My HDD Crashed!! Anyway to save it??

[CrunchTime]

Hey guys... I have a huge problem. Last night I left my computer on overnight and the next morning I wake up to a bluescreen error. Ive seen these before so I just restart. To no avail, the HDD is NOT being detected no matter what i do. Ive changed power cables, changed ide cables, changed IDE slots, changed the jumper cables on the back etc.. etc.. This Western Digital HDD was working for 8 months prior to this. What is wierd is that the HDD indicator light is ALWAYS on, like the HDD is frozen or something. Any ideas? I have valuble data on that HDD and would appricate any help. Thank god i have another HDD, my SATA drive which i have loaded up windows on.

[IvanAndreevich]

CrunchTime
Welcome to xtremesystems! If it is REALLY valuable, I would look for professional data recovery. However, if you want to take a crack at it yourself..

1) Try shaking it a bit. Heads might be jammed..
2) Put in into a freezer for 1 hour. Then take it out and copy your data off it while it's cold. Hopefully if anything is jammed, cooling it down will contract the metal and make it moveable.

[hatemi]

Ive fried 2 HDDs i about a year and they all have been broken the same way. First it says my windows is corrupted and while Im reinstalling it and formating partition C it just freeses at some point... Partitions D and E are still working but C is just somehow F***ed:(

[CrunchTime]

Thanks for the help. Ive posted on a few forums and generally got the same responses. I freezed it for 30 min, didnt work.. freezed it over nite, still doesnt work. Shaked the hell outta it, doesnt want to move!! Oh well... i guess thats what RMAs are good for :( Ive got most of my stuff back on this SATA HDD, but i had 30+ games on the other one - all have CDs for, but its just a hassle downloading all patches, etc etc. And my 10gig music collection over 7 years is gone :(

[3rd-Dimension]

i always keep an external and internal for back ups as well as cds for the isos. best way to make sure loss of data doesnt happen again.

[Popcicle]

...... welcome to the world of WD.

[lalPOOO]

Originally posted by Popcicle
...... welcome to the world of WD.

ahhahHAHhA, so true. I have a 20gig drive from them here that started making fun noises a couple years ago and then died, so it got RMA'd. Couple months later it just flat out died on me, so it got RMA'd. I still use it, but I sure as hell don't keep important data on it. Western Digital and me = :stick:

CrunchTime: I know the feeling, I lost a nice little mp3 collection myself. Not to mention a ton of drawings and art done on computer (like my avatar). Unfortunatly, you're probably screwed :(

[empty]

ive had my wd for 4 years..

[IvanAndreevich]

Weird. IBM's and Maxtors and WD's have all died over the years :)

[CrunchTime]

LOL funny that you all metion WD. I am through with WD for sure. When I first built my CPU, the HDD was DOA so instantly I wansn't happy with WD. An RMA later and now this. I can safely say that WD is not going to have another HDD on my computer for a long time :)

[cos]

Originally posted by CrunchTime
LOL funny that you all metion WD. I am through with WD for sure. When I first built my CPU, the HDD was DOA so instantly I wansn't happy with WD. An RMA later and now this. I can safely say that WD is not going to have another HDD on my computer for a long time :)

for me, it was IBM.

No problems with Maxtor and Samsung.

[Keeper]

When doing the freezer trick, it is best to make the damaged drive a slave. Trying to boot off it will warm it up too fast.

[lalPOOO]

Originally posted by CrunchTime
LOL funny that you all metion WD. I am through with WD for sure. When I first built my CPU, the HDD was DOA so instantly I wansn't happy with WD. An RMA later and now this. I can safely say that WD is not going to have another HDD on my computer for a long time :)

I thought that too, but remember, they control the flow of raptors. I really wish another harddrive manufactorer would step up to the plate and give them some competition though as their prices are way too high.

[hatemi]

My first one that died was a WD and the second was Maxtor...The WD was the more silent of them tough...Maxtors make damn loud noise when reading from the disc.

[LikwidKool]

Originally posted by hatemi
My first one that died was a WD and the second was Maxtor...The WD was the more silent of them tough...Maxtors make damn loud noise when reading from the disc.

your kidding right? Maxtor loud? Was it an older one, or a newer one? If you get any of the ones with liquid bearings, these things are quiet. I have had a few Maxtors, and just bought a 120gb Diamond Plus 9 which is silent. Right now I have a 40gb, 80gb and 120gb all with the liquid bearings. Don't know why the 120gb is so much more silent than my 80gb Diamond Plus 9 is, but it just makes a swishing noise when accessing data. My PC is real quiet now with the FSP 530 PSU and all my fans are under 30db, and I can still barely hear this 120gb.

I can't say anything about WD as I only owned one, and worked fine for a while, but I have had good luck with Maxtors and continue to buy them. Then again if I had the money for a 72gb 10K Raptor, it would be WD here I come!!!!

[hatemi]

It was a 80gb 7200RPM Fluid bearring drive. The HDD I have right now is 80gb Maxtoe SATA drive and this one is somewhat nicer to ears but nowhere near where it should be...

[sexsymbol]

You can try filescavenger or mounting the drive in linux, but from wath you say the drive looks badly injured. The drive actually spins?? Also you can look for a Hd exactly the same as yours fully functional, and put the underneath pcb on the broken one. That may fix it. I did that with a 60 gig IBM. If the problem is of the headers, the only way you can take the data out is in a recovery center, but they are extremly expensive.

[drunken_will]

Here's a site that's got a few ideas on how to retrieve data from a broken HDD:
http://lstech.org/resource_lib/hardware/desktops/200waysfixHD.html
Hope this helps...

[jrecks]

Hi,

Few month back, i had same problem with my HDD. I searched for recovery softwares and tried stellar phoenix data recovery software which recovered my damaged files as well as deleted files.
Thanks

[Loser777]

What the hell, this thread is OVER FOUR YEARS OLD. It makes no sense to revive it.

[Nanometer]

Let's find some more skeletons!