Best Way To Recover Data From A Crashed Hard Drive?

[monkey.omen]

Besides paying $1000+ to a recovery service ...

I have a 2.5" laptop hard drive that has failed. It was the primary
drive in a laptop that one day, failed to boot with an "OS not found"
type error. It has (had) a bunch of digital photos on it that we don't
want to lose.

I pulled it, plugged it into an external USB case, and attached it to a
Linux computer. It spins up, doesn't make any horrible clicking or
grinding noises ... for a few seconds, "fdisk -l /dev/sda" actually
returns some information:

Disk /dev/sda: 30.0 GB, 30005821440 bytes
240 heads, 63 sectors/track, 3876 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 15120 * 512 = 7741440 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 3773 28523848+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 3774 3876 778680 1c Hidden W95
FAT32 (LBA)

So it's not *totally* borked.

"cp /dev/sda1 /tmp/the_data_goes_here" fails with an I/O error. Same
with the dd command ... attempting to copy /dev/sda rather than
/dev/sda1. it won't mount. If I plug it into a Windows XP computer,
it hangs ... the drive is never accessible.

Any suggestions? it's a Hitachi DK23DA-30F drive, about 3 or 4 years
old. I've thought of looking for another one on eBay, and
disassembling them, moving the platters from the dead drive to the new
one, and trying again. Is this hopeless? Seems worth the cost of an
old 30 GB drive.

The data's worth some effort to recover, but not $1000+ for some pros
to do it.

Thanks.

 

[Arno Wagner]

Besides paying $1000+ to a recovery service ...

I think you can stop your efforts. Sounds to me that without the
right tools and experience you will just waste your time.

Arno

 

[Rod Speed]

(e-mail address removed) wrote

Besides paying $1000+ to a recovery service ...

I have a 2.5" laptop hard drive that has failed. It was the primary
drive in a laptop that one day, failed to boot with an "OS not found"
type error. It has (had) a bunch of digital photos on it that we
don't want to lose.

I pulled it, plugged it into an external USB case, and attached it to
a Linux computer. It spins up, doesn't make any horrible clicking or
grinding noises ... for a few seconds, "fdisk -l /dev/sda" actually
returns some information:

Disk /dev/sda: 30.0 GB, 30005821440 bytes
240 heads, 63 sectors/track, 3876 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 15120 * 512 = 7741440 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 3773 28523848+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 3774 3876 778680 1c Hidden W95
FAT32 (LBA)

So it's not *totally* borked.

"cp /dev/sda1 /tmp/the_data_goes_here" fails with an I/O error.
Same with the dd command ... attempting to copy /dev/sda
rather than /dev/sda1. it won't mount. If I plug it into a
Windows XP computer, it hangs ... the drive is never accessible.

Any suggestions? it's a Hitachi DK23DA-30F drive, about
3 or 4 years old. I've thought of looking for another one on
eBay, and disassembling them, moving the platters from the
dead drive to the new one, and trying again. Is this hopeless?

That particular approach certainly is.

It might help if you swap the logic card between the drives.

Seems worth the cost of an old 30 GB drive.

The data's worth some effort to recover,
but not $1000+ for some pros to do it.

Some arent as expensive as that.
http://www.retrodata.co.uk/standard_service.html

 

[Eric Gisin]

If the number of bad sectors is less than a hundred, you certainly can recover most stuff.
First thing to do is get the SMART status and counters (smartctl, everest home).
Then try "dd if=/dev/sda1 of=image conv=noerror,sync" and see if copies fast enough.
There is also dd_rescue or whatever it's called.

 

[Noname]

Besides paying $1000+ to a recovery service ...

I have a 2.5" laptop hard drive that has failed. It was the primary
drive in a laptop that one day, failed to boot with an "OS not found"
type error. It has (had) a bunch of digital photos on it that we don't
want to lose.

I pulled it, plugged it into an external USB case, and attached it to a
Linux computer. It spins up, doesn't make any horrible clicking or
grinding noises ... for a few seconds, "fdisk -l /dev/sda" actually
returns some information:

Disk /dev/sda: 30.0 GB, 30005821440 bytes
240 heads, 63 sectors/track, 3876 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 15120 * 512 = 7741440 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 3773 28523848+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 3774 3876 778680 1c Hidden W95
FAT32 (LBA)

So it's not *totally* borked.

"cp /dev/sda1 /tmp/the_data_goes_here" fails with an I/O error. Same
with the dd command ... attempting to copy /dev/sda rather than
/dev/sda1. it won't mount. If I plug it into a Windows XP computer,
it hangs ... the drive is never accessible.

Any suggestions? it's a Hitachi DK23DA-30F drive, about 3 or 4 years
old. I've thought of looking for another one on eBay, and
disassembling them, moving the platters from the dead drive to the new
one, and trying again. Is this hopeless? Seems worth the cost of an
old 30 GB drive.

The data's worth some effort to recover, but not $1000+ for some pros
to do it.

Thanks.

Go ahead and swap the platters! It's an easy job and guaranteed to work!!!!

 

[Noname]

Go ahead and swap the platters! It's an easy job and guaranteed to

work!!!!

Before anyone else enters into this discussion (to correct my obvious
sarcasm)- swapping platters is guaranteed to destroy your data.
Given that you would attempt to swap platters, pay for professional Data
Recovery!
There are companies that will recover your data for much less than $1000.

But, the more you play with your hdd the more damage you may create and the
cost of the DR is likely to increase!

 

[anno_triangle]

Hello,

There is other possibility for you to try out. You can use some data
recovery utils either to restore your corrupted partitions or erased
valuable files if reformat is unavoidable. Of that I suppose Active@
Boot Disk CD image data tools set can help you, as it contains such an
utils plus other for backup and erase of info.
http://www.ntfs.com/boot-disk.htm

 

[wemaole]

i suggest you send you hard disk to professional data recovery company.