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Recovering from a crashed hard drive

3

3Martini

Junior Member
Does anyone here know of a good link to info on how to rebuild a bad harddrive? I know that data recovery companies can fix a bad drive by buying the same model harddrive and then mounting the old platter in the new drive. I have tried googling for a faq or how-to on this, but couldn't find anything. Does anyone here have pointers on how to do this?
 
To start with, you need a clean room, lab environment. To even open a HDD in a normal area is almost certain contamination. With hard drives so cheap, it's not worth it.
 
Originally posted by: 3Martini
Does anyone here know of a good link to info on how to rebuild a bad harddrive? I know that data recovery companies can fix a bad drive by buying the same model harddrive and then mounting the old platter in the new drive. I have tried googling for a faq or how-to on this, but couldn't find anything. Does anyone here have pointers on how to do this?
Click to expand...


What model drive do you have?
 
Fortunately it is not my hard drive; it is a friend's drive. I am not sure what model it is yet (drive was only 2 or 3 years old). They lost a year's worth of pictures of their daughter and did not have a backup. I suggested they send it to a data recovery specialist, but they were put off by the high price.

I was just hoping I could find out how difficult this procedure is. They tried some software based recovery tools without succeess. Drives are so cheap now, I figured it might be worth a shot before giving up. But if it actually requires a clean room then I am definitely in over my head.
 
Do not waste your time. Even if you get it to work - how well will it work? Instability, bad sectors, data curruption. That's after the 30th time you would try to reinstall the OS on it.
 
I have two solutions:

1. Buy a new hard drive. Data recovery isn't cheap so it's not worth it for a few MP3's and pornos.

2. Invest in a tape backup unit and backup weekly to avoid this situation in the future.
 
Originally posted by: 3Martini
Fortunately it is not my hard drive; it is a friend's drive. I am not sure what model it is yet (drive was only 2 or 3 years old). They lost a year's worth of pictures of their daughter and did not have a backup. I suggested they send it to a data recovery specialist, but they were put off by the high price.

I was just hoping I could find out how difficult this procedure is. They tried some software based recovery tools without succeess. Drives are so cheap now, I figured it might be worth a shot before giving up. But if it actually requires a clean room then I am definitely in over my head.
Click to expand...

A friend had a crashed HDD with a lot of music files on it. I was able to hook it to my system as a secondary drive, boot my sytem, then access the damaged HDD. I was able to copy the music files to my drive, then a CD. You might try this method to recover his pictures. I recently heard about a freeware program called Bart's PE Builder that could be used to recover data. I don't know how to use it yet, but people have made good comments about it. You might do a Goggle for it and see if it can help.
 
All good suggestions - but the question was about rebuild, not recovery. Rebuild requires physical disassembly and replacement parts, etc. Try all the suggested recovery means and if you salvage data, be prepared to replace the drive.
 
Originally posted by: cockeyed
Originally posted by: 3Martini
Fortunately it is not my hard drive; it is a friend's drive. I am not sure what model it is yet (drive was only 2 or 3 years old). They lost a year's worth of pictures of their daughter and did not have a backup. I suggested they send it to a data recovery specialist, but they were put off by the high price.

I was just hoping I could find out how difficult this procedure is. They tried some software based recovery tools without succeess. Drives are so cheap now, I figured it might be worth a shot before giving up. But if it actually requires a clean room then I am definitely in over my head.
Click to expand...

A friend had a crashed HDD with a lot of music files on it. I was able to hook it to my system as a secondary drive, boot my sytem, then access the damaged HDD. I was able to copy the music files to my drive, then a CD. You might try this method to recover his pictures. I recently heard about a freeware program called Bart's PE Builder that could be used to recover data. I don't know how to use it yet, but people have made good comments about it. You might do a Goggle for it and see if it can help.
Click to expand...


If i am not mistaken, barts pe is for reparing and recovering a crashed windows installation on a working and fully functioning HDD.
 
The topic title, "Recovering from a crashed hard drive" implied to me that it is a OS failure. He also said they tried some "software based recovery tools" (5th post), which implies that the drive is operational. If it is a mechanical failure, all I can say is good luck!
 
If that's the case, Bart's PE, Ultimate Boot CD, or Hiren's Boot CD has utils that you can use to recover data from your hard drive.
 
Originally posted by: MrControversial
I have two solutions:

1. Buy a new hard drive. Data recovery isn't cheap so it's not worth it for a few MP3's and pornos.

2. Invest in a tape backup unit and backup weekly to avoid this situation in the future.
Click to expand...


But a years worth of your kids pictures is worth it. At least it would be to me, if they really want the memories and can somehow afford it then they should consider sending it off for recovery if they can't do it otherwise. If putting it into another computer as a slave will work then that would be my first try. Either way it's an important lesson learned, backup what you really want to keep.
 
Originally posted by: JediJeb
Originally posted by: MrControversial
I have two solutions:

1. Buy a new hard drive. Data recovery isn't cheap so it's not worth it for a few MP3's and pornos.

2. Invest in a tape backup unit and backup weekly to avoid this situation in the future.
Click to expand...


But a years worth of your kids pictures is worth it. At least it would be to me, if they really want the memories and can somehow afford it then they should consider sending it off for recovery if they can't do it otherwise. If putting it into another computer as a slave will work then that would be my first try. Either way it's an important lesson learned, backup what you really want to keep.
Click to expand...

Well, if your kid's pictures are worth ~$2000, then a data recovery firm seems to be the only route.
 
I'm dissapointed that everyone here on AnandTech has fogotten my own successful attempts to do this.

Here is a link to my l33t exploits: link
 
Sorry my topic title was confusing. I am trying to Recover data from a friend's crashed hard drive. I have no intention of fixing the drive permanently, rather I was looking for a way to get it running long enough that we could retrieve family photos. I don't care about the OS. Probably I was jumping to conclusions when I inquired about replacing the platter. I guess that is the choice of last resort.

My friend already took the drive to an "expert" who connected as a slave and ran diagnostic and software recovery programs, but failed to get the drive running.

Zephrprime's glove box is very impressive, but I am way too lazy for that. Plus I am still uncertain about the intricate details of the "operation."

I will try finding a replacement logic board for his drive and see if that cures it. If that fails I will give some of the other folk remedies a try too (freezing, banging, etc).
 
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