Dead Hard Drive - First Casualty

Dr. Gajaprishthakara

After only three weeks here, my external hard drive has died. Lights come on and it clunks and clunks and clunks and that's about it. Any advice for getting the data off?

IVAN

If it's an USB box with a (SATA or IDE) HD in it, the first thing to check would be if it is the fault of the USB box or the HD's itself by trying to connect the HD to a PC with its original (SATA or IDE) interface (obviously not as the boot disk)

It's probably the disk itself, though...

Btw. there are companies that do data extraction from failed disks, but they are generally extortionately expensive...
On the other hand, you are in India, and it could be cheaper, even affordable, who knows? Try to find a computer service and get a diagnosis from them, if something can be done, and how much it would cost.

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Dr. Gajaprishthakara

Thanks Ivan - I will see what I can find here.

Go Croatia!

IVAN

Probably best to ask the question on a specialized computer forum though (sorry don't know english speaking ones), maybe even an Indian one for advices about local computer services.
Indian members of this forum probably know some.

Btw, does the HD's icon appear at all in Explorer?

pmvelu

Try out www.pcguide.com .. People there are really friendly (Like our site) & I used that forum twice when I had the problem of "System automatically getting rebooted" problem .. Their Solution helped me a lot at that time..

In Chennai too , data recovery services are costly and till now My harddisk crashed twice (For past 9 years) & both the times, I am forced to start a new life ..

BTW, I always had a backup of improtant stuff in Yahoo briefcase (In Initial days - Around 1998 & from Late 2005 - Pen Drives)


Hope this helps.

Cheers ...

SteamBuff

An outside chance is that the power supply is failing (Can't supply enough current), so it might be worth trying the drive in another enclosure.

but...

Usually when the drive does that, you have to replace the drive ... so sorry it looks as if all the data has been lost.

ba9rn

Though as Ivan said in post #2, data extraction from the raw platter is possible, at a cost.

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IVAN

Sometimes, extraction from the raw platter is not necessary, if it is the electronics of the disk that failed.
In that case, one replaces just the electronics.

But even that method is often prohibitive.

For simple mortals... it's generally kiss, kiss, good bye...

But it doesn't hurt to inquire.

Theoretically, one could buy the very same model of disk, and try to replace the complete electroncs from one disk to the other oneself, since in most disks the electronics are exposed... Could be tricky though...

pmvelu

Ivan, You mean to say Making the new HDD as slave and the problematic one as Master and do a Full copy across ?..

Just Curious !!.

SteamBuff

I would not move the electronics from one drive to another. The boards are matched to the drive during manafacture, and you could end up with 2 broken drives ... and your warranty is void as soon as you take the board off.

IVAN

If you are referring to my previous post, I meant to physically remove the electronics board (with the chips) from the failed disk, and replace it with the board from a new disk of the exact same type.

On some models it should be possible...

But if it is a mechanical problem, plates scratched by a shock etc. then the extraction from the disk plates themselves would probably cost tens of thousands of Dolars.

If you are referring to my first post where I suggested the removal of the disk from its USB case and testing it in a PC, then I guess it should be slave if it is IDE, as it is not the boot disk. But if it is a 2.5 inch disk and is IDE, one needs a special adapter to connect it to the IDE cable (no such problems with SATA).

But, like SteamBuff said, one could try to put the disk in a new USB case insead. It's even simpler, if you can find one.

IVAN

Agreed. It's just the last resort measure, and only if you can afford two broken drives if things go wrong.
Better be done by someone who has experience with electroncs and can asess if it can physically be done at all on the specific drive model (and if it is an electronics and not mechanical problem).

One should inquire about that method with some disk repairmen themselves, and if they can do it for an acceptable cost, or at all.

IVAN

The warranty is also an issue, but I think that under warranty they would not perform such electronics board replacement anyway. It would be cheaper for them to give you a new disk... Which of course doesn't help with the loss of data...

In the end it is about how much the data are worth, and how much it would cost.

pmvelu

Thanks for your insights Ivan ..

&

Dr,

In Chennai , Data recovery services Costs 2000 Rs / HD . Just now I cross-checked with my friend who used the data recovery service people a week back ... Hope this gives you a idea whether to go for it !!

SteamBuff

Pmvelu - That is very cheap if it covers recovering the data from a broken drive ... I suspect that is try and recover data where the boot sector or index has been corrupted or files deleated! (Drive spins up and comes ready)