Hard drive died hard

It died so hard, it does the Click-O-Death and Windows can't make heads or tails of it because it's identifying itself as a completely different model: Printed circuit board is probably toast. Hard drive in question is a Western Digital 160GB that had been in constant service for perhaps 8-10 years or so. I've heard that when the drive's circuit board goes, the unit is basically a doorstop with ~zero~ chance of recovery.

Haven't tried the freezer trick yet because there's nothing on it that I can't absolutely do without but there are things I'd like to have back.

Has anyone had any hard drive recovery experiences they would like to share.

FYI. I have already bought and installed a new WD Blue 160GB drive. Paid $37 for it from Amazon. It's a new old stock PATA drive rather than a more modern SATA unit.

I just did a quick tally and discovered I have 16 dead or idle PATA hard drives sitting in various unused computers, USB/Firewire external enclosures, packing envelopes, stacked on shelves, etc. ranging from 60GB through 1TB. Most are filled with live music recordings made by "field recording enthusiasts" at concerts. It's a sickness, I tell you, a sickness!

Any of that music the Grateful Dead? As for the hard drive, other than trying to restore the hard drive, I have no suggestions. Also, I would recommend getting a SSD and installing your OS on it and use your new HD for storage.

hball55 said:

Any of that music the Grateful Dead? As for the hard drive, other than trying to restore the hard drive, I have no suggestions. Also, I would recommend getting a SSD and installing your OS on it and use your new HD for storage.

Click to expand...

SSDs are unbelievably nice to have. Prices are coming down too: the Crucial MX100 is very reasonable.

o1d_dude said:

IHas anyone had any hard drive recovery experiences they would like to share.

Click to expand...

If you're talking about drive recovery services, they work, but they're very expensive.

As for the SSD recommendations from the others, unless you "need" the performance difference or you're on a laptop and want to reduce heat/power consumption, I'd save the money and not buy one.

-Kevin

You could likely get the data recovered by a data recovery company but it would probably cost you at least a grand, and likely more.

If it is the click of death there is likely not much you can do. If he system sees it as a unreadable partition then I would do the following. Download Ubuntu and burn it to a disk. Boot off of it in the live disk demo mode. Then take a look at the drive and see if Ubuntu can mount it. I have had pretty good luck with this even being able to recover data from a Windows 7 raid 1 volume that Windows could not touch ( system board with on board raid controller was fried by a construction related power outage).


Sent from my iPad using Rocketry Forum

You *MIGHT* be able to revive the bad drive by finding a working drive of the exact same make/model and swapping out the circuit board. No guarantees, though - you might end up with two bad drives.

You got 8 to 10 years out of, that's pretty good...... As for recovery, some have been mentioned, and I'm sure there are other programs out there as well, Google it.... good luck. Maybe put it in an external case and see if you read anything off of it......

Kit-maybe not what you want to hear, but they make very nice wind chimes. Yeah- I've killed that many over the years. Three drives ago took out a book I already had a 3k advance on. Bitter sad story. You could do a live recording of them for calm days. ( see what i did there, huh?).

I recently had a hard drive crash pretty bad after my laptop failed to turn of and overheated in my backpack. I considered sending my drive in to a lab and was quoted $700-$2700 depending on how bad it was to recover. I decided to try recovering it myself first and keep the lab recovery as a plan B.

I had a lot of luck with Active@ Recovery which is not too expensive. I was able to recovery everything from a drive many other recovery suites failed to recognize. I also used it to recover a coworkers data successfully.

One problem though is the clicking, once that happens even the software recovery companies recommend a clean room recovery so as not to further damage data. You should run the drive as little as possible to prevent further damage and if you do use a recovery program do not try to recover the data directly. Instead use the software to make a complete drive image and recover from that. It will minimize the drive usage and hopefully keep everything intact.

troj said:

If you're talking about drive recovery services, they work, but they're very expensive.

As for the SSD recommendations from the others, unless you "need" the performance difference or you're on a laptop and want to reduce heat/power consumption, I'd save the money and not buy one.

-Kevin

Click to expand...

It may not be a "need", but the benefits are enormous.

1. Shock tolerance.
2. Reliability.
3. Instant booting and program launching.
4. Reliability.
5. Silence compared to a working hdd.
6. Reliability. There was a test where they wrote continuously to consumer grade 240 gig SSDs several hundred terabytes over the course of a few years and not a single bit was lost.

I have gone SSD and see no reason to ever go back to spinning metal except for mass storage. The difference is stark. It will dramatically speed up even an old computer noticeably, since the biggest bottleneck WRT human input is usually the disk.

CarVac said:

It may not be a "need", but the benefits are enormous.

1. Shock tolerance.
2. Reliability.
3. Instant booting and program launching.
4. Reliability.
5. Silence compared to a working hdd.
6. Reliability. There was a test where they wrote continuously to consumer grade 240 gig SSDs several hundred terabytes over the course of a few years and not a single bit was lost.

I have gone SSD and see no reason to ever go back to spinning metal except for mass storage. The difference is stark. It will dramatically speed up even an old computer noticeably, since the biggest bottleneck WRT human input is usually the disk.

Click to expand...

Now, let's return to the real world and look at the facts.

This is an old drive that's been in use for years. It's a desktop. He spent $37 on a drive.

What does that tell us?

1) The computer fan is louder than the drive, so noise is irrelevant.
2) It's a desktop, so shock tolerance is irrelevant.
3) He's price conscious (or he wouldn't have bought a $37 drive)

Yeah, we all know you like fancy toys, and based on some of your posts it appears that you have access to money beyond what the average person does.

If solid state was as price-effective and necessary as you imply, it would be taking over the world. But it's not. There's a reason for that.

Most people don't need SSDs, and they're significantly more expensive than conventional drives.

There's a world of difference between the "needs" of someone who loves technology for technology's sake, and the needs of the average consumer.

-Kevin

Also consider age of computer and it having a PATA interface instead of SATA... SSD may not even be an option for the OP.

troj said:

Now, let's return to the real world and look at the facts.

This is an old drive that's been in use for years. It's a desktop. He spent $37 on a drive.

What does that tell us?

1) The computer fan is louder than the drive, so noise is irrelevant.
2) It's a desktop, so shock tolerance is irrelevant.
3) He's price conscious (or he wouldn't have bought a $37 drive)

Yeah, we all know you like fancy toys, and based on some of your posts it appears that you have access to money beyond what the average person does.

If solid state was as price-effective and necessary as you imply, it would be taking over the world. But it's not. There's a reason for that.

Most people don't need SSDs, and they're significantly more expensive than conventional drives.

There's a world of difference between the "needs" of someone who loves technology for technology's sake, and the needs of the average consumer.

-Kevin

Click to expand...

Yesterday this was 60 dollars.
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148693

I argue that the reliability of an SSD makes it worth it more than any other factor.

Marc G makes a good point though that it might not even be compatible.

If it is the circuit board; try finding a similar drive that you have and swap the circuit boards.
I've heard of people doing this.
If it is a mechanical problem then, the drive is toast.

The last time I checked into data recovery fees it was in the $1500 to $3000 range.
I lost all of my pictures from 2007
I opted not to pursue that route after...... I picked my jaw off of the floor.

JD

CarVac said:

Yesterday this was 60 dollars.
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148693

I argue that the reliability of an SSD makes it worth it more than any other factor.

Marc G makes a good point though that it might not even be compatible.

Click to expand...

Carvac, have you ever had a ssd die? I had an Intel die at work, and there was not much to be done about the data on it. For a laptop I think they are great- the shock resistance, power consumption, and general reliability are all correct points.

For a desktop, unless you are going for the ultimate performance machine, the ssd is overkill. Now, I am thinking about my next desktop, and I am thinking ssd for the system drive, and a standard had in a raid 1 or 5 config for data storage. Ssd is still very pricey for bulk data storage, and I am not yet sold on the consumer grade ssd.


Mark Koelsch
Sent from my iPhone using Rocketry Forum

markkoelsch said:

Carvac, have you ever had a ssd die? I had an Intel die at work, and there was not much to be done about the data on it. For a laptop I think they are great- the shock resistance, power consumption, and general reliability are all correct points.

For a desktop, unless you are going for the ultimate performance machine, the ssd is overkill. Now, I am thinking about my next desktop, and I am thinking ssd for the system drive, and a standard had in a raid 1 or 5 config for data storage. Ssd is still very pricey for bulk data storage, and I am not yet sold on the consumer grade ssd.


Mark Koelsch
Sent from my iPhone using Rocketry Forum

Click to expand...

That's the first time I have heard of it, personally, aside from ones that were dead on arrival.

It was a mess when that drive failed. I will summarize it this way- ssd is a still developing technology. It shows great promise, and yes, assuming you have a system capable of handling the throughput they are very fast. Conversely, nothing is bullet proof. They can fail as I have stated.


Mark Koelsch
Sent from my iPhone using Rocketry Forum

I'm on my second SSD.
Not because it failed but, because it's too small.
The first one was a 120 GB G Skill and fast.
I later "upgraded" to a Samsung 250 GB drive.
The Samsung turned out to be slower than the G Skill.
I've tried every possible setting but, it is still slower.
I needed more room so, I just cloned the drive and removed the old from my computer.


JD

a year or two ago I got a Kingwin EZ-Connect USB 2.0 to SATA & IDE adapter. Lets me hook up bare drives externally. If it can't operate through that, it isn't worth trying, unless you're willing to spend $2000 or more at a data recovery place. I was able to get data from five of my ten old drives from the 340MB Barracuda from 1993 through the 3, 8, and 20GB Maxtors of the turn of the century. Right now I've got it hooked to a 1TB WD drive out of a MyBook that failed.

I got mine at Fry's for about $20, but you can probably find it at MicroCenter as well.

Thanks to all who responded on the query.

As I said initially, there's nothing on the drive that's worth spending a lot of money to have recovered. Mostly just rocketry documents, some HTML code for various website pages, and a metric ton of music downloaded from various international radio stations specializing in the "ambient" genre 90% of which I've burned to CD format. Long story short (TOO LATE!), I miss my rocketry documents.

I'm in the process of building a replacement box for my old XP machine. Not particularly high end but enough to make most gamers nod and give a thumbs up: Win7, two 256Gb Samsung Evo Pro SSDs, Antec 900 PSU, two EVGA GeForce 560 OC's in SLI, and 1TB WD Blue HDD. Need only a mobo and i5-4690K.

I had not thought of using a Linux boot disk to check the drive. Good suggestion. I have a few that I can try.

Thanks!

RoyAtl said:

a year or two ago I got a Kingwin EZ-Connect USB 2.0 to SATA & IDE adapter. Lets me hook up bare drives externally. If it can't operate through that, it isn't worth trying, unless you're willing to spend $2000 or more at a data recovery place. I was able to get data from five of my ten old drives from the 340MB Barracuda from 1993 through the 3, 8, and 20GB Maxtors of the turn of the century. Right now I've got it hooked to a 1TB WD drive out of a MyBook that failed.

I got mine at Fry's for about $20, but you can probably find it at MicroCenter as well.

Click to expand...

That's another great suggestion, Roy. More applications than just checking drives immediately come to mind...

I will check out the local Fry's.

I agree about the Linux being of use beyond this application. I have been in IT professionally for about 21 years. I do not think Linux will ever, regardless of what Linus Torvald thinks, will ever be a serious mainstream desktop. That is not a knock on it, but a lot of things would have to change for it to happen. I think for folks looking to try something different Ubuntu is likely the easiest place to start.


Mark Koelsch
Sent from my iPhone using Rocketry Forum

o1d_dude said:

Thanks to all who responded on the query.

As I said initially, there's nothing on the drive that's worth spending a lot of money to have recovered. Mostly just rocketry documents, some HTML code for various website pages, and a metric ton of music downloaded from various international radio stations specializing in the "ambient" genre 90% of which I've burned to CD format. Long story short (TOO LATE!), I miss my rocketry documents.

I'm in the process of building a replacement box for my old XP machine. Not particularly high end but enough to make most gamers nod and give a thumbs up: Win7, two 256Gb Samsung Evo Pro SSDs, Antec 900 PSU, two EVGA GeForce 560 OC's in SLI, and 1TB WD Blue HDD. Need only a mobo and i5-4690K.

I had not thought of using a Linux boot disk to check the drive. Good suggestion. I have a few that I can try.

Thanks!

Click to expand...

Why two graphics cards in sli? Are they a carry over? Rarely is that cheaper, quieter, or faster than an equivalent single card.

CarVac said:

Why two graphics cards in sli? Are they a carry over? Rarely is that cheaper, quieter, or faster than an equivalent single card.

Click to expand...

They were originally installed in my sons gaming box. He has upgraded his machine and gave me the older 560's. I have reached a point in my life where I get hand-me-downs from my kids.

The Storage industry is in a transition phase at the moment. The advantages of SSD's are obvious and is where things are headed. As a result traditional hard drives are being impacted by this and are being forced into a lower price point which seem to result in horrible reliability issues (DOA's are quite common these days along with high failure rates). They also seem to very sensitive to shipping damage.

terryg said:

The Storage industry is in a transition phase at the moment. The advantages of SSD's are obvious and is where things are headed. As a result traditional hard drives are being impacted by this and are being forced into a lower price point which seem to result in horrible reliability issues (DOA's are quite common these days along with high failure rates). They also seem to very sensitive to shipping damage.

Click to expand...

On the other hand, they are happily expanding capacity on spinning disks. Seagate just released (or announced or something) an 8TB drive.

o1d_dude said:

It died so hard, it does the Click-O-Death and Windows can't make heads or tails of it because it's identifying itself as a completely different model: Printed circuit board is probably toast. Hard drive in question is a Western Digital 160GB that had been in constant service for perhaps 8-10 years or so. I've heard that when the drive's circuit board goes, the unit is basically a doorstop with ~zero~ chance of recovery.

Haven't tried the freezer trick yet because there's nothing on it that I can't absolutely do without but there are things I'd like to have back.

Has anyone had any hard drive recovery experiences they would like to share.

FYI. I have already bought and installed a new WD Blue 160GB drive. Paid $37 for it from Amazon. It's a new old stock PATA drive rather than a more modern SATA unit.

I just did a quick tally and discovered I have 16 dead or idle PATA hard drives sitting in various unused computers, USB/Firewire external enclosures, packing envelopes, stacked on shelves, etc. ranging from 60GB through 1TB. Most are filled with live music recordings made by "field recording enthusiasts" at concerts. It's a sickness, I tell you, a sickness!

Click to expand...

Sorry to hear of your troubles. I have had hard drives fail on occasion and it can be a real PITA. I have nothing to offer that has not already been offered except that I would be willing to take all your old drives off your hands if you wish to ship them out. Just an offer...
:wink:

o1d_dude said:

That's another great suggestion, Roy. More applications than just checking drives immediately come to mind...

I will check out the local Fry's.

Click to expand...

I found the "Kingwin USB 2.0 to SATA and IDE Adapter for 2.5 Inches and 3.5 Inches Hard Drive with One Touch Back-Up" on Amazon Prime for $20.58 but am having concerns with a large number of negative ratings.

The Sabrent unit that is a similiar device has 657 ratings averaging 4.5 out of 5 stars. I've had good luck with Sabrent items in the past so may just go with that.

Thanks for the suggestion, Roy.

If it is the board on the HDD which is dead and you can locate an identical donor drive, you could try swapping the board over? I have heard of that working

Looks like o1d_dude's got a path forward. I'll just add one more note: routine backup procedures are much more effective than data recovery. I recommend Carbonite or services like it that back up your data offsite, so that if your hard drive dies, or you are hacked by the Russian geek mafia, or you lose your computer to fire / flood / meteor, your important files are somewhere safe.

I personally use SSDs as the boot drives in my 3 "desktop" PCs (my main desk PC, my HTPC, and the kids' PC I just built). I like the speed of boot mostly. I back up the boot drive periodically to an image file for easy restoration (I use Acronis True Image Home, and old version 11, which works fine and I've done many successful restores with it). Bulk data like documents and photos is stored on spinning drives. I make image backups of important stuff, on external drives periodically taking them to the safe deposit box at the bank. And Carbonite makes a failsafe backup of the data in the cloud, that I can access easily from anywhere via my mobile phone.

If my main PC SSD drive failed, and I had a replacement in hand, I'd be back up and running as though nothing had happened in less than half an hour. If one of my "data" drives failed and took out all my family photos and rocksim files, I could restore from local backup external drive, or get the drive from the bank, or re-load from Carbonite.

Important thing to remember is that living backups like Carbonite mirror your own activities... if you delete it from your PC, Carbonite (eventually) deletes it from the backup. So, full HD backups taking snapshots in time can be very useful.

Peace, all!

Marc