Need *HELP* retrieving data off failed hard drive - sources of info greatly appreciated

[Stellijer]

Anyone know of any great web sites or discussions boards for reviving hard
drives which have failed fir data retrieval?

I have two hard drives which failed within 2 weeks of each other before backups
could be made of certain data. I'd like to research the best ways to recover
the data.

In each case, it's a hardware failure and NOT accidentally deleted or otherwise
corrupted data.

I'd appreciate any discussion boards where some experts might hang out or maybe
some COMPREHENSIVE websites dedicated to this. So far I've found a lot of
information but it's all pretty basic and none of it worked. The more
information I can get, the better chance I have.


Let me mention just ONE of the cases here, just in case in addition to
information, someone here has some adivce:

The first drive is a 40GB Western Digital, 2-1/2 years old. It's been used a
lot in the past couple years. Last weekend it quit spinning up. I'd like to
get it to spin up JUST ONCE to get the data off. Right now, you can often feel
the drive 'jerking' in an attempt to start. Just a little vibration here and
there, sometimes hard enough to feel the drive try to rotate in your hand. I've
tried twisting the drive as fast as I could by hand to get the platters to spin.
While this caused more 'jerking', it didn't spin up. I tapped it as hard as I
dared without wanting to cause damage. I put it in the freezer for a while in a
static bag without change. Naturally I've tried different power connectors and
a different power supply. It behaves the same whether the drive is hooked up to
a contoller or just to a power supply alone. I just need ONE good spin-up.

Any ideas and any sources of such info appreciated (and desperately craved)!!!

P.S. The other hard drive is a stranger situation. I didn't want to dilute the
issues by mentioning both at the same time; I will mention the other situation
if someone of considerable expertese responds to this post.

 

[Joep]

I'd appreciate any discussion boards where some experts might hang out or maybe
some COMPREHENSIVE websites dedicated to this. So far I've found a lot of
information but it's all pretty basic and none of it worked. The more
information I can get, the better chance I have.

Maybe see it like this: As there are no web sites with step by step
procedures for DIY heart transplants, there aren't websites encouraging
people to open up their disks and do head transplants. In the end performing
physical repairs on disks that contain important data is risky. Any website
suggesting that people should give it a go, by providing instructions are
playing with fire. It's probably the reason you don't find any.

It seems there are 3 options open:

- accept the dataloss
- sent disk to professional data recovery
- take a risk and start fiddling around yourself, and find that when it goes
wrong it's all your own fault, not any website stupid enough to suggest you
could do it yourself.

 

[Stellijer]

Maybe see it like this: As there are no web sites with step by step
procedures for DIY heart transplants, there aren't websites encouraging
people to open up their disks and do head transplants. In the end performing
physical repairs on disks that contain important data is risky. Any website
suggesting that people should give it a go, by providing instructions are
playing with fire. It's probably the reason you don't find any.

It seems there are 3 options open:

- accept the dataloss
- sent disk to professional data recovery
- take a risk and start fiddling around yourself, and find that when it goes
wrong it's all your own fault, not any website stupid enough to suggest you
could do it yourself.

Thanks for the response.

As for the comparison to heart surgery; I'm hardly holding a person's LIFE in my
hands, just my hard drive! Thus if I botch it up, I'm actually no worse off
than when I started, just without the avenue of going to a professional, which
is not cost effective anyway. It's also not quite as daunting as heart surgery


I would hope there would be SOME information on this. It would be rather
arrogant for people with such knowledge to assume no one but them could possibly
put it to use. It's not like sharing information is tantamount to a
recommendation to try it. Heck - I can go to the library and get a book on the
manufacturing of dynamite; it doesn't mean by publishing such information it's
expected we will try it.

It would truly be a shame if those were the only 3 options, considering the
information is obviously out there, somewhere.

It's not THAT difficult a task, depending on what's wrong. The only thing which
makes it risky is a lack of good information. Maybe I'll get lucky and find
some hard disk experts here in this newsgroup.

 

[Mr. Grinch]

If the data is really important, I'd call up Ontrack data recovery and get
a price quote.

 

[Stellijer]

If the data is really important, I'd call up Ontrack data recovery and get
a price quote.

It has some personal value but I checked with a couple data recovery services;
they're WAY too expensive for this kind of data. They start at over $500 and
only go UP from there (usually $1000 a drive). Unless I win the lottery, I will
NOT use one of them.

 

[Svend Olaf Mikkelsen]

It has some personal value but I checked with a couple data recovery services;
they're WAY too expensive for this kind of data. They start at over $500 and
only go UP from there (usually $1000 a drive). Unless I win the lottery, I will
NOT use one of them.

Also it is not really known what the companies can do, compared to the
price of an evaluation. An example. It is in Danish, but it should be
possible from the videos to figure out why I would see some evidence
that the disk platter read machine works, before I will believe it:

http://www.ing.dk/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20030926/IT/109260062

 

[Joep]

Thanks for the response.

As for the comparison to heart surgery; I'm hardly holding a person's LIFE in my
hands, just my hard drive! Thus if I botch it up, I'm actually no worse off
than when I started, just without the avenue of going to a professional, which
is not cost effective anyway. It's also not quite as daunting as heart surgery

In your case it may not be, however in other cases where important, vital
data is at stake, people may be tempted to try if such information was
available.

It's maybe a bit more like the DIY TV shows, where they show you how they
completely replace an entire kitchen. They take 15 minutes for that. In a
small country like Holland, per year 20 people die, and 30000 are
hospitalized because of performing 'simple' DIY jobs in their houses.
Besides that, many people will find while DIY-ing things are a tad more
difficult than they expected and waste money and have to hire a professional
to undo the damage they did themselves.

I would hope there would be SOME information on this. It would be rather
arrogant for people with such knowledge to assume no one but them could possibly
put it to use. It's not like sharing information is tantamount to a
recommendation to try it.

This I dare to question.

Heck - I can go to the library and get a book on the
manufacturing of dynamite; it doesn't mean by publishing such information it's
expected we will try it.

It would truly be a shame if those were the only 3 options, considering the
information is obviously out there, somewhere.

Sure, it's there probably.

It's not THAT difficult a task, depending on what's wrong.
Indeed.

The only thing which
makes it risky is a lack of good information.

What I tried to illustrate is that depite information it's still risky.

 

[Joep]

Also it is not really known what the companies can do, compared to the
price of an evaluation. An example. It is in Danish, but it should be
possible from the videos to figure out why I would see some evidence
that the disk platter read machine works, before I will believe it:

http://www.ing.dk/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20030926/IT/109260062

Well, there are of course good ones and bad ones. 2 experiences I had with
'well established' data recovery companies:

1. 20 Gb harddisk, to recover all data several 1000 US Dollars would be
charged. The diagnostic 'report' the user received was the piped output of
the fdisk/status command. We found out that the only damage was corrupt
partition table, the disk was partitioned in one big FAT32 partition, it
took a few minutes to repair.

2. RAID 0 array suddenly showed up as 2 seperate disk and the array setup
wanted to re-innit the array. It warned that by doing so data on the disks
would be lost. User decided to try anyway, and indeed, the entire array
appeared as one unpartitioned disk. Both disks were sent to a data recovery
firm which concluded there was physical damage. What damage that would be
was not specified, cost of recovery: $6000 USD. User then consulted us and
decided to take the drives back. We could find no proof of physical damage,
re-inntiting the array took a fraction of a second so we knew data still had
to be there. It took after some examination about 20 minutes to gain access
to the data.

On the other hand, I know a Dutch data recovery firm, and I know they work
with expensive and in the house developed equipment to work with physical
damaged disks. I also know that they deploy advanced techniques to puzzle
back data that goes beyond what commercial data recovery tools can recover,
per case utilities are developed and coded if needed. Noting can beat the
trained and experienced human eye. I think you yourself are a nice
illustration of that as well (meant as a compliment), it's your choice to
help people without charging them, however some deploy their knowledge to
make a living.

 

[Rod Speed]

In your case it may not be, however in other cases
where important, vital data is at stake, people may
be tempted to try if such information was available.

Yes, but that can be adequately dealt with by sufficient warnings.

Its never going to be viable to attempt to censor any
information that can result in an undesirable outcome now.

That hasnt been feasible ever since the invention of the printing press.

It's maybe a bit more like the DIY TV shows,

Yep, a much more sensible analogy. Or a DIY web site, anyway.

where they show you how they completely replace
an entire kitchen. They take 15 minutes for that.

And you are welcome to use the alternatives like books and magazines
and other sources that can provide a more comprehensive coverage.

In a small country like Holland, per year 20 people die, and 30000 are
hospitalized because of performing 'simple' DIY jobs in their houses.

So ? Likely just as many end up with that result when gardening
too. Makes absolutely no sense to be telling people that they
should always employ professional gardeners instead.

The only thing that makes any sense
is to point out where the dangers are.

True in spades with sports, far more than 20 a year die
when playing sport or getting exercise, 30K hospitalised too.

Besides that, many people will find while DIY-ing things are
a tad more difficult than they expected and waste money and
have to hire a professional to undo the damage they did themselves.

And plenty do a very decent job too.

And some build their entire house from scratch, including me.

Plenty build light aircraft and boats too.

Plenty do their own car maintenance too.

This I dare to question.

Doesnt change a thing.

He does have a point.

Sure, it's there probably.

What I tried to illustrate is that depite information it's still risky.

Sure, but in some situations, most obviously where the
cost of pro data recovery isnt going to be paid, its better
to try the obvious approaches than do nothing at all.

 

[Svend Olaf Mikkelsen]

The first drive is a 40GB Western Digital, 2-1/2 years old. It's been used a
lot in the past couple years. Last weekend it quit spinning up. I'd like to
get it to spin up JUST ONCE to get the data off. Right now, you can often feel
the drive 'jerking' in an attempt to start. Just a little vibration here and
there, sometimes hard enough to feel the drive try to rotate in your hand. I've
tried twisting the drive as fast as I could by hand to get the platters to spin.
While this caused more 'jerking', it didn't spin up. I tapped it as hard as I
dared without wanting to cause damage. I put it in the freezer for a while in a
static bag without change. Naturally I've tried different power connectors and
a different power supply. It behaves the same whether the drive is hooked up to
a contoller or just to a power supply alone. I just need ONE good spin-up.

It has some personal value but I checked with a couple data recovery services;
they're WAY too expensive for this kind of data. They start at over $500 and
only go UP from there (usually $1000 a drive). Unless I win the lottery, I will
NOT use one of them.

I cannot help much in that matter, but:

Do you have the software and another disk ready to copy the disk
sector by sector in the case you can access it? And keep track of how
far the copying is done, for the case that it is interrupted.

If I had a disk, which could not spin, I guess I would try heat in a
working computer before the freezer. Next step would be to open a
similar disk and get some experience about dust and things like that.

It would be kind of fun to try that.

 

[Stellijer]

In your case it may not be, however in other cases where important, vital
data is at stake, people may be tempted to try if such information was
available.

It's maybe a bit more like the DIY TV shows, where they show you how they
completely replace an entire kitchen. They take 15 minutes for that. In a
small country like Holland, per year 20 people die, and 30000 are
hospitalized because of performing 'simple' DIY jobs in their houses.
Besides that, many people will find while DIY-ing things are a tad more
difficult than they expected and waste money and have to hire a professional
to undo the damage they did themselves.


This I dare to question.


Sure, it's there probably.


What I tried to illustrate is that depite information it's still risky.

Yes; and I understand what you're saying about not advertising information in
terms of "yes, YOU can do hard drive repair yourself despite not being able to
rewire a light switch! Just follow our 12-step program....". ;-)

Personally, I understand the risks all too well, hence my desire to LEARN as
much as possible before digging in. I just have been finding it difficult to
come across real, technical information which would make it a REASONABLE risk.
Just digging in without proper knowledge is a fool's errand, given the
sensitivity of these components to various corruptions.

Personally, I know I *WILL* eventually gather enough information to try to
somehow retrieve the data (or I could, potentially, strike it rich in the
meantime but I'm not counting on that) with only a reasonable risk. Until then,
I'm willing to just keep the drives on my shelf until I know enough to proceed
safely.

Now, the only difficulty at the moment is FINDING this elusive data or someone
familiar enough with these drives to be able to elucidate me a modicum....

 

[Stellijer]

Yes, but that can be adequately dealt with by sufficient warnings.

Its never going to be viable to attempt to censor any
information that can result in an undesirable outcome now.

That hasnt been feasible ever since the invention of the printing press.


Yep, a much more sensible analogy. Or a DIY web site, anyway.


And you are welcome to use the alternatives like books and magazines
and other sources that can provide a more comprehensive coverage.


So ? Likely just as many end up with that result when gardening
too. Makes absolutely no sense to be telling people that they
should always employ professional gardeners instead.

The only thing that makes any sense
is to point out where the dangers are.

True in spades with sports, far more than 20 a year die
when playing sport or getting exercise, 30K hospitalised too.


And plenty do a very decent job too.

And some build their entire house from scratch, including me.

Plenty build light aircraft and boats too.

Plenty do their own car maintenance too.



Doesnt change a thing.


He does have a point.




Sure, but in some situations, most obviously where the
cost of pro data recovery isnt going to be paid, its better
to try the obvious approaches than do nothing at all.

Thanks for the comments.

Yes, indeed, it's interesting to look at DIY projects. Personally, I've built
most everything in a house from pouring foundations to roofing, from hardwood
flooring to installing skylights. It's very true that not everyone is cut out
to do it. I just got lucky enough to have a nack for it.

Now... the big difference here is that I was always able to find books or people
to teach me how to pour concrete and frame a house; as well as what the dangers
and cautions are. I only wish the same was true for the hard drive scenario.

Bottom line - you're right. The point is that for this data, there's no chance
I will pay $1000+ to a company to recover this data unless I win the lottery or
my penny stocks become another Amazon or Yahoo. So, it only makes sense to
attempt some data recovery. I have all the faith in the world that with the
proper knowledge and information, I would have a decent shot IF it could be done
outside of a $1000 recovery job at all. Since I am not prepared to pay $1000+
for the data, I'm not really risking all that much.

 

[Stellijer]

Well, there are of course good ones and bad ones. 2 experiences I had with
'well established' data recovery companies:

1. 20 Gb harddisk, to recover all data several 1000 US Dollars would be
charged. The diagnostic 'report' the user received was the piped output of
the fdisk/status command. We found out that the only damage was corrupt
partition table, the disk was partitioned in one big FAT32 partition, it
took a few minutes to repair.

2. RAID 0 array suddenly showed up as 2 seperate disk and the array setup
wanted to re-innit the array. It warned that by doing so data on the disks
would be lost. User decided to try anyway, and indeed, the entire array
appeared as one unpartitioned disk. Both disks were sent to a data recovery
firm which concluded there was physical damage. What damage that would be
was not specified, cost of recovery: $6000 USD. User then consulted us and
decided to take the drives back. We could find no proof of physical damage,
re-inntiting the array took a fraction of a second so we knew data still had
to be there. It took after some examination about 20 minutes to gain access
to the data.

On the other hand, I know a Dutch data recovery firm, and I know they work
with expensive and in the house developed equipment to work with physical
damaged disks. I also know that they deploy advanced techniques to puzzle
back data that goes beyond what commercial data recovery tools can recover,
per case utilities are developed and coded if needed. Noting can beat the
trained and experienced human eye. I think you yourself are a nice
illustration of that as well (meant as a compliment), it's your choice to
help people without charging them, however some deploy their knowledge to
make a living.

As you pointed out, some of these data recovery houses charge an obscene fee for
potentially an easy fix. The scenario is one of people with expensive data on
drives who are caught in desperate situations. It's like an auto mechanic;
sometimes you get an honest fix for a fair fee. Sometimes that desperation is
exploited.

As for "deploying knowledge", that's the POINT of such forums as this! People
spend their time here to learn as well as to advise. The people who withhold
information simply because they feel they could use that knowledge to make money
in some circumstances are the ones whom potential clients should avoid. If that
was the prevailing attitude, no one would ever know how to change a spark plug
or rewire a batroom on their own.

There's a difference between asking someone to walk you through the specifics of
an operation, step by step, and simply asking some advice such as "what are the
most likely causes of these symptoms"?

 

[Stellijer]

I cannot help much in that matter, but:

Do you have the software and another disk ready to copy the disk
sector by sector in the case you can access it? And keep track of how
far the copying is done, for the case that it is interrupted.

Yes, I'm all set with that in the case I can access the drive and the data is
not recognizable. Nonetheless, I'm not expecting the data to be damaged unless
a lot more went wrong, physically, with the drive than I expect at the moment.
In THAT 'worst case', however, the prospects are rather dismal of getting much
of anything anyway.

If I had a disk, which could not spin, I guess I would try heat in a
working computer before the freezer. Next step would be to open a
similar disk and get some experience about dust and things like that.

I tried heat (to a limited degree) as well as cold. And yes, I also dissected a
similar dead drive (not exactly the same but similar and by the same mfr) to get
some knowledge about how they work and the 'feel' of the components.

It would be kind of fun to try that.

I will find it more amusing once my data is safe and backed up

 

[Rod Speed]

Thanks for the comments.

No problem.

Yes, indeed, it's interesting to look at DIY projects. Personally,
I've built most everything in a house from pouring foundations

Yeah, me too, and in my case a full concrete slab for the
entire floor, and had the hilarious result that the local council
who has to inspect that stuff told the professional builders to
have a look at mine before the concrete was actually poured,
because thats how its supposed to be done |-)

to roofing, from hardwood flooring to installing skylights.

Yeah, I didnt what isnt even legal in this country, the electrical
wiring, and got an electrician to claim that he had done that.

It's very true that not everyone is cut out to do it.
I just got lucky enough to have a nack for it.

Yeah, I triggered off a bit of a rash of house building when
I built mine, with some doing most of the work themselves,
and others employing subcontractors to do most of the work.

Dig get a few rather hilarious results like one of them who
got the pros to do most of the work, but decided that he
should be able to handle the painting, of concrete blocks,
who proceeded to paint the walls with a broom, literally.

He's always been the least mechanically cluey fellow I know.
He thought it was fine to hose down a big shed full of growth
cabinets with the power turned on, with those with lots of
electrical stuff in the open areas under the cabinets.

No one even ended up needing a doctor as I recall
with any of the house building, tho a few have with
gardening and plenty have with sport.

Now... the big difference here is that I was
always able to find books or people to teach
me how to pour concrete and frame a house;

Yeah, I happened to visit the parents when they were having
a house made by a professional builder, using an unusual form
of post and beam construction where you could see very easily
what was involved. I spent the rest of the time on the visit to
their place planning mine and bought the land when I got home.

I spent quite a bit of time wandering thru houses in the process
of construction after everyone had gone home, in addition to
the mass of stuff available in printed form. Pretty obvious to
anyone with a clue how to do anything basically.

as well as what the dangers and cautions are. I only
wish the same was true for the hard drive scenario.

Yeah, its one area that is rather poorly served.

Its all pretty simple and obvious as long as you dont
actually go into the sealed enclosure and much of it has
been discussed in here, and is available in groups.google.

Bottom line - you're right. The point is that for this data, there's
no chance I will pay $1000+ to a company to recover this data
unless I win the lottery or my penny stocks become another
Amazon or Yahoo. So, it only makes sense to attempt some data
recovery. I have all the faith in the world that with the proper
knowledge and information, I would have a decent shot IF it could
be done outside of a $1000 recovery job at all. Since I am not
prepared to pay $1000+ for the data, I'm not really risking all that much.

True. The worst you risk is ripping a bit more of the hair out
and you can always buy a wig if you care about the result |-)


On your original question, unfortunately for you its not a

One of the drive transistors may have failed and thats
why the drive isnt spinning up now. Not easy to change
the transistors if you havent done any of that before.

situation where the prospects for success are very high.

In theory you could try swapping the logic card from another
identical drive, but someone has tried that quite recently with
a very similar drive and it didnt allow recovery of the data.

In theory the heads may be stuck to the platters and thats
whats stopping the drive from spinning up, but that shouldnt
have happened with a drive like that since it does unload
the heads from the platter surface on spin down.


Provide some info on the other drive, it
may have a better prospect of success.

 

[Joep]

[Snip]

You make good points Rod! Surely shifted my opinion. Maybe I was a little
too much influenced by my own experiences: I have seen so many times, that
despite all sorts of warnings people did stupid things. But you are right,
in the end it was their choice to ignore warnings.

 

[Stellijer]

Yeah, me too, and in my case a full concrete slab for the
entire floor, and had the hilarious result that the local council
who has to inspect that stuff told the professional builders to
have a look at mine before the concrete was actually poured,
because thats how its supposed to be done |-)

Such can often be the case! Often to the contrators it's "just a job" and
they're interested in finishing as soon as possible. However a savvy homeowner
(with a nack) will often do better because they take the time and care to do it
right.

Yeah, I didnt what isnt even legal in this country, the electrical
wiring, and got an electrician to claim that he had done that.
LOL


Dig get a few rather hilarious results like one of them who
got the pros to do most of the work, but decided that he
should be able to handle the painting, of concrete blocks,
who proceeded to paint the walls with a broom, literally.

Well, sadly, most people DON'T have such a nack! Funny story. Broom. Heh.

I spent quite a bit of time wandering thru houses in the process
of construction after everyone had gone home, in addition to
the mass of stuff available in printed form. Pretty obvious to
anyone with a clue how to do anything basically.

That's the way to do it. Now, I just wish I could look over the shoulder of
data recovery people as easily!

Yeah, its one area that is rather poorly served.

Indeed. Since few people wish to engage in it correctly, you see few sources
for info. Then you have the few firms who exist to serve the big money firms
who foolishly have tens of thousands of $ worth of data on hard drives without
backups. Those firms aren't going to be forthcomig insofar as putting up tricks
of the trade.

Its all pretty simple and obvious as long as you dont
actually go into the sealed enclosure and much of it has
been discussed in here, and is available in groups.google.

Well, SOME of the steps are simple and obvious. However, if those things fail,
then workarounds are incredibly valuable. Sometimes with such things there can
be little gems of tricks that could help revive the drive without having to go
into the enclosure.

As for my "no-spinup" drive, I'm hoping the PCB will do the trick (not much I
can do until I find a used one of the same series on eBay). The other drive may
force my hand with the opening of the enclosure (only because the problems are
indicating that it may be the ONLY way to get the data, in which case a time
will come when there's nothing left to lose by trying).

True. The worst you risk is ripping a bit more of the hair out
and you can always buy a wig if you care about the result |-)

Of course, I could have been bald already

One of the drive transistors may have failed and thats
why the drive isnt spinning up now. Not easy to change
the transistors if you havent done any of that before.

If any of these components is on the PCB, then at least there's an external
option.

In theory you could try swapping the logic card from another
identical drive, but someone has tried that quite recently with
a very similar drive and it didnt allow recovery of the data.

Indeed. However, the procurement of a similar drive is the next step, since if
the PCB transplant doesn't work, then the PCB may be the 'donor' for whatever
parts may become necessary.

In theory the heads may be stuck to the platters and thats
whats stopping the drive from spinning up, but that shouldnt
have happened with a drive like that since it does unload
the heads from the platter surface on spin down.

98% sure that's not the problem here since the platter seems to move a bit.
It's almost surely in the motor or motor control. If I'm lucky, it will be in
the motor control. If I'm not lucky, the motor will be the problem and it will
not be able to be manually spun up.

Provide some info on the other drive, it
may have a better prospect of success.

Well, the drive I've been discussing which won't spin up is the 40gb drive. The
other drive is an 80gb drive that failed to be recognized only a week after
purchase. It passed diags and formatted just fine. Then 3 days after putting
data on it, it just one day failed to be recognized by the computer when I tried
to access the drive.

The 80gb drive seems to have some odd data intermittency problem. Sometimes it
will appear to the controller, but 9/10 times not. When it DOES appear, it
won't continute to be accessible. Same happens on different computers and
different controller boards. Same happens whether the system is powered down or
just reset. The data timing out means I can't read data from it before timeouts
occur. I swapped out the PCB on it and the drive STILL behaved the same
(although the PCB on the failed drive worked just fine on the new drive). So
it's definitely NOT the PCB since the beahaviour was the same. This is more of
a pickle of a problem since it spins up but won't supply data properly.


Anyway... as a footnote to the whole "drive repair" scenario, I got to dissect
a similar dead hard drive to learn how it goes together. It was actually a lot
more mecanically simple than I expected. Nonetheless it's amazingly delicate
with obviously any number of things which could go wrong trying to work on it.

Since I was able to dissect the drive, I get the feeling the 80gb drive has a
failure in the head assembly, the chip attached to it or the ribbon cable. At
any rate, this is all ONE factory assembly that cannot really be worked on
easily. Being that the logic board (PCB) was not the problem, the only other
path of data is this assembly. It very well may be I will have to swap it out
with a good one to have any chance of success - a daunting prospect to
accomplish without contaminating the platters or mashing the replacement head
assembly (which is like juggling eggs to work on, I can tell).

The only other hope with the 80gb drive is to find some currently unknown
WORKAROUND which somehow could "juice" the drive into giving up its data. This
would require HEARING about sich a 'fix' from someone who has encountered the
problem before.

As for the 40gb drive... I also learned that there really aren't too many
components affecting the motor. Barring a 'stiction' problem (which is 98%
ruled out), the PCB is the only other component driving it. If the PCB isn't
the problem, then it comes down to two possibilities:
1. Finding a workaround to jump start the motor, such as a hotwire job or
manually spinning the platters fast enough or
2. Replacing the motor... which, while mechanically a very simple prospect, is
a LAST resort, since it requires pulling off the individual platters and then
replacing the motor which only invites any number of chances for contaminating
the platters (and then the new motor may have timing difference which may STILL
cause it not to allow me to read the data).

It all boils down to learning as many potential workarounds as possible before
trying some of the last-ditch efforts.

 

[Stellijer]

You make good points Rod! Surely shifted my opinion. Maybe I was a little
too much influenced by my own experiences: I have seen so many times, that
despite all sorts of warnings people did stupid things. But you are right,
in the end it was their choice to ignore warnings.

What do you consider "stupid"? For someone to work on a drive at all?

To me, the only "stupid" thing is to rush in to working on a drive too quickly,
without finding out ALL alternatives have been exhausted. It's more stupid to
sit and do absolutely nothing, EVER, than to take a calculated risk.

As for data recovery services...fact is, they're priced out of range to even be
an option for an individual user unless some VERY valuable information was on
the drive.

Were the people on the WTC "stupid" because they jumped despite a warning that
they wouldn't survive the fall? When you're only 30 seconds away from burning
to death neither staying nor jumping is a good option. But sometimes they are
the only ones available, warnings or no.

 

[Joep]

What do you consider "stupid"? For someone to work on a drive at all?

To me, the only "stupid" thing is to rush in to working on a drive too quickly,
without finding out ALL alternatives have been exhausted. It's more stupid to
sit and do absolutely nothing, EVER, than to take a calculated risk.

Yes, then we consider the same thing stupid. You could have skipped all the
rest.

As for data recovery services...fact is, they're priced out of range to even be
an option for an individual user unless some VERY valuable information was on
the drive.

Yes, maybe, however often peope are willing to spent the same amount of
money on their house or car when it needs work, it's where your priorities
are. Also, if you look a little better you'll find services that price more
agressively.

Were the people on the WTC "stupid" because they jumped despite a warning that
they wouldn't survive the fall? When you're only 30 seconds away from burning
to death neither staying nor jumping is a good option. But sometimes they are
the only ones available, warnings or no.

See first point. Probably they weren't stupid but desperate. As my
comparison to open heart surgery was kind of 'off', so is this one. A sick
harddrive can hardly be compared by jumping from a collapsing and burning
building. I think this analogy is kind of stupid. You already made your
point and this additional argument is overkill.

 

[Rod Speed]

Such can often be the case! Often to the contrators it's "just
a job" and they're interested in finishing as soon as possible.

Yeah, tho in this particular case its just a different philosophy.
What you're supposed to do is use things called bar chairs
which are a little 4 legged thing that sits on the membrane
which the reinforcing mesh sits on, which places the mesh
at the right level in the concrete slab.

The pros dont bother with those, they have the mesh
flat on the membrane, at what would be the bottom
of the concrete slab and lift the mesh up with a hook
thing when the concrete is being poured.

The problem with that approach is that it depends on the
individual to lift the mesh to the right level in the concrete and
its a lot more reliable to use bar chairs instead as far as
getting the mesh at the right level in the concrete is concerned.

They're just a nuisance to use, each one has to be placed
and attached to the mesh with a wire twist thing. Much
quicker to just lift the mesh as the slab is poured.

However a savvy homeowner (with a nack) will often do
better because they take the time and care to do it right.

True. My next door neighbour had his house professionally
built and the stupid kid doing the cleanup in the bathroom area
thought the floor drain was a great place to sweep the rubble |-)

Well, sadly, most people DON'T have
such a nack! Funny story. Broom. Heh.

Yeah, I did have real reservations about that one doing
anything. Fortunately it all worked out pretty well.

Plenty of my neighbours cant even
fix their lawnmowers or kids bikes.

That's the way to do it. Now, I just wish I could look
over the shoulder of data recovery people as easily!

Yeah. I also owned a light plane at one time, with some other
people, one of which had worked for the local aircraft maintenance
operation, so we did all that work ourselves as well.

He's in a different class altogether, quite capable of
making sophisticated firearms from metal bar stock.

Interestingly he is hopeless at anything electronic
tho, even tho his father was heavily involved in that
commercially. He doesnt seem to be able to handle
things where he cant see whats going on very well at all.

Indeed. Since few people wish to engage in it correctly, you
see few sources for info. Then you have the few firms who
exist to serve the big money firms who foolishly have tens of
thousands of $ worth of data on hard drives without backups.

Yeah, there will always be that market, enough stupids around.

Those firms aren't going to be forthcomig
insofar as putting up tricks of the trade.

Not a lot of point really, most of what they do cant
be done by someone after just reading about it.

Well, SOME of the steps are simple and obvious.
However, if those things fail, then workarounds are
incredibly valuable. Sometimes with such things there
can be little gems of tricks that could help revive the
drive without having to go into the enclosure.

In fact thats something that is pretty desirable, discouraging
people from doing that unless its been proven to be necessary.

As for my "no-spinup" drive, I'm hoping the PCB will do the trick (not
much I can do until I find a used one of the same series on eBay).

And maybe not even then. Someone did try that with that drive model
and the drive appears to not allow a simple logic card swap. Havent
tried that myself by swapping between two known good drives tho.
The problem may just be between two particular microcode rev levels.

The other drive may force my hand with the opening of the enclosure

I think from the symptoms that its unlikely to be useful. Its
much more likely to be a dead transistor on the logic card
thats stopping the rotation motor from spinning the drive up.

Its obviously possible to move transistors from the good
logic card to the bad one if you can do that sort of thing
and its pretty routine to work out which have died too.

(only because the problems are indicating that it may
be the ONLY way to get the data, in which case a time
will come when there's nothing left to lose by trying).

Of course, I could have been bald already

If any of these components is on the PCB,

They all are.

then at least there's an external option.

Not sure what you mean there.

Indeed. However, the procurement of a similar drive is the next
step, since if the PCB transplant doesn't work, then the PCB
may be the 'donor' for whatever parts may become necessary.
Precisely.

98% sure that's not the problem here since the platter seems
to move a bit. It's almost surely in the motor or motor control.

Yeah, and motors dont fail all that often.

If I'm lucky, it will be in the motor control.
If I'm not lucky, the motor will be the problem
and it will not be able to be manually spun up.

If the motor has failed, it would normally be a winding and
that doesnt prevent the motor from being manually spun up.

Non trivial spinning it at the speed accuracy that necessary tho.

Well, the drive I've been discussing which won't spin up is the 40gb
drive. The other drive is an 80gb drive that failed to be recognized
only a week after purchase. It passed diags and formatted just fine.
Then 3 days after putting data on it, it just one day failed to be
recognized by the computer when I tried to access the drive.

The 80gb drive seems to have some odd data intermittency problem.
Sometimes it will appear to the controller, but 9/10 times not. When
it DOES appear, it won't continute to be accessible.

Same happens on different computers and different
controller boards. Same happens whether the system
is powered down or just reset. The data timing out means
I can't read data from it before timeouts occur. I swapped
out the PCB on it and the drive STILL behaved the same
(although the PCB on the failed drive worked just fine on the new drive).
So it's definitely NOT the PCB since the beahaviour was the same.

Weird. Exactly which drive ?

It isnt a Maxtor ? Some of those can produce a result like
that. The problem appears to be that they load at least
some of the code off the platters and when that doesnt
succeed, they dont even report the model number correctly.

If thats the case, it may well be a crack in the flexible cable
to the heads that prevents the data being read all the time.

This is more of a pickle of a problem since
it spins up but won't supply data properly.

Those sometimes can have the data recovered by putting the
drive in a plastic bag in the freezer and getting the data off
before it warms up too much. Best to do that in a dry environment
tho, otherwise you can get condensation forming on the drive.

The cold basically changes the mechanical detail in
the flexible cable and can be enough to conduct for
a while, across the crack in the metallic trace.

Anyway... as a footnote to the whole "drive repair" scenario, I got
to dissect a similar dead hard drive to learn how it goes together.
It was actually a lot more mecanically simple than I expected.

Yeah, very simple and elegant designs now.

Nonetheless it's amazingly delicate with obviously any
number of things which could go wrong trying to work on it.

And if you calculate the track spacing, you're amazed that they can ever work.

Since I was able to dissect the drive, I get the feeling the 80gb drive has
a failure in the head assembly, the chip attached to it or the ribbon cable.

Most likely the flexible cable to the heads.
Could be a bad joint with the head preamp tho.

At any rate, this is all ONE factory assembly that cannot really be worked
on easily. Being that the logic board (PCB) was not the problem, the only
other path of data is this assembly. It very well may be I will have to swap
it out with a good one to have any chance of success - a daunting prospect
to accomplish without contaminating the platters

Its not all that hard to open without contaminating the platters.

Its very non trivial to try moving stuff inside there between
drives, particularly aligning it in the new location.

or mashing the replacement head assembly
(which is like juggling eggs to work on, I can tell).

The only other hope with the 80gb drive is to find some currently
unknown WORKAROUND which somehow could "juice" the drive
into giving up its data. This would require HEARING about sich
a 'fix' from someone who has encountered the problem before.

The freezing is worth trying. It has worked for some.

As for the 40gb drive... I also learned that there really
aren't too many components affecting the motor.
Correct.

Barring a 'stiction' problem (which is 98% ruled out),
the PCB is the only other component driving it.
Correct.

If the PCB isn't the problem, then it comes down to two possibilities:
1. Finding a workaround to jump start the motor, such as a hotwire job

Not possible with the sort of stepper motor used as rotation motors.

or manually spinning the platters fast enough or

Its not so much fast enough as at the right speed.

And since the heads fly on the platter surface, it isnt hard
to produce head crashes if you stuff up the manual spin up.

2. Replacing the motor... which, while mechanically a very
simple prospect, is a LAST resort, since it requires pulling off
the individual platters and then replacing the motor which only
invites any number of chances for contaminating the platters

The problem is aligning them again. The track were
written on the platters after the drive was assembled.

(and then the new motor may have timing difference which
may STILL cause it not to allow me to read the data).

Thats shouldnt be a problem. Alignment would be tho.

It all boils down to learning as many potential workarounds
as possible before trying some of the last-ditch efforts.

True.