X15 died: How to recover data from crashed heads

FreshPrince

Diamond Member
Dec 6, 2001
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My x15 just died :(

I can hear the clicking sound of the head hitting the disks as I boot up the pc. Any HDD gurus out there who can show me a thing or two about recovering from crashed heads?

thx!

- AG
 

FishTankX

Platinum Member
Oct 6, 2001
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If the data is really important you might need to go to a professional data recovery center.
 

dkozloski

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
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My experience with actual head crashes is that furrows are plowed in the platters and your data is now a sifting of magnetic powder residue. Contact your banks loan department before calling a data recovery service.
 

VBboy

Diamond Member
Nov 12, 2000
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In some cases, you can buy the same model hard drive; then, take the old plates and put into the new HD. If you do this in a clean environment, you may get lucky and the HD will read the old data.
 

FreshPrince

Diamond Member
Dec 6, 2001
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This sux :(

Even if I RMA this thing, I still won't be able to get the data back :( This is where I wish I had raid1 setup :(
 

Thor86

Diamond Member
May 3, 2001
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Originally posted by: FreshPrince
This sux :(

Even if I RMA this thing, I still won't be able to get the data back :( This is where I wish I had raid1 setup :(

If your data was THAT important, you should have had off-drive backups! CD burners are so cheap these days.
 

FreshPrince

Diamond Member
Dec 6, 2001
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Originally posted by: Thor86
Originally posted by: FreshPrince
This sux :(

Even if I RMA this thing, I still won't be able to get the data back :( This is where I wish I had raid1 setup :(

If your data was THAT important, you should have had off-drive backups! CD burners are so cheap these days.

it's tough to backup 30GBs of data on cds :(
 

John

Moderator Emeritus<br>Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
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Originally posted by: FreshPrince
Originally posted by: Thor86
Originally posted by: FreshPrince
This sux :(

Even if I RMA this thing, I still won't be able to get the data back :( This is where I wish I had raid1 setup :(

If your data was THAT important, you should have had off-drive backups! CD burners are so cheap these days.

it's tough to backup 30GBs of data on cds :(

It's even tougher when you can't. Invest in a tape backup or DVD burner.
 

Whitedog

Diamond Member
Dec 22, 1999
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This is where I wish I had raid1 setup
It's even tougher when you can't. Invest in a tape backup or DVD burner
Simply having another HD either in your computer, or on a network computer and running an XCOPY Batch file backup is all you need...

I've a dedicated HD in my Server computer at home that stores important --> critical backup files.. On each of my PC's, I have a Batch file in the startup that does an xcopy to it...

If you program the batch file right, you only copy the files you want to keep, and you only copy files that have changed...

Normally it only takes about 5 seconds to run, so that's not a lot of time added to my startup to insure my files are safe.

You can do the same thing with a disk locally on the same machine.. no need to run raid "just for backup", though it is better to have it on a seperate computer as it's been known for an OS to completely corrupt all data on all hard drives in a PC (it happened to me years ago)

Sorry about your lose.
 

FreshPrince

Diamond Member
Dec 6, 2001
8,361
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Originally posted by: Whitedog
This is where I wish I had raid1 setup
It's even tougher when you can't. Invest in a tape backup or DVD burner
Simply having another HD either in your computer, or on a network computer and running an XCOPY Batch file backup is all you need...

I've a dedicated HD in my Server computer at home that stores important --> critical backup files.. On each of my PC's, I have a Batch file in the startup that does an xcopy to it...

If you program the batch file right, you only copy the files you want to keep, and you only copy files that have changed...

Normally it only takes about 5 seconds to run, so that's not a lot of time added to my startup to insure my files are safe.

You can do the same thing with a disk locally on the same machine.. no need to run raid "just for backup", though it is better to have it on a seperate computer as it's been known for an OS to completely corrupt all data on all hard drives in a PC (it happened to me years ago)

Sorry about your lose.

This is wut I should do.

I've thought about it and I should've done it in the 1st place. Forget raid or wut not, just backup to multiple pcs using batch file. My luck can't be that bad that all 3 of my pcs will die at once. I was just stuborn and didn't want my main gig connected to a kazaa machine :) Lesson learned here is that buy cheap parts so that you can have redundancy. I actually run robocopy at work and I don't know why I don't do it at home....it's such a simple process with AT, sigh. Also, my x15 probably died from overheating...otho I had a storm II blowing on it, the drive was still warm to tough. while I was testing the drive, I didn't have the cooler blowing air on it and the drive was almost unbearable to touch. It was that hot!

 

Markfw

Moderator Emeritus, Elite Member
May 16, 2002
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Before this happens again, here is what you need for 30 gb of backup.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2304789316&category=3756

I got one. They do 20 gig per hour, and you can find the tapes (35-70 gig each, I only get 38) on ebay for $10-$50 each. They do run hot, so if you can find the external one I recommend that. I took and old 486 case with an AT PSU,. and converted it into an external case. Keeps the main computer cool, and works when I want it.