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Hard Drive Rescue

Del
polycounter lvl 9
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Del polycounter lvl 9
~ Okay so I was just transferring some ̶s̶e̶c̶r̶e̶t̶ ̶h̶a̶c̶k̶e̶d̶ ̶p̶l̶a̶y̶s̶t̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ ̶n̶e̶t̶w̶o̶r̶k̶ ̶d̶a̶t̶a̶ ̶ regular normal files.

Then my external hard drive (maxtor 1tb external) started going all Megatron on me and spewing out a grinding noise. Now this little creature has almost 1tb of my life on it. I'd just like to to know are these things recoverable? I'm not really bothered about losing all the art I ever made, its the family photos and the goat porn that's really important. I've attached a picture of the bastard. k thnx bye
mxtr.png



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  • Mark Dygert
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    Mark Dygert mod
    I'm sorry to hear about your loss... That's heart breaking to hear. Yet another reminder that data should never exist in only one place, especially when that one place is portable and made of decades old platter drive technology.

    There are services available, but most of them are location specific but a few might operate through the mail, I'm not sure I would send a damaged drive to someone... Someone local might be able to recover some of it but you're probably better off preparing for the worst and being surprised if they recover anything. The ones in my area are super expensive and I've never thought it worth it to go after the data.

    Thanks for the painful reminder to back up often and to a few places...
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  • haiddasalami
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    haiddasalami polycounter lvl 14
    Photorec is one I use to recover stuff if you can get it to boot/show up in Windows/mac. Otherwise yeah you might need to visit someone to get anything off it which can get pricey.
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  • System
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    System admin
    This sounds nuts, but have you tried putting it in the freezer?

    I had a laptop HDD do the same thing. Grinding noise followed by not being able to access it.

    I wrapped it in a little plastic bag, put it in the freezer for about 45 mins, then stuck it in my laptop and it worked for about 8 minutes or so, enough time to grab the most important files.

    I'm assuming this method only works for certain HDD problems, but worth a shot if your HDD is broken anyway. It may or may not be more effective if you dismantle the outer casing to expose the drive inside, so it responds better to the freezing.

    Again, I know it sounds nuts, but it does work.
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  • System
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    System admin
    EDIT: Aww, first post on new account, apologies if the above suggestion is made before my post is approved.
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  • Del
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    Del polycounter lvl 9
    ~ Thnx guys, I have nobody to blame but myself really. Just glad I finished Luigi before I lost him.

    I'll take the advice and see if I can get a quote on recovery. In the future I think I'm gonna start making my photos physical.. Especially because I don't use facebook or anything.

    *sigh*
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  • greevar
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    greevar polycounter lvl 6
    Ok, here's what you do:

    Use a dust proof enclosure to work in.
    Get another drive of the exact same model and spec.
    Put them both in the enclosure.
    Disassemble them and swap out the platters.
    Reassemble the drive with the data and you're good to go!

    Wait, you don't have a dust proof enclosure nor tools to disassemble the drives? Well, sorry. You're hosed.

    Seriously though, that's what it will take to get that data recovered.

    Facebook is evil! Use Imageshack or something like that.

    If you do get it back, could I have some of that goat porn?
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  • Andreas
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    Andreas polycounter lvl 11
    Hmm, grinding noise? Has it been dropped? Probably wouldnt make a grinding noise unless its been dropped. If it hasnt indeed been flung across the room, you should be able to retrieve most of the data. Search the forum, lots of threads on this. Oh and get yourself a dropbox! :) And back up to DVD regularly.
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  • Grimm_Wrecking
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    Grimm_Wrecking polycounter lvl 8
    Recuva I've used this little diddy to recover some lost information @ work for my boss and such.

    It wont get everything back, but you might be able to get some stuff with it.
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  • The Flying Monk
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    The Flying Monk polycounter lvl 18
    If the drive still powers on, you can always give this a try.
    http://geeksaresexy.blogspot.com/2006/01/freeze-your-hard-drive-to-recover-data.html

    Never tried it myself. But putting PC components in the freezer, hey what could go wrong?

    Greevar, your forgetting that not only does it have to be the exact same model. It has to have the exact same firmware version.

    Yeah, hard drive recovery can be expensive.
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  • greevar
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    greevar polycounter lvl 6
    "Greevar, your forgetting that not only does it have to be the exact same model. It has to have the exact same firmware version."

    Thus I said model and spec.
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