Catastrophic HDD Crash

[Randy Hartley]

Well, I guess I can count my blessings! After 2o years of PC use I finally
had a catastrophic HDD crash this PM.

I was reading a newsgroup and my PC froze, then I heard the clik-clik-clik
of my gasping for life HDD.

I first shut the PC down, then I turned my PC on and set the bios to start
with the CD drive. I put my XP-Pro CD in and it would not load. When it
tried to access the clik-cliking HDD it just stuck at the loading Windows
Setup.

Luckily I had 90% of my data backed up. The only thing I do not have is my
Outlook .pst file. I do have all my contacts on my Pocket PC though. Just
wondering....if I establish a new partnership on my new PC(soon to get one)
will it transfer the contacts? (Perhaps better asked on the PocketPC
newsgroup)

 

[Richard Urban]

It depends totally upon the condition of the hard drive.The following worked
for me!

1. Remove the defective hard drive from the computer. Set the jumper as
slave.

2. Attach a new ribbon cable to the drive.

3. Attach a power "Y" connector to the power receptacle of the drive.

4. Place the hard drive in a baggie. Get as much of the air out of the bag
as you can. Seal the bag as thoroughly as you can, using whatever method
that you think will work for you. I used duct tape.

5. Get hold of some 1/8" thick foam shipping material. Wrap the drive with
4-5 layers of foam - all around. Tape it securely in place. You are trying
to provide thermal insulation here.

6. Place the drive in your freezer for 2-3 days. You have to really cold
soak the drive.

Now, make certain that the drive in the computer you are going to attach
this drive to is set up as a "master with a slave".

You may have only one shot at this - if it works at all. It may not. Boot up
the computer and as quickly as you can, copy over any files you need to the
resident (master) hard drive. Remember, the old drive, though cold soaked,
is in a sealed plastic bag with no air circulation. It will begin to heat up
rapidly. You have to plan your moves in advance and be quick when once you
start.

Good luck!

--

Regards:

Richard Urban

aka Crusty (-: Old B@stard

 

[Woody]

i was sure that at the end of your post you were going to tell him to take
the drive out of the freezer , strip to his underwear , go out on his front
lawn , wave the frozen drive over his head and scream like a chicken ;-)

are you seriouse ?

 

[Richard Urban]

Absolutely! It worked for me and I have read where it has worked for others.
I found an article many years ago (I believe it was in the Windows
magazine - defunct) that described the procedure.

--

Regards:

Richard Urban

aka Crusty (-: Old B@stard

 

[Ron Bogart]

In

i was sure that at the end of your post you were going to tell him to
take the drive out of the freezer , strip to his underwear , go out
on his front lawn , wave the frozen drive over his head and scream
like a chicken ;-)

are you seriouse ?

Totally serious - it is a *possible* workaround to temporarily revive a
drive right on the fringe of being completely dead long enough to regain
your data.

 

[Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]]

Well, I guess I can count my blessings! After 2o years of PC use I
finally had a catastrophic HDD crash this PM.

I was reading a newsgroup and my PC froze, then I heard the
clik-clik-clik of my gasping for life HDD.

I first shut the PC down, then I turned my PC on and set the bios to
start with the CD drive. I put my XP-Pro CD in and it would not load.
When it tried to access the clik-cliking HDD it just stuck at the
loading Windows Setup.

Luckily I had 90% of my data backed up. The only thing I do not have
is my Outlook .pst file. I do have all my contacts on my Pocket PC
though. Just wondering....if I establish a new partnership on my new
PC(soon to get one) will it transfer the contacts? (Perhaps better
asked on the PocketPC newsgroup)

In addition to all the other posts -

You should make sure all your data is in one folder (and subfolders
thereunder). I don't use the default profile folders for anything much - I
create c:\data and redirect My Documents there. You can move your
Outlook.pst file to the location of your choice with Outlook closed - I'd
put it in c:\data\outlook and name it yourname.pst - then open Outlook and
point it at the new file/location when it complains. That way, you have only
one folder to back up to get the lion's share of your stuff.

A PocketPC NG may indeed be able to help you - I'm not a big fan of
Activesync and have seen lost data, but you may be in luck with that if the
drive recovery doesn't work for you, and you consult with the PocketPC gurus
before trying.

 

[RHinNC]

Thanks for the advice. Believe it or not I revived a totally dead V-Tech
cordless phone by putting it in the freezer. That was 2 years ago and it has
been working great.

I have done a little more experimentation/consultation with a friend of mine
with whom we started dealing with PC's long about DOS 1.

We checked the voltage and have 5.04v and 12.14v from the power supply. With
the ribbon cable disconnected when power is applied the clik-clik-clik
resumes. The MB in the computer is over 4 years old, has a slow BUS speed
and slow RAM so I am opting for a new PC. When I built this system I put 3
case fans, a large heat sink, with a large fan on the CPU, a fan on the
video card ( I have a 500w Power Supply)and the dang thing has left me
almost deaf in the right ear..lol..j/k, sorta looking forward to one of the
quiet PC's. The fan on this Toshiba notebook only comes on when needed, so
it is very quiet. Since the behemoth died, I have heard scary, strange
things in the night. Perhaps I can get a noise machine?..j/k

Well, off to prepare the drive for the freezer repair gods....by the time I
get the new PC I should be able to slave it on the new PC and hopefully
regain some of the data. I only have about 130 contacts and have a elderly
neighbor that would love to enter them in Outlook on the new PC if needed

 

[Steve N.]

i was sure that at the end of your post you were going to tell him to take
the drive out of the freezer , strip to his underwear , go out on his front
lawn , wave the frozen drive over his head and scream like a chicken ;-)

are you seriouse ?

I've never done it myself but I know enough folks who have and yes, it
can actually work. I think it has to do with the platters contracting
with the low temperature and therefore slightly changing the position of
the tracks.

I also used to work with a tech that would open a failed drive and
saturate the platter and heads with WD-40 in an effort to read data from
it. It actually worked sometimes, too, why I don't know.

Steve

 

[Richard Urban]

If it works for you, as it did for me, get back and let the doubters know
about it (-:

--

Regards:

Richard Urban

aka Crusty (-: Old B@stard

 

[Plato]

6. Place the drive in your freezer for 2-3 days. You have to really cold
soak the drive.

As you noted the key is to have a system setup ready to receive the
drive as soon as you take it out of the freezer. Sometimes you only get
a few minutes of new life. Sometimes none of course.

 

[Al Smith]

i was sure that at the end of your post you were going to tell him to take

the drive out of the freezer , strip to his underwear , go out on his front
lawn , wave the frozen drive over his head and scream like a chicken ;-)

LOL. But it's so wrong to toy with people like that.

 

[J. S. Pack]

In addition to all the other posts -

You should make sure all your data is in one folder (and subfolders
thereunder). I don't use the default profile folders for anything much - I
create c:\data and redirect My Documents there. You can move your
Outlook.pst file to the location of your choice with Outlook closed - I'd
put it in c:\data\outlook and name it yourname.pst - then open Outlook and
point it at the new file/location when it complains. That way, you have only
one folder to back up to get the lion's share of your stuff.

I wouldn't bother doing any redirection and then hassling around everytime
you write something to make sure it goes there. Your data is already in one
folder/subfolders: Documents and Settings\User. Back that up and you've got
all the above and a lot more besides, all the good stuff.

 

[Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]]

I wouldn't bother doing any redirection and then hassling around
everytime you write something to make sure it goes there. Your data
is already in one folder/subfolders: Documents and Settings\User.
Back that up and you've got all the above and a lot more besides, all
the good stuff.

My Documents should be moved someplace where it won't get affected by a
profile going bad, in my view. It's happened a lot, and can be much more of
a pain. And well written apps respect the location of My Documents wherever
it is. Just my $.02

 

[J. S. Pack]

My Documents should be moved someplace where it won't get affected by a
profile going bad, in my view. It's happened a lot, and can be much more of
a pain. And well written apps respect the location of My Documents wherever
it is. Just my $.02

You'll have a backup of My Documents included in your backup of Documents
and Settings\User. I would backup daily at least anyway.

I should have added that you should regularly (how often depends on how
often you make changes affecting registry) back up the sys and user
registries using ERUNT which you can get here:

http://home.t-online.de/home/lars.hederer/erunt

Makes it very easy to keep automatically previous reg versions and rollback
to a previous registry as needed. Me, I consider ERUNT both necessary and
essential. It'll greatly decrease the likelihood you'll ever have to do a
repair install, and if the repair install goes wrong, you can backup, make
changes, and try again.

 

[Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]]

On Sun, 28 Nov 2004 10:17:33 -0500, "Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]"

Randy Hartley wrote:
Well, I guess I can count my blessings! After 2o years of PC use I
finally had a catastrophic HDD crash this PM.

I was reading a newsgroup and my PC froze, then I heard the
clik-clik-clik of my gasping for life HDD.

I first shut the PC down, then I turned my PC on and set the bios
to start with the CD drive. I put my XP-Pro CD in and it would not
load. When it tried to access the clik-cliking HDD it just stuck
at the loading Windows Setup.

Luckily I had 90% of my data backed up. The only thing I do not
have is my Outlook .pst file. I do have all my contacts on my
Pocket PC though. Just wondering....if I establish a new
partnership on my new PC(soon to get one) will it transfer the
contacts? (Perhaps better asked on the PocketPC newsgroup)

In addition to all the other posts -

You should make sure all your data is in one folder (and subfolders
thereunder). I don't use the default profile folders for anything
much - I create c:\data and redirect My Documents there. You can
move your Outlook.pst file to the location of your choice with
Outlook closed - I'd put it in c:\data\outlook and name it
yourname.pst - then open Outlook and point it at the new
file/location when it complains. That way, you have only one folder
to back up to get the lion's share of your stuff.

I wouldn't bother doing any redirection and then hassling around
everytime you write something to make sure it goes there. Your data
is already in one folder/subfolders: Documents and Settings\User.
Back that up and you've got all the above and a lot more besides,
all the good stuff.

My Documents should be moved someplace where it won't get affected
by a profile going bad, in my view. It's happened a lot, and can be
much more of a pain. And well written apps respect the location of
My Documents wherever it is. Just my $.02

A PocketPC NG may indeed be able to help you - I'm not a big fan of
Activesync and have seen lost data, but you may be in luck with
that if the drive recovery doesn't work for you, and you consult
with the PocketPC gurus before trying.

You'll have a backup of My Documents included in your backup of
Documents and Settings\User. I would backup daily at least anyway.

I should have added that you should regularly (how often depends on
how often you make changes affecting registry) back up the sys and
user registries using ERUNT which you can get here:

http://home.t-online.de/home/lars.hederer/erunt

Makes it very easy to keep automatically previous reg versions and
rollback to a previous registry as needed. Me, I consider ERUNT both
necessary and essential. It'll greatly decrease the likelihood you'll
ever have to do a repair install, and if the repair install goes
wrong, you can backup, make changes, and try again.

To each his own. I find it a lot easier to help people out (esp. over the
phone) after disk disasters if I tell them "go to c:\data".

 

[J. S. Pack]

J. S. Pack wrote:
On Sun, 28 Nov 2004 10:17:33 -0500, "Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]"

Randy Hartley wrote:
Well, I guess I can count my blessings! After 2o years of PC use I
finally had a catastrophic HDD crash this PM.

I was reading a newsgroup and my PC froze, then I heard the
clik-clik-clik of my gasping for life HDD.

I first shut the PC down, then I turned my PC on and set the bios
to start with the CD drive. I put my XP-Pro CD in and it would not
load. When it tried to access the clik-cliking HDD it just stuck
at the loading Windows Setup.

Luckily I had 90% of my data backed up. The only thing I do not
have is my Outlook .pst file. I do have all my contacts on my
Pocket PC though. Just wondering....if I establish a new
partnership on my new PC(soon to get one) will it transfer the
contacts? (Perhaps better asked on the PocketPC newsgroup)

In addition to all the other posts -

You should make sure all your data is in one folder (and subfolders
thereunder). I don't use the default profile folders for anything
much - I create c:\data and redirect My Documents there. You can
move your Outlook.pst file to the location of your choice with
Outlook closed - I'd put it in c:\data\outlook and name it
yourname.pst - then open Outlook and point it at the new
file/location when it complains. That way, you have only one folder
to back up to get the lion's share of your stuff.

I wouldn't bother doing any redirection and then hassling around
everytime you write something to make sure it goes there. Your data
is already in one folder/subfolders: Documents and Settings\User.
Back that up and you've got all the above and a lot more besides,
all the good stuff.

My Documents should be moved someplace where it won't get affected
by a profile going bad, in my view. It's happened a lot, and can be
much more of a pain. And well written apps respect the location of
My Documents wherever it is. Just my $.02


A PocketPC NG may indeed be able to help you - I'm not a big fan of
Activesync and have seen lost data, but you may be in luck with
that if the drive recovery doesn't work for you, and you consult
with the PocketPC gurus before trying.

You'll have a backup of My Documents included in your backup of
Documents and Settings\User. I would backup daily at least anyway.

I should have added that you should regularly (how often depends on
how often you make changes affecting registry) back up the sys and
user registries using ERUNT which you can get here:

http://home.t-online.de/home/lars.hederer/erunt

Makes it very easy to keep automatically previous reg versions and
rollback to a previous registry as needed. Me, I consider ERUNT both
necessary and essential. It'll greatly decrease the likelihood you'll
ever have to do a repair install, and if the repair install goes
wrong, you can backup, make changes, and try again.

To each his own. I find it a lot easier to help people out (esp. over the
phone) after disk disasters if I tell them "go to c:\data".

Of course if you've had time to set up the redirection in the first place,
then you'd have had time to remap Documents and Settings\User to its own
drive letter--which would lead to the even easier "go to M:".

 

[RHinNC]

Update:

I called Western Digital Tech support. Not an endorsement, but they are a
class act. Seems the warranty on my drive ran out 12 days ago! At least that
is what they told me when I gave them my drives serial number. But it was so
close that all I had to do was fax the receipt when I purchased the PC and
now they are sending me a new ATA100 WD Caviar 80GB drive. While I am
disappointed the drive failed, this makes up for it, at least to me.

When I was talking to the technician about the symptoms of what the hard
drive is doing he is pretty sure the data is fried.

We eliminated any chance of it being a controller or bios issue, as even
with the ribbon cable disconnected and power on the drive the clik-clik-clik
continues. But after our testing, I sealed it the best I could and it is now
in the deep freeze. According to the technician the constant clik-clik-clik
pretty much ensured the data is not there but I like the rolling of the dice
to see if I can get it to run for a few minutes.

Thanks for the help from all with this!

 

[Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]]

On Mon, 29 Nov 2004 14:10:32 -0500, "Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]"

J. S. Pack wrote:
On Sun, 28 Nov 2004 10:17:33 -0500, "Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]"

Randy Hartley wrote:
Well, I guess I can count my blessings! After 2o years of PC
use I finally had a catastrophic HDD crash this PM.

I was reading a newsgroup and my PC froze, then I heard the
clik-clik-clik of my gasping for life HDD.

I first shut the PC down, then I turned my PC on and set the
bios to start with the CD drive. I put my XP-Pro CD in and it
would not load. When it tried to access the clik-cliking HDD it
just stuck at the loading Windows Setup.

Luckily I had 90% of my data backed up. The only thing I do not
have is my Outlook .pst file. I do have all my contacts on my
Pocket PC though. Just wondering....if I establish a new
partnership on my new PC(soon to get one) will it transfer the
contacts? (Perhaps better asked on the PocketPC newsgroup)

In addition to all the other posts -

You should make sure all your data is in one folder (and
subfolders thereunder). I don't use the default profile folders
for anything much - I create c:\data and redirect My Documents
there. You can move your Outlook.pst file to the location of
your choice with Outlook closed - I'd put it in c:\data\outlook
and name it yourname.pst - then open Outlook and point it at the
new file/location when it complains. That way, you have only one
folder to back up to get the lion's share of your stuff.

I wouldn't bother doing any redirection and then hassling around
everytime you write something to make sure it goes there. Your
data is already in one folder/subfolders: Documents and
Settings\User. Back that up and you've got all the above and a
lot more besides, all the good stuff.

My Documents should be moved someplace where it won't get affected
by a profile going bad, in my view. It's happened a lot, and can be
much more of a pain. And well written apps respect the location of
My Documents wherever it is. Just my $.02


A PocketPC NG may indeed be able to help you - I'm not a big fan
of Activesync and have seen lost data, but you may be in luck
with that if the drive recovery doesn't work for you, and you
consult with the PocketPC gurus before trying.


You'll have a backup of My Documents included in your backup of
Documents and Settings\User. I would backup daily at least anyway.

I should have added that you should regularly (how often depends on
how often you make changes affecting registry) back up the sys and
user registries using ERUNT which you can get here:

http://home.t-online.de/home/lars.hederer/erunt

Makes it very easy to keep automatically previous reg versions and
rollback to a previous registry as needed. Me, I consider ERUNT both
necessary and essential. It'll greatly decrease the likelihood
you'll ever have to do a repair install, and if the repair install
goes wrong, you can backup, make changes, and try again.

To each his own. I find it a lot easier to help people out (esp.
over the phone) after disk disasters if I tell them "go to c:\data".

Of course if you've had time to set up the redirection in the first
place, then you'd have had time to remap Documents and Settings\User
to its own drive letter--which would lead to the even easier "go to
M:".

No, overly complicated for end users to fully understand. I prefer my
method. If they ever need disaster data recovery, all the vendor needs to
know is c:\data.
Again, no interest in arguing - I like my way, you like yours.

 

[cquirke (MVP Win9x)]

On Wed, 1 Dec 2004 18:53:02 -0500, "Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]"

No, overly complicated for end users to fully understand. I prefer my
method. If they ever need disaster data recovery, all the vendor needs to
know is c:\data.

The reason I'd avoid that is sharing the same volume as pagefile,
temp, TIF etc. increases exposure to corruption and overwriting.

So I use D:\DATA instead ;-)