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We get home on the 26th....I turn on my computer and all is fine....

Walk away and come back 5 minutes later....BSOD.


I reboot and my HD starts loudly BANGING and scratchin'....


CRAP....only a 2 y/o sata drive.


Called Dell and got a warranty replacment HD no problem....but I DESPERTELY NEED to get some data of the bad drive.


I tried booting to BartPE disk but the drive wouldn't mount....


My next goal is to hang it off another sys as a slave....

If that doesn't it work, it's into the DEEP FREEZE for a few hours and a retry as a slave...


I really don't want to pay (probably hundreds) for data recovery...


It had a years worth of our Digital Photos (including Disney/Chicago) and some important financial stuff....plus about 20-40 gigs of music...

The photos are the most important...


Anyway....clay/raspy, got any other ideas?

Ouch. Yep, sure sucks to be you!

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or you...(just for general reasons).

You're nasty. :lena:

Well you covered everything I can think of off hand...
I can look to see if I can find anything else....

Yeah platter head colission is the suckage......

Squat, I have no idea with your OP meant...but I do get the general idea that it sucked. Sorry Bro.

I'm hurt you didn't ask for any input from me..... talkin bout thins suckin, I agree, you frickin SUCK!

Now then since I am such a really nice guy.....

Since it is er sounds to be mechaincal as Raspy mentioned there's lil software can do if the physical parts refuse to work however, if it slaves an there is data corruption, I have a couple of tools that aren't exactly on the up an up you can use to recover the data, wit any luck your drive wasn't completely fragmented cause that'll play hell wit recovery.

There is still another way to retreive the information only... it'll cause warrenty problems an is not an exact science as it has all sorts of troubles along wit it, though I have done it an retreived lost data.

If you need to return the drive for the warrenty to be upheld, which of course I'm sure you need to do but anyways, if you can swing it then you can literally take the platters out of the drive an install em into a good drive to recover your information, an once recovered you jes send it down the pooper shoot cause it'll forever give you trouble if you try to keep usin it. Make sure your in as dust free an area as possible an do not wipe the platters wit anythin at all, handle em at the edge of the platter as well er else you'll fowl thins up. If you see dust on the thin, leave it alone, you'll scratch the thin an never recovver anythin from then on.

Hopefully it'll slave an you'll recover your info no problems, jes make sure not to crash windows when transferin large files, er in other words, take one at a time if they are large, few at a time if their small. Windows sucks big time when you try an git it to swap large amounts of files, use an internal ftp if you have one, if not I can "lend" you a copy that will need to be removed once complete.

One other thin you might could try, if the drive only makes noise once in a while then there's still hope, you can try an clone the drive an do it in one shot, the OS will probly die, but the core data will be salvageable, you'll still need to slave the drive once it's been cloned.

Give a hollar an tell us what your intents are, er what your thinkin bout doin. Remember if you freeze the drive, if it's an old drive that the seal is weak on (even though it's only 2 years) you can develop mositure in it an then your SOL entirely.

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Sorry a2j...forget you're more than just a redneck with a hot ass.



Have you done the above...hats off if you've gotten data back this way.


I do have some recovery software that I'll try before the freeze technique.

It clangs ALL THE TIME....won't boot to OS and couldn't mount off a boot disk.


I'm feeling like I'm toast on this one.


What ticks me is NO WARNING...no logs, no bad sectors, clusters, etc...just WHAM bad HD.

Constant rattle...

Dude.... Prayer.....

You might have a paperweight on your hands.....

A2J, you just got yourself a sigworthy here...take it while you can.

Lena, you're way behind....Louis put that in his sig yesterday :lol:

:doh: I knew that! Really!

I'm just half asleep today. And quit talking about my behind like that! :smack:

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consider it a gift Louise....


now return the favor

You already have Louis in your sig....well, a mutilated version anyway...

"Louise" :haha:

Isn't that a GIRL'S name? LOUIS is a guy's name.

I've said it once and I'll say it again...Squat, your spelling sux! :cheeky:

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uh...excuse me Sarah....


I got it from a RELIABLE source that my version is the original.

Check Louise's sig for the photoshopped version.

Uh-huh....reliable....since I took the original photo...

Poor squat...if we had known you would have taken your butt whooping so hard (pun intended) I would have talked Louis into going easy on ya :tease:

Talk about hittin' below the belt! :rolf:

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If that's what he submitted....then he DID take it easy on me.

Uh-huh...show us your butt photo and people can then decide for themselves!

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Sheesh....you FHL chicks never cease to amaze me....


What is this FASCINATION with seeing my butt.



(hehe)

I don't have a fascination with your butt...afterall my hubby has the best butt :eyebrows: ...I just want you to man up and back up all this hot air you've been blowing about your "great" ass :cheeky:

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humpf....I never said the "a" word.

Hey, I've seen pics of you....eh, I don't think I'd WANNA see your butt! You'd break my monitor. :faint:

Now I, on the other hand, have a very sexy rear. :nod:

Now that you've got a digital camera you can put your money where your mouth is too :D

Um - Squat's butt is already in his sig...

Now, about your HDD - you're SCREWED, buddy. Sorry.

Maybe http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/ has something that can help, but I doubt it.

Um, no....there's a mutilated version of my hubby's great ass in his sig!

My, my, my!! Let me guess...you're hubby had the holidays off and he's rubbing off onto you? What happened to our shy, quiet Sarah? :haha:

Oh, and just to show I'm WOMAN enough...butt pic coming soon. B) I can beat wussy Squat any ol' day! :tease:

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Ok....so I put the drive in the freezer last week at work....was able to squeeze most of my family digitial pics from last year out of the bad drive. Thanks God.


The drive was still clangin' quite a bit...read online about a "slam on the floor" method.


Tried that (probably too hard) and the "clanging" "crashing" sound stopped...but now it won't read anything...

It's in the freezer at work and I'm gonna try some data recovery software today but I'm NOT very optimistic with getting any more data out of it.


Dell was supposed to replace overnight...but DHL couldn't find my house on Friday and wouldn't deliver Saturday....Went to OfficeMax and pick'd up a new Seagate (can you say 5 year warranty) SATA 160GB and spent most of my weekend "gettin' back to normal".

Still haven't got my drive from DELL (a cheap Maxtor) and now I'm not sure what to do with it when I do get it....probably buy an enclosure and use it as external storage.

I will now close this chapter of my life.

PORTABLE!!!!!!

And with the old one take it apart and use the platters as frisbees......

a2j mentioned platter surgery...that is removing them and puttin' into another drive.


I think he was pullin' my chain....can't even see how that would be remotely possible for the average tech-head.

If he sez he's done that...then I want to see pics as I believe he is FULL OF MANURE.

Ahh, so the truth comes out eh? Here I was busy given you information on a fix an you think it's impossible.... you do actually know what is in a hard drive right? I mean we're literally talkin bout three componets... four if you wanna count the case/housin.

I've got a bunch of worthless WD drives here, I guess I could start takin one apart an take a picture of each step type thin. The biggest thin is keepin the dirt down to a bare minum jes cause that's the biggest enemy. But it is quite possible to do. An uh.. make sure you don't stick the platter in upside down hehee that'll leave you scratchin your head for a good while :)

Since you said the thin was clangin, then the platter an motor etc should be fine, replace the head wit another like drive an git your info back, an btw... please PLEASE, stop bangin it on the frickin floor.............

I do have a junk seagate drive here, I've actually never taken one apart before, I should think there jes like anyother drive though.

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I've got about 40 old IDE drives here at work...


So your telling me that (in a clean environment) I can take the platters out of my SATA 160 gig drive and put them in a 10-20GB IDE? And scrape data?


(cough-bullshoot-cough)....


Unfortunately, I don't have any old SATA drives hangin' around waiting to get "expriemented on"...


Clay/Raspy...can I have your 2 sense (pun intended) on this....it's a little early for April Fools day....and I think Louise is just pulllin' my chain since he's still upset about the whole "butt" thing.

This I did miss an apologize, I went back an read the OP an did see where you said it was an sata drive, I missed that, I had assumed we were jes talkin bout ata drives an didn't think nuthin more of it. However, the principles are the same, you would of course need a like drive, sata config etc, you cain't jes take some o'l drive an start swapin parts in this regard. As far as the 10gb to 20 gb, you can use their componets more often then not, the only problem I ever had was had to rebuild, er give the drive a new MBR, but I wasn't lookin to boot the drive, jes recover raw data.

Is that sata one of those 10k rpm drives, wit a 16 mb cache etc?

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no just 7200K/8mb cache....

http://www.seagate.com/products/retail/internal/sata


Platter thickness would be a major problem I believe....unless you were moving platters from one drive to an EXACT same drive, I SERIOUSLY doubt platter swap would work.

Theoretically it's sound...

I've know ueber geeks that do it because they get bored.... but they don't date much outside the blow-up variety.....

I can see giving it a try.. I personally wouldn't because I live in a much too dusty environment to even beging to think it's worthwile...

Maybe if I had a clean room and time on my hands I'd give it a shot....

I agree - it's theoretically possible. But whether it worked or not, you'd have two junked 160GB SATA drives instead of just one. I wouldn't mind trying it with one of my old 10GB drives, though. Just sounds like a very expensive way to salvage data.

But, here's a spin on that one. A2J, please excuse my ignorance - I always thought the clankin' was the heads crashing into the platters. You're saying that the platters should be fine. Is there a remedy Squat could try on the existing drive - suspend the heads with string (no members of FHL intended with this post) or something - to salvage the data without wrecking another drive?

Clay it depends, from the description an the age of the drive, I would ASSUME (an we know what that does) that instead of a mechinical failure in the platters bearin/motor that more then likely it's a click, an clicks are caused by the head jumpin back an forth an not actually makin contact wit the platters. This is all assumption, but in my experience, I have had far more failures in the head jumpin back an forth because the voltage regulatoor failed an it can no longer control the heads momvent in an out of the platters.

Now, if it is a grindin noise, then surely the head is draggin on the platters an scratchin the heck outta em. That bein the case, the more you run the drive the worse it gits, hence the platter swap.

You can not swap parts even from the same drive an git em to last er be able to continue to use the drive as if nuthin happened, you'll always have trouble wit the thin, but I thought we were talkin bout jes recoverin the data. So for that, I brought up the part swap idea, this will recover the data onto a good drive then you jes poop can the old drive. Bein that it is an sata, you'd need a like drive, but if your anythin like me, I have at this moment a dozen dead WD drives in a closet. I have swaped parts in these before jes to recoved the data, but I've mostly had to recover it in RAW format, an then build back what I could salvage, hence the need to have a nicely defragmented drive as well. An like I said, dust is the killer, if the platters are dirty, then it'll be very difficult to recover any data at all an yeah, your sposed to work on these thins in a clean room, static free, dust free controlled enviornment etc etc. In a pinch I have made em work an on one 40 GB WD drive, I used the head off a 10 GB wd drive an jes gave the 40 GB drive a new mbr. Cloned the drive onto a good drive an then picked through the RAW data to recover the info they wanted (I got screwed bad on the money cause of the time I took to recover everthin, but it was nice expeince.)

If the drive is grindin then it's a safe bet it's already had it, but if it's jes clickin, then I would imagine that it's the head jumpin back an forth. If it's jes clickin, then you can try leavin the system sit there an clone, usin a seagate er maxtor software, maxtor will sit there for hours workin at it, an so long as the bad drive doesn't jes start clickin an stay clickin then it does a pretty good job of clonin the drive.