Hard Disc Repair

[paulfr]

My laptop disc was making a clicking sound this morning on startup.

Eventually got it replaced at Fortune Town.

But there is some valuable data I would like to recover.

It seems to be for sure a hardware failure.

I know several companies manufacture here in LOS.

Anyone know of where a hardware repair of a disc drive can be done ?

Anyone ever had one repaired successfully ?

Thanks

[farangsay]

Hard disk repair has been totally uneconomic for at least 10 years.

There are data recovery services out there but your data would have

to be very valuable as they are very expensive.

If the disk was still functioning (you just said it was clicking) you

could copy/save the data from it and then upload to the new disk.

[siamaloha]

The hardrive in my Apple PowerBook G4 crashed two weeks ago. I took it to the Apple Repair Center at Rama 3 and they told me they could not recover the data. B U T, the tech at the Apple Center at Thonglor J Avenue retrieved all my data, stored it on their disk. After Rama 3 replaced my H D under warranty, Thonglor restored everything on my laptop exactly as it was before the crash for THB 1600. It was a lot of running around, but I feel very lucky. You don't have an Apple do you? I'm investing in an external drive for backup as soon as I get back from Songkran.

[kayo]

Hey, a somewhat unconventional suggestion for you:

I had a prob with my old hard drive a little while back. Took it out of the laptop, and, (this is NO joke) I sort of "massaged the (circular) disc bit in the middle". I got another two months use out of it before it finally gave up, allowing me to make any outstanding back ups that I hadn't got round to doing yet.

Dead serious. no techy in his right mind will suggest it, but it worked for me...

Though it was a lot of fiddling,

"massage", put it back in, try... "massage", put it back in, try... repeat ad infinitum until it worked.

My rational, was that basically something mechanical was knocked out of place, so I tried, just like a muscle, to massage it back.

It worked!!

[stumonster]

A couple of months ago one of my "big" bosses brought his 300gig external to me saying that is was not working , was making horrible noises and the IT department said there was nothing they could do.

he said it was his back up . so I said to him that as it was a backup it meant that he had the data elsewhere so he could just make a copy again - oop's , it was not really a backup , it was important file storage.

I removed it from its case and plugged it into a desktop and booted from an Ultimate boot cd for windows - it did indeed make horrible noises and its FAT was trashed which explained why he could not see his data anymore. using a program on UBCD I recreated a FAT and then copied all the recognizable files to a new 320 external drive.

the tight bastard never even bought me a bottle of scotch - though he did push though a pay rise for me a couple of months later and got it backdated by 2 and a half months so I can't really complain.

if your data is that important , you should ask around and find some one who will have a good go at retrieving it for you. Have a new external handy to copy it onto when you do.

[JustAnotherFarang]

I think I have a copy of Spinrite that I never used, apparently its very good at fixing hard disk failure problems - Give me a shout and I will send it on to you

JAF

[Guest Reimar]

Spinrite is deffinitive good! But ,y 1. choice is everytime: HDRegenrator! This software reformats the hardisk without to "touch" the data! Also doesn't matter which kind of format (FAT32 or 16, NTFS, Mac or whatever) it is it will be formatted without loosing any data. Except for sure that on an un-recoveral damaged sector (hardware failure).

Give that program a try!

[cdnvic]

If someone is offering you a free copy of Spinrite take it

Best utility I own.

[paulfr]

Hey, a somewhat unconventional suggestion for you:

I had a prob with my old hard drive a little while back. Took it out of the laptop, and, (this is NO joke) I sort of "massaged the (circular) disc bit in the middle". I got another two months use out of it before it finally gave up, allowing me to make any outstanding back ups that I hadn't got round to doing yet.

Dead serious. no techy in his right mind will suggest it, but it worked for me...

Though it was a lot of fiddling,

"massage", put it back in, try... "massage", put it back in, try... repeat ad infinitum until it worked.

My rational, was that basically something mechanical was knocked out of place, so I tried, just like a muscle, to massage it back.

It worked!!

This is not as outlandish as you think.

I worked in nuclear physics for several decades and there are times when a good ole rap with a hammer fixes a problem. [Not on the nuclear level, of course.]

Your reasoning was excellent. Glad it worked.

I think I have a copy of Spinrite that I never used, apparently its very good at fixing hard disk failure problems - Give me a shout and I will send it on to you

JAF

Thank you. Offer accepted.

I will PM you with my email address.

[endure]

Hey, a somewhat unconventional suggestion for you:

I had a prob with my old hard drive a little while back. Took it out of the laptop, and, (this is NO joke) I sort of "massaged the (circular) disc bit in the middle". I got another two months use out of it before it finally gave up, allowing me to make any outstanding back ups that I hadn't got round to doing yet.

Dead serious. no techy in his right mind will suggest it, but it worked for me...

Nonsense! Every techie knows the value of a small hammer and a refrigerator

[stumonster]

Hey, a somewhat unconventional suggestion for you:

I had a prob with my old hard drive a little while back. Took it out of the laptop, and, (this is NO joke) I sort of "massaged the (circular) disc bit in the middle". I got another two months use out of it before it finally gave up, allowing me to make any outstanding back ups that I hadn't got round to doing yet.

Dead serious. no techy in his right mind will suggest it, but it worked for me...

Nonsense! Every techie knows the value of a small hammer and a refrigerator

Pah! the UberTech just comes to the recalcitrant device and scares it into working correctly ...... :-p

[paulfr]

Follow up .......

I got a quote from a reputable US company on a clean room

'invasive' repair of a drive. Only a meare $995.

It looks like they price it at the value of the data rather than

the cost of the labor and materials. Then again, clean rooms

are not cheap.

I still think there must be a reasonable clean room repair service.

Will post if I find one.

[gharknes]

The hardrive in my Apple PowerBook G4 crashed two weeks ago. I took it to the Apple Repair Center at Rama 3 and they told me they could not recover the data. B U T, the tech at the Apple Center at Thonglor J Avenue retrieved all my data, stored it on their disk. After Rama 3 replaced my H D under warranty, Thonglor restored everything on my laptop exactly as it was before the crash for THB 1600. It was a lot of running around, but I feel very lucky. You don't have an Apple do you? I'm investing in an external drive for backup as soon as I get back from Songkran.

I would suggest there was nothing wrong with your drive - or very little, total data recovery on a truely damaged drive is almost impossible, the odd time you can be lucky and swapping out the system board can work, drive failure is usually to do with the mechanical side of things and is very fatal.

[cdnvic]

drive failure is usually to do with the mechanical side of things and is very fatal.

My experience proves otherwise. Most drives I've had to deal with had failed due to corruption which, with the right tools is almost always recoverable.

[chingching]

The clicking noise is likely a mechanicl failure and recovery will be pointless. At that point resorting to the hammer may be a good idea, as there will be little else you can do.

As they say there are 2 types of people, those who back up, and those that wish they had.

If it's not a mechanical failure several softwares will be able to recover much of your data,

Good luck

[Tywais]

The clicking noise is likely a mechanicl failure and recovery will be pointless. At that point resorting to the hammer may be a good idea, as there will be little else you can do.

The clicking can also come from the heads cycling over a bad spot on the disk and not necessarily the motor. Did the disk become completely unaccessible before you replaced it? If not then you should be able to put it into an external box and get most if not all your data transferred from it.

[cdnvic]

Tywais is right. I've had drives clicking and buzzing like crazy that I just Spinrited and they worked fine after that.

[paulfr]

The clicking can also come from the heads cycling over a bad spot on the disk and not necessarily the motor. Did the disk become completely unaccessible before you replaced it? If not then you should be able to put it into an external box and get most if not all your data transferred from it.

Well this is becoming a saga ......

I did buy an external USB box for the bad drive.

Today I remembered one suggestion to massage the drive and had some time to try it.

I did some gentle tapping while plugged in to a USB port

and low and behold the clicking stopped ! !

Device manager can now see a USB drive, but file mananger will not assign a drive letter.

So I have something to be hopeful about here.

After Songkran I will take it to Pantip or the Compaq/HP center on Rama IV and see if they

can see the data somehow.

I will also read the Spinrite SW documentation and try that.

Thanks for the help and I will post results as they come in.

I am sure I am not the only one with these troubles.

Repeat after me ....

Backup, Backup, Backup every week.

Cheers

[Guest Reimar]

Look in your PM-Foler an your E-Mail!

[paulfr]

Look in your PM-Foler an your E-Mail!

Got it. All three files.

Thank you very much ! !

[bino]

Hey, a somewhat unconventional suggestion for you:

I had a prob with my old hard drive a little while back. Took it out of the laptop, and, (this is NO joke) I sort of "massaged the (circular) disc bit in the middle". I got another two months use out of it before it finally gave up, allowing me to make any outstanding back ups that I hadn't got round to doing yet.

Dead serious. no techy in his right mind will suggest it, but it worked for me...

Though it was a lot of fiddling,

"massage", put it back in, try... "massage", put it back in, try... repeat ad infinitum until it worked.

My rational, was that basically something mechanical was knocked out of place, so I tried, just like a muscle, to massage it back.

It worked!!

Good fix Kayo!

I have a similar story....

Years ago when I was a poor uni student I had a 40MB drive that started making weird clicking and grinding noises. I took it out of the case and reinstalled it upside down. It ran for another year, in fact until I replaced the computer!

[lopburi3]

Believe you have to select something in your computer to get a drive letter for a new USB drive. Know I had same problem when I first installed external drive but found something to get it but don't have a clue what. Perhaps someone knows or you can find with a Google.

[kayo]

Glad some folk believe me

I nearly don't believe it myself,but hey.. it is what it is!

And ultimately, it seems it may be helping you, and for that I'm gladdest of all!

yours,

Happy forum klown!

[gharknes]

drive failure is usually to do with the mechanical side of things and is very fatal.

My experience proves otherwise. Most drives I've had to deal with had failed due to corruption which, with the right tools is almost always recoverable.

I don't count data corruption as a drive failure, hard drives ship new with corrupt areas on the surface which are mapped out when a low level format is performed. I guess it's an individuals interpretation of failure

[cdnvic]

I interpret failure as when it no longer works.

[gharknes]

I interpret failure as when it no longer works.

at what point would you say a torch no longer works as the battery runs down ? failure is when the bulb blows

[cdnvic]

Well, you can invent all the personal definitions you want but any time a properly functioning computer can no longer read the data on a drive the drive is regarded as failed. Too often people give up and throw these disks out, or pay a ridiculous amount to have it recovered. The majority of the time I've been able to recover them.

[Guest Reimar]

Well, you can invent all the personal definitions you want but any time a properly functioning computer can no longer read the data on a drive the drive is regarded as failed. Too often people give up and throw these disks out, or pay a ridiculous amount to have it recovered. The majority of the time I've been able to recover them.

I agree with cndvic.

From my experiences about 60-70 % of the so named broken HDD's can be recovered. It's right that the HDD fails to work if the data can't be read but that didn't mean that the HDD is "dead"! One of the best software, from my experiences the best one at all, is HDD Regenerator.

Exactly the symtoms paulfr reported I've a fiew days ago with my Web-Server's system hard disk. "Reformatting" with HDD Regenerator, which needs about 4-5 hour for 40 GB, the HDD works fine without any problem. And that was the 3. time with this HDD over an period of 3 years. Same result I've with many of the HDD's from my customers.

Evev Spinrite, cndvic like it very much and it is a very good software, cant recover that much as HDD Regenerator.

Unfortunatly for many of you: This Software isn't Freeware, it's Payware!

[Eureka]

My laptop disc was making a clicking sound this morning on startup.

Eventually got it replaced at Fortune Town.

But there is some valuable data I would like to recover.

It seems to be for sure a hardware failure.

I know several companies manufacture here in LOS.

Anyone know of where a hardware repair of a disc drive can be done ?

Anyone ever had one repaired successfully ?

Thanks

Some good suggestions have been included so far but I will give you an viable outline that works in 99% of failures.

1. A GOOD data recovery program such as GetDataBack (NTFS & FAT versions available) are easier than trying to repair the MBR or FAT with MS utils. More than likely all you will need.

2. HD Regenerator and SpinRite work differently and if used one after the other you may even have a miricle cure. HD Regenerator is a Russian program that somehow manages to reverse the magnetism and return it for every bit in the drive. Don't ask me how. SpinRite is fro Gibson Research and it changes all 0s to 1s and 1s to 0s and back again. Neither works 100% in all cases but together they are magical. Allow 12 hours plus on each program for 160Gb up.

3. If the drive has not recovered enough to retreive the data you have to decide if it is going to be sent to a clean room. If it is skip #4

4. Now is the time for physical persuasion. A gentle rock of the drive from side to side and/or a slight tap on 1 or more sides may help reset internals or free a stuborn bearing. Placing the drive in a sealed container in the frezer for several hours has also been known to work sometimes.

5. If all else has failed you are now the proud owner of a Doorstop.

By the way I recover Data on a daily basis from Hard Drives, Optical Discs and Digital Media with a very high sucess rate. I encounter around 10-15 drives each month that have similar physical defects as your drive.

It is not the end, just find a competant Tech if you cannot manage the Recovery yourself.

[erictan72]

I guess you are right about that. In any case, I am a student who went to Singapore for studies. My hard disk crashed and I went with this data recovery company.. Data Savers.. Their website is http://www.data-savers.net . I was quoted for S$950 a clean room data recovery for my HDD platter & Head damage repair. If the price quoted below is in US dollars , why not check them out?

Follow up .......

I got a quote from a reputable US company on a clean room

'invasive' repair of a drive. Only a meare $995.

It looks like they price it at the value of the data rather than

the cost of the labor and materials. Then again, clean rooms

are not cheap.

I still think there must be a reasonable clean room repair service.

Will post if I find one.