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amberbamber · Wed Aug 06, 2003 2:17 pm

I have a western digital 80G hard drive that started clicking and quit booting up. "No OS found"

Is it crashed for sure?

I tried replacing the controller card but the number model number wasnt exactly the same. The last 4 or 5 numbers after the dash were different. It didnt work anyway. I only want a few files off the drive.

If I do the data recovery any ideas of a inexpensive place?
I'm not a business.

I thought of getting a hard drive that is an exact match and just swapping out the disks myself and risking what ever happens. Only costs me another $70 for another HD. Depends on if I can get someone to recover the data for a reasonable rate.

Thanks,
Amber

LicketySplit · Wed Aug 06, 2003 2:34 pm

Welcome to the forums...try putting the drive in the freezer overnite..hooking back up(original) and getting info off while u can...it has and mite work on yours...data recovery is very expensive....try and recover what u can and be happy with what u get :wink:

BigGeek · Wed Aug 06, 2003 2:57 pm

I have used On-track many times for work and for personal. Their services start at about $700. As for the drive if you really need the data don’t open it. Just send it away and pay the money. I would Say you have no chance of getting the platters to work in a new drive body. Losing data sucks and paying good money to get it back is even worse. So the question becomes how much is your data worth?

muyuubyou · Wed Aug 06, 2003 3:01 pm

Have you tried the freezer trick?

amberbamber · Wed Aug 06, 2003 3:10 pm

No, but i've tried the hair dryer a long time ago on an older drive.

I think the prices for data recovery are way to high. And they only charge that much because they can I'm sure.

Open the drive put the platter in a new drive, done. That procedure should be much cheaper than anything else. Like maybe $300 max.
Thats all I would like done.

Thanks for the ideas,
I'll freeze it up tonight.

Amber

Mime · Wed Aug 06, 2003 3:18 pm

I'm curious as to how you're planning on getting the platters out. It's not very easy to get the platters out even if you don't care about screwing them up. A few people have done window mods on hard drives which have turned out fine, but doing a transplant like this is quite different...

thegleek · Wed Aug 06, 2003 3:24 pm

i will be taking bets 1000 to 1 odds that she fails at this attempt.

theres no way to solve yer problem girl. just trash the drive. buy a new
one, count yer losses and move on. this goes to show you that implementing
a daily backup or raid system beforehand would save u a lot of time,
money and grief in the long run...

Mime · Wed Aug 06, 2003 3:30 pm

Well...I wouldn't say that...the freezer trick might work. Also, if you know how the drive is constructed and where all the magnets are and such it should be much easier to take the drive apart. The problem isn't so much with the platters being exposed to the air, but with doing the actual transplant without scratching the surface of the platters. How that would be done, I dunno.

muyuubyou · Wed Aug 06, 2003 3:31 pm

The freezer trick worked to me twice out of 3 broken HDs, so there's still hope I guess.

Just keep the case open and hurry up with the backup.

thegleek · Wed Aug 06, 2003 3:36 pm

well u dont get it... u cant open up those drives to expose the platters
to dust and etc... it'll be 100% surefire way for yer hdd to fail in the future.

in the factories those hdd's are produced at, they are assembled in very
controlled enviroments and sealed work stations...

there's probably pix on the internet if u google enuff for them...

Mime · Wed Aug 06, 2003 3:46 pm

A few people have done window mods on HDs and they've turned out fine...

Yes it's true, it's not a good idea to expose the innards of a hard drive to open air unless you're in a clean room, but it's not going to cause the sky to rain with blood either. :roll:

muyuubyou · Wed Aug 06, 2003 3:50 pm

Nope. YOU don't get it.

Of course the drive isn't going to be fixed forever - but she has chances to have her valuable information back.

You know, some people have valuable information in their HDs besides pirated mp3, video, soft and porn.

thegleek · Wed Aug 06, 2003 3:57 pm

muyuubyou wrote:
Nope. YOU don't get it.

Of course the drive isn't going to be fixed forever - but she has chances to have her valuable information back.

You know, some people have valuable information in their HDs besides pirated mp3, video, soft and porn.

lol now yer implying and assuming what ppl have on their hdd's... you
dont even know who the **** i am you piece of barley wheat...

i program for a living, and i have far more scripts, client backups of
their servers, and more proprietary stuff that you can dream of.. and
all of thats backed up, and the backups are burned. so i have no worries
except if the world explodes, then who cares...

muyuubyou · Wed Aug 06, 2003 4:01 pm

Excuse me genius, we are a lot here programming for a living.

If you never have recovered a HD (the info in it) let those who have speak.

IntelMole · Wed Aug 06, 2003 4:29 pm

thegleek wrote:
lol now yer implying and assuming what ppl have on their hdd's... you dont even know who the **** i am you piece of barley wheat...

i SHALL HAVE to remember that one :-D

Data recovery costs so much because the methods used are inherently expensive...

Electron microscopes costs upwards of millions of dollars... they have to get that back somehow and until more people demand data recovery, the price will stay high...

Having said that, I once saw a new technique for making pure diamond(yes I said making) at UCL in the UK.

To check the surface of the diamond they used a setup whereby the amount of current passing through a wire was dependant on the distance the diamond was away from the wire...

Using extremely sensitive ammeters (galvanometers?) they can re-create the surface being looked at... I'd imagine this method will be much cheaper than electron microscopy when mature...

Was interesting, too bad the course wasn't anything to do with what I will be doing, :-D

IntelMole

amberbamber · Wed Aug 06, 2003 4:52 pm

I didnt say it was a good idea to take the drive apart or that it would work. I just thought I might try it for the hell of it. I dont have much to lose if I dont find someone to restore it for under $400 or the if the freezer trick will work.

I may do it just for fun to see whats in there

Might be a bunch of little gerbils running around and now they are tired of running or out of food.
Yea, I dont know what I'm doing but I'm not a total foo foo girl so I'll only lose the time and the price of the new hard drive.
If the freezer trick works "PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE" *Amber kisses sacred Bobby Brady Tiki Idol dol* then I will just bring the smack down on it just for fun. I might even find Jimmy Hoffa in there :wink:

I'll let you know if the freezer trick works tomorrow night.

Thanks for all the help!

Amber

Mime · Wed Aug 06, 2003 5:04 pm

If you do decide to take the drive apart, becareful of the magents in there. I can say from experience they can give you quite a nasty pinch.

Magnets of this kind are often called "Rare Earth" magnets. They're made of Neodymium Iron Boron, and when two of them get stuck together you cannot pull them apart. The only way to get them apart is to slide one off of the other.

red0510 · Wed Aug 06, 2003 5:10 pm

thegleek wrote:
i will be taking bets 1000 to 1 odds that she fails at this attempt.

theres no way to solve yer problem girl. just trash the drive. buy a new
one, count yer losses and move on. this goes to show you that implementing
a daily backup or raid system beforehand would save u a lot of time,
money and grief in the long run...

thegleek: Always a wealth of useful information :roll:

Is it possible to talk to anyone without sounding so Goddamned condescending?

Wed Aug 06, 2003 6:08 pm

Here's where you can find Western Digital's drive testing & repair software:
http://support.wdc.com/download/#dlgtools

Here's where you can initiate an RMA to have your defective drive replaced under warranty:
http://support.wdc.com/warranty/selecti ... sttype=END

thegleek · Thu Aug 07, 2003 9:01 am

red0510 wrote:
thegleek: Always a wealth of useful information Is it possible to talk to anyone without sounding so Goddamned condescending?

hehe yeah sure... depends on the time of the day i guess?! o_O

Thu Aug 07, 2003 9:18 am

I have a computer repair shop in Enid, Oklahoma, and we use Ontrack EZRecovery Pro. If you're close, we could try to recover your data. Rates depend on how much data you need recovered, usually an hour or two does it. My contact info is in my profile.

Not meaning to plug my business, just wanted to offer help in your price range.

Edit: Just FYI, if the drive is not too far gone to recover anything, you could easily pay for data recovery and purchase a raid controller and at least 2 hard drives to help prevent this predicament in the future.

amberbamber · Fri Aug 08, 2003 10:30 am

I tried the freezer trick. It didnt work, it still clicks like crazy.
I also tried to hot swap it with the other slave drive and explore the drive. It only listed some *.iso file and that was it. So I dont know if the data is gone now as well or it's just not browsable.
It's in the freezer again today and I'll try again tonight.
After that I think it might be time to get medieval on it's butt.

thegleek · Fri Aug 08, 2003 10:41 am

amberbamber wrote:
I tried the freezer trick. It didnt work, it still clicks like crazy.
I also tried to hot swap it with the other slave drive and explore the drive. It only listed some *.iso file and that was it. So I dont know if the data is gone now as well or it's just not browsable.
It's in the freezer again today and I'll try again tonight.
After that I think it might be time to get medieval on it's butt.

lol if u never opened one up before, you can go here to get a preview:

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/hard-disk2.htm

basically worthless junk inside... the platters are fun to throw around the
room and make noise.. and the magnets are cool to play with too...

Fri Aug 08, 2003 10:43 am

Amber: sorry to hear that the freezer trick didn't work.

And to the rest of you, a moderator should have stepped in long ago. Back off and please refrain from attacks and flames.

muyuubyou · Fri Aug 08, 2003 10:54 am

Sad to hear that. Be sure to leave the case open and everything ready for a backup because it won't work for long anyway.

Good luck!

Fri Aug 08, 2003 11:15 am

I'd like to second JustAnEngineer on giving the DLG tools a try. There's a slim chance it may fix the drive. (Though maybe not after the freezer... :-?

)

Fri Aug 08, 2003 11:32 am

Steel wrote:
I'd like to second JustAnEngineer on giving the DLG tools a try. There's a slim chance it may fix the drive. (Though maybe not after the freezer... )

Unfortunately it won't fix the clicking. That's a mechanical defect.

Fri Aug 08, 2003 11:41 am

Clicking is sometimes caused by the drive trying to read from bad sectors. If the bad sectors can be reallocated, the clicking stops

.

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