NOOO!!!.... is my hard drive toasted?

[iCzMan]

Ok... let me explain my situation here...

few days ago i was checking out the air flow of my computer and found the IDE cables were blocking the flow. Therefore, I lifted the cable up a bit and suddenly my IBM 60G 60GXP starts the 4 clicks cycle with patterns. in windows xp, i got much lower performance so i tried to shut the computer down but i got stuck at the point where xp says "saving personal files". i'm pretty sure it's not the windows' fault because i can really hear the hd kept clicking and clicking...

i immediately noticed that it's my hd that's failing so i power up the comp and tried to save wutever i can see now. unfortunately, right after the POST i got this "boot record not found" msg and couldn't get into windows what-so-ever. so i tried to use bootdisc to enter DOS and see if i can do anything from there. unluckly again i couldn't even access the 3rd partition that contains all my important files, my drive would just kept clicking w/out any responses.

you guys probably will ask "so did u back ur things up earlier?" sigh.... i was going to 2 days b4 the hd failed but forgot to perform the backup, gosh this is the most sucking experience ever

back to the HD. after that i use the famous IBM tool: Drive Fitness Test and check what's actually going on w/my damn HD. It reported with failure code: 0x70 which means defective and asked me to erase or repair the sectors. upon repairing the sectors it immediately gave me the screen saying that i have currupted sectors in my partition table or boot records, and it's impossible to repair those sectors.

IBM's DFT's no use now since it can't recover nor repair. so next i've tried the famous SpinRite 5.0, too bad it couldn't even report the hd's existence

but i was able to see the hex values of my sectors using Norton Utilities's Driver Editor. that tool has a function that alllows me to use the fat2 to overwrite the fat1, which i did. but it just gotten worse... now i can't even see my drive under dos, plus now the BIOS will report wrong values of my hd intermittingly, such as incorrect heads/sectors/volumn...

now i'm totally clueless on how to save the hd. i wouldn't dare to power it up again since i was told it's been scratching my platers w/those clicking noises... hence i called some data recovery companies and hope they would offer cheap solutions. i was wrong, w/my kind of situation they always want about $200 plus of fee to recover...which is even more then what i had paid for this hd ><

so i've been thinking about recovering by myself, since i'm not really sure it's scratching the platers cuz what i heard is patterned clicks and will only produce when the hd access some areas. but i have no clue on how to fix this almost toasted piece of junk...

can i perform some kind of partition table recover or rebuild and format the drive after that, then use other computer to unformate the drive with software?

any suggestions/advices on what should i do to recover those data? or do u know any place that offers cheap solutions that's sub $100?
i would greatly appreciate any replies

oh btw, i live in redmond, washington, which is pretty close to seattle.

 

[ScottMac]

Actually, I'd be more inclined to look at the cable. After they're in that nice warm environment, they soften up a little, then with you screwing with it (dumsh!t....j/k )you might have loosened the connector/cable junction. I know, I've done it "a few" times myself (dumsh!t that I am).

Try another cable before going overboard.

BTW: if you have flakey sigalling to the drive, the drive diagnostic program may return "flawed" results.

The general rule of fixin' stuff: Try undoing/replacing the last thing you screwed with before it broke.

FWIW

Scott

 

[iCzMan]

hi ScottMac, i'm pretty sure it's not the cable's problem cuz i've tried switching cables and it's clear that my hd's failing

 

[iCzMan]

a friend told me to use the freezer trick that ppl used to try on recovering their 75GXP defective hds...

he said "put your hd in a plastic bag, seal it so nothing can get in, and place it in the freezer for some time, then, get it out, hook it up, and start copying the data as fast as you can and claim warranty"

will that work? is it very risky?

 

[Derango]

It might work. I hope you've now learned how important having a good backup plan is though.

 

[Doctorweir]

oh btw, i live in redmond, washington, which is pretty close to seattle.

Ummm...I think everyone knows about Redmont...

Do you work for MSFT?

Sorry about your HDD, but this freezer thing sounds weird....

 

[owensdj]

iCzMan, try putting that drive on the secondary IDE channel with a good drive on the primary. You might be able to access it long enough to copy your important data to the good drive.

If you data is that important to you, you could try sending it to Drive Savers. I send someone's drive to them that had many of the same symptoms as yours, and they recovered all of the data on the hard drive for about $880.

 

[Anubis]

880$$ well there is a cheeper solution. BUy another HD install win Xp on it and place teh one that isnt workin as teh slave and see if windows will see it. if it does pull you data off it and onto teh new one then reformat the olf one reverse teh process and return teh one yo ujust bought. i had to do this a cople times runnin Win 2k when my HDs crrapped out on me. and teh freezer thing actually works a friend of mine tried it and he got back liek 90% of his data

 

[iCzMan]

Derango: yeah... i've learn my lesson

Doctorweir: oh? i didn't know redmond's that famous? btw i just live near M$, i'm still a student not an employee

owensdj: i've tried almost everything to access that drive, including using another comp or set it as a slave on the cable.. but still no use...

TheEvil1: i've too tried using another hd to access my currupted hd, but my problem is having bad sectors and currupted partition table, so windows xp won't even have tha ability to access however..... but i heard win9x does less error checking then 2k/xp, maybe i'll try to recover using 9x OSs...

 

[iCzMan]

btw, do i really have time to recover the data from that going-to-be freezing hd when i take it out of the freezer? won't the drive worm up quicker than i can make legit backups? or should i put my entire computer in there (maybe w/out the case....)?

if so, should i seal everything tightly so no moisture can get in including POWER SUPPLY. MOBO, and other CARDS?