them you took it out of the external enclosure), you can probably get it replaced for free.

[tokenuser]

[QUOTE=tokenuser;396596]Very simple reason it is not detected in BIOS ...

Ah, sorry. If it's not recognized in the BIOS, and it's a mechanical failure, I don't see how you will be able to retrieve you data. Too bad. :(

If your drive is under 3 years of age (and you don't tell them you took it out of the external enclosure), you can probably get it replaced for free.I buy bare drives, and place them in the enclosure myself. Only exception is a slim 250GB WD drive.

I will go the replacement route ... but only after exhausting methods to try and get the data off.

I might try it in a desktop machine later today ... but I will need to get that box out of mothballs and hook it up to a monitor, keyboard, etc. (I normally VNC into it, but thats not going to work with BIOS settings).

[mikec]

I wish I could offer something more. The drive that failed in my friend's machine never was recognized when it was in an external enclosure. I had to plug it into the machine it came from. I do know that the drive was powering up and down, when I had it in the external enclosure but the last time in the case it decided to be functional.



I think I will be getting a Drobo myself.

[tokenuser]

Just won an auction on ebay ($32 shipped) for the same model drive. I might have to reflash the firmware on the drive, but I am hoping to swap the circuit board on the dead drive with the new one and recover it that way ... otherwise will resort to pulling old drive apart, and reassembling platters in the new drive.

There is stuff on that drive I need to get off of it.