Topic: hard drive repair (worst case scenario)

[MarkE]

I had the absolute worst thing happen to me recently. Feel my pain....

I was writing a show from my laptop to my 3tb hard drive (Seagate Barracuda 3k gig) and the extension usb cable I had plugged into was yanked and the hard drive flew through the air and landed on the floor.. No it does nothing..  I only have ALL my regular audio (1+tb)  and ALL MY MASTER RECORDINGS (1.5tb) since 1997.. Yes I still have cd's and Dats, but this is basically my life in a small hard drive.. I almost cried...
   So looking online, it seems that if it is a mechanical failure I am looking between $800 and $1000 for pulling off the files.. Anyone have any experience with this happening and maybe a recommendation of a company or person who you have had good luck with? Ugh... I can't believe this happened...

MarkE

[Church-Audio]

I had the absolute worst thing happen to me recently. Feel my pain....

I was writing a show from my laptop to my 3tb hard drive (Seagate Barracuda 3k gig) and the extension usb cable I had plugged into was yanked and the hard drive flew through the air and landed on the floor.. No it does nothing..  I only have ALL my regular audio (1+tb)  and ALL MY MASTER RECORDINGS (1.5tb) since 1997.. Yes I still have cd's and Dats, but this is basically my life in a small hard drive.. I almost cried...
   So looking online, it seems that if it is a mechanical failure I am looking between $800 and $1000 for pulling off the files.. Anyone have any experience with this happening and maybe a recommendation of a company or person who you have had good luck with? Ugh... I can't believe this happened...

MarkE

The first thing to do is get a new case. Plug the old drive into the new case and see if that fixes the issue. It could be you damaged your usb electronics in the case. I would also open the case and make sure the connectors are tight to the drive. And have not popped off, That can happen. The are other methods but if your data is valuable I do not recommend them.  The first one that comes to mind is the freezer method. Where you put the drive in the freezer for 2 hours and then plug it in make sure you have the space somewhere to dump it and copy it over it you get it to work. But I would not do that if you want to take it to a data recovery lab. They will take the platters off the drive and transfer them to a new healthy drive.

These guys are the best, IMO.
http://www.datarecovery.com/

[yltfan]

Ouch. So sorry.
The damn things are sensitive. Mine just tipped over on the desk and it was toast.

[adrianf74]

Sorry to hear of this.

I'm with Chris on this one.  Try another enclosure.   The warranty's null and void by it being treated as such so there's NO harm in trying another case; the external cases that Seagate and WD use are pretty craptastic and will die if you breathe on them the wrong way (okay, maybe not that delicate but you know what I mean).

I'd also suggest having a second drive or two where you make a back up of the actual content.  In my streaming media PC, I use something called disparity which, essentially, creates a parity file-set in the event I lose one drive (the data on all other drives PLUS this set allows the "missing" drive to be rebuilt).  So there is a little redundancy there.  I also have a second set of portable 2.5" drives that have all of my masters and raw (stored separately) so that should the main drive die (and I fail to see it dying via SMART monitoring), I've still got my data.

Somebody here one wrote that if your data isn't backed up, it doesn't exist.  While you have CDs and DATs, those are not going to survive over time and with the cost of hard drives being as cheap as they are, I'd seriously consider cloning your drive to a second one "just in case."

Hopefully the new enclosure solves your problems; if not, you might have to try a data recovery service and that ain't cheap (as you've mentioned).

[bombdiggity]

Impact damage is of course very bad news for drives.  You can try removing the case and see if the problem is only the connections but trying to spin a drive where the mechanicals of the drive itself are damaged will nearly always make things much worse. 

These guys are the best, IMO.
http://www.datarecovery.com/

Yeah those are ones who have actual clean room facilities.  Nearly every other outfit that represents themselves as doing drive recovery doesn't have the facilities to do anything and is a rip off. 

[it-goes-to-eleven]

That's a bummer.  Table top drives are always a worry . Epsecially the "desktop" style drives. They're much less tolerant of impacts than notebook style drives.  I worry about even having "thunks" on a table where a desktop style drive is operating, especially if it is actively reading or writing.

Since you seem to be willing to pay for a clean room data recovery on this (if necessary), it is critical that you not do further damage.

You described the drive being yanked off the table while it was operating.  It is reasonable to assume that there is mechanical damage inside the drive. You should not power up the drive unless absolutely necessary (or at all), because it could result in further damage.  Imagine that the heads may be scraping across the platters, and that powering up the drive causes them to move back and forth, doing more damage.  Or, there is debris in the drive and it is circulating.

As others suggest, there could be a usb connector issue, or other electrical problems.  It is fine to work those issues, but do not do it with the drive connected.  You would need to remove the drive and then diagnose whether the drive power connector gets power, etc. But even if you fix those issues, I don't think you should risk powering the drive up.

Very few companies are qualified to do a recovery where the drive must be opened up. They'll just be sending your drive off to someone who can. So don't bother with intermediaries.

A proper recovery place, with the skills and available hardware, may remove your platters and install them into an identical model drive.  OnTrack is an old brand in the business, but I don't have any specifics recs.

Good luck!

[dnsacks]

Assuming you dropped the coin to have the hard drive repaired instead of retransferring your dats/cds, how would you verify the integrity of what they recover from the hard drive?  Do you have md5 checksums/etc. that can be run to confirm that files weren't corrupted?  If the drive platters suffered physical damage, it would follow that data stored on the damaged portion of the drive would be corrupted.  You may be better off retransferring and/or getting copies back from friends/etc. of whatever you've distributed.

[Fatah Ruark (aka MIKE B)]

#1: Sorry, I wish you the best in getting your data back.

#2: If you are reading this and don't have your important/irreplaceable data backed up, for THE LOVE OF GOD, go down to Best Buy RIGHT FUCKING NOW and back that shit up! A 2TB drive cost less than $100 and I can assure you that each and every one of you would gladly pay $100 after the fact vs. re-transferring all of your recordings. If $100 is out of your price range, it's time to skip a few shows and then buy a backup drive.

The more copies you have the better. And keep at least one off site so if your house burns down or gets robbed you can get it back.

[Church-Audio]

Assuming you dropped the coin to have the hard drive repaired instead of retransferring your dats/cds, how would you verify the integrity of what they recover from the hard drive?  Do you have md5 checksums/etc. that can be run to confirm that files weren't corrupted?  If the drive platters suffered physical damage, it would follow that data stored on the damaged portion of the drive would be corrupted.  You may be better off retransferring and/or getting copies back from friends/etc. of whatever you've distributed.

The op said his drive does not spin up. So he has very few choices except to take it to a data recovery lab or roll the dice and try the freezer. Provided that his case is not the issue.