Data Recovery.. I know, I know.

I have a Western Digital Spartan 8.4gb hard drive and about a week ago it just kinda stopped working for no reason. I was gone for the night and when I came back the screen saver was on and running, but when I moved the mouse the computer froze and I had to restart. When it powered back on the drive was making this annoying high pitch squealing noise and it sounded like it kept powering off and on. It would get as far as the Win ME boot screen and then would do nothing. After another restart the hight pitch quealing noise was gone, only to be replaced by a rather disconcerting "clanging" noise. Now my computer won't even recogize that the HD is plugged into the computer, it just sits there perpetually "clanging". It is spinning, just not reading. I read on another post that this is common amongst WD drives, where the thing that reads the drive will go bad. My question (finally, I know) is this.. is there a way for me to fix this problem myself? IE by some sort of software (despite the fact that the computer won't even boot from the floppy drive with the HD plugged in), or maybe I could try replacing the board? I have a particular file on the drive that is very very valuable to me for personal reasons, but I don't have the ammount that Ontrack is asking for their data recovery services, and not only that but I have a lot of *ahem* pirated software on my drive and I'm worried that if I send it into them the might be able to get me into some legal trouble for it. So any help that anyone could give me would be greatly appreciated.

[email protected]
I will keep u ontrack if u mail me

mail me @ [email protected]

mail me
I will send a small util that should do the trick

Rewep, the best thing YOU can do is replacing the board with a new one which is the same model with your HDD.

Raremagik, what's that utility???



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"Matter is passive. In spite of its power, it can't be controlled without the human mind." Sokrates

My Hardware Info, Hardware Media and Computer History page

Uh, who's this multi-posting guy with his utility? I happen to have access to both OnTrack Easy Recovery AND PowerQuest Lost and Found....neither one can recover data from a drive that the heads won't actuate properly on (sounds like his problem). Just RMA the thing to Western Digital, or if you have to, try a new board on the drive first. But don't count on recovering your data, man.

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Bryan Pizzuti
CompTIA A+
[email protected]

Software? Utility? Umm the heads have all but ruined the platters. RMA the drive.

Agreed Shawn.

Raremagik, I can't understand the name of the utility you said in the email you sent me.
Share your link, or stop spamming!

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"Matter is passive. In spite of its power, it can't be controlled without the human mind." Sokrates

My Hardware Info, Hardware Media and Computer History page

The program he sent is just Ontrack's Tiramisu. As far as RMAing the drive, it's no longer under warranty and I do need the one file off of it. Could I still do that?

Try this old trick for squealing hard drives.
Put the hard drive in a freezer for about an hour, connect it back up to your computer, and it should work for awhile before the squealing noise comes back.
Get your files quick, because it won't last too long.

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An obstacle is something you see when you take your eyes off your goal.

Quote:

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Originally posted by Eagle PC Diagnostech:
Try this old trick for squealing hard drives.
Put the hard drive in a freezer for about an hour, connect it back up to your computer, and it should work for awhile before the squealing noise comes back.
Get your files quick, because it won't last too long.

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That's assuming the sectors that the data are on haven't been utterly destroyed....sounds like a job for SpinRite. But it doesn't sound like the drive would hold up long enough to use it. Kiss the data goodbye and don't get your hopes up, man.


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Bryan Pizzuti
CompTIA A+
[email protected]

believe it or not... i've done this at least a dozen times and was able to get the drive working long enough to retrieve most if not all data off of the drive.

I smack the drives with my knuckles https://forums.windrivers.com/ it has works most of the time. I am assuming it's freeing up whatever is jammed.

The big problem is, sometimes it keeps working and trying to RMA a drive that seems to now be working fine is kinda hard!

I would want to keep a drive I know is bad, so I just keep on smacking it until it stops working again https://forums.windrivers.com/

Not sure about that freezing idea though.... condensation??

I've done the freeze trick also - but in cases like this one (after the drive has been run for any length of time whilst making horrible noises) it's ususally safe to kiss the data bye bye https://forums.windrivers.com/

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Paint your old laptop!

From what everyone tells me I think the uh... "thingy" is knocking against the heads, and nothing will stop it from doing that. Rather than accept kissing the data goodbye though I'm just going to somehow get the money and send it to Ontrack. They've already told me they can retrieve the file I need, it's just that they want a whole lot more than I have. https://forums.windrivers.com/ It's worth it though, that file contains 2 years of my life (well not literally, that would be silly) and any price would be a good price to get it back.

one other option you could consider is hunting down and purchasing the exact same model of hard drive. then swap out the parts between the drives. get the data off of the old one, then put the good drive back together. It will be a bit of work and you also will never be able to RMA either drive....

I would consider this options only if you have exhausted all of the above options and if you will save a considerable amount of money from paying for data recovery services.

pga, at first I agreed with you, but then I thought about it some more...my understanding of hard drives is that they're sealed without any moisture in them (that would cause problems with normal operation) and so that wouldn't cause any problems with it. correct me if I'm wrong

We yanked the lid off of a Western Digital 1.2GB Hard Drive one time and ran it for several weeks hooked up to a machine here in the store. It worked for about 2-3 weeks everyday before it started having seek errors, so you would probably be able to get away with swapping the platters or R/W heads if you were VERY careful.

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WHERE DO YOU WANT TO GO TODAY?......Not that it matters, because Micrsoft will crash on the way there!!!

Yeah I should try that, I don't have much else to lost at this point. 3finger.. I've done that before, I had the lid off of my 4gb and it did work for about a week before it just quit, so I'm not going to worry about a few minutes to pull a file off of it.

i've done it before for a customer who was freaking out about needing his 5 years worth of email. I was able to get 100% of his data.

I charged him the cost of the drive I ripped apart plus an ungodly amount of labor (a sinful amount of labor).

The drives have to be the EXACT SAME MODEL (not just capacity).

PGA.....I had a customer one time bring a drive to us that was FUBAR and needed data desperately....and to quote them, "We need that data, regardless of what you have to do to get it or what it costs! .

I used a program that scanned the root clusters and would allow you to manually rebuild a FAT, (naming directories dir1, dir2, etc.) This took me almost 2 hours, so I charged them 2 hours service (at the time our rate was $25.00/hr) and a $75.00 Data Recovery Charge.

The lady freaked when I told her the total. She said, "You mean I have to pay $125.00 for my data, plus buy a new drive? I thought you guys were going to fix this drive.

I told her to forget the charges, come pick her old drive up, and it would be in the condition sh dropped it off in, and I was throwing away the ZIP disks I had stored her data on......that changed her tune a little.

I love how people say No matter what the cost when what they really mean is, I want it cheap as h*ll !!!!

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WHERE DO YOU WANT TO GO TODAY?......Not that it matters, because Micrsoft will crash on the way there!!!

O'k, here is my story.
I had had similar situation with WD22100 drives (worst WD's model, I think).
I also got this "clanging" noise from drive and I thought, what I have to say "bye-bye" my data. And I hadn't same model of WD drive
having to check - drive electronics or mechanics was failed. So,I used...electronics
from WD33100,and ... drive started without any "clanging" noise,and still working now!
Strange thing is what, when bit later I tried to use electronics from exactly same WD22100(good drive!) I've got "clanging" sound from this drive again! Since 1999 I've repaired at least 3 "clanging" WD22100 drives using electronics from WD33100.
Unbelievable story,isn't it? But it true.
And I have to say - never surrender!

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I'm sorry for my bad English,though.

[This message has been edited by Ruslan (edited November 02, 2000).]

Quote:

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Originally posted by 3fingersalute:
PGA.....I had a customer one time bring a drive to us that was FUBAR and needed data desperately....and to quote them, "We need that data, regardless of what you have to do to get it or what it costs! .

I love how people say No matter what the cost when what they really mean is, I want it cheap as h*ll !!!!

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I told my customer up front it would be over $500 (even if I recovered NO DATA). They were willing to take the risk and they got lucky. Their bill was $139 for the drive and $200 for labor ($339 total bill).

I know what ya mean with the "no matter what it costs". This customer was quoted $500 first. The $339 bill was ideal for them, only because i quoted high, to cover my a$$. I knew them well enough that they would have paid $500 for no data, and they even committed to that first.

But I know the customers you are speaking of that say that and then think $15 is too much....

Ummm.. I need a kidney transplant, but if it's over $50 you are ripping me off!!!!

Umm... I need new brake pads but $20 for labor and pads is too much!!!

Techs... in the eyes of the average person (i.e. idiot) we are a group of low life scum with our only purpose in life is to overcharge for our knowledge.

btw, if you are a customer of mine, it was just a punn intended for other techs...


[This message has been edited by pga (edited November 02, 2000).]