Successful data recovery from a 'failed' Fujitsu drive

[Mark]

My XP system disk (documents are on a separate drive) failed recently,
and it turned out to be one of those highly unreliable MPG3204 Fujitsu
units.

The platters failed to spin up and I thought all was lost. There was
no noise from the unit except some very quiet clicks. I tried various
things: gently tapping the case during POST, the "rapid wrist flick"
and a more brutal thump. Two hours bagged up in the fridge didn't
help but 24 hours in the freezer at -18C followed by a thaw at room
temp did the trick.

I now have back all the data from between the last image I took of the
disk and the failure date.



As the last resort - short of parting with a silly amount of money -
it seemed like a risk worth taking, and it paid off.

 

[Rod Speed]

My XP system disk (documents are on a separate drive)
failed recently, and it turned out to be one of those highly
unreliable MPG3204 Fujitsu units.

Pretty smart move not backing up the data on any drive.
In spades with a drive with that high a failure rate.

 

[Arno Wagner]

My XP system disk (documents are on a separate drive) failed recently,
and it turned out to be one of those highly unreliable MPG3204 Fujitsu
units.

The platters failed to spin up and I thought all was lost. There was
no noise from the unit except some very quiet clicks. I tried various
things: gently tapping the case during POST, the "rapid wrist flick"
and a more brutal thump. Two hours bagged up in the fridge didn't
help but 24 hours in the freezer at -18C followed by a thaw at room
temp did the trick.

I now have back all the data from between the last image I took of the
disk and the failure date.

As the last resort - short of parting with a silly amount of money -
it seemed like a risk worth taking, and it paid off.

I agree to this fully. Only as a last resort. But it is really
cool that it worked!

Arno

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

I agree to this fully.

Of course you do. You are "babblemouth".

 

[Joep]

Ben je d'r weer, eikel. Ik hoopte dat je gestikt was.