HD Failure

[enduro]

Regrettably my Seagate EIDE 320Gig main hard drive failed last week with about 200Gig of photo's on it!! Fortunately however, it is under warranty until 2012 but the warranty doesn't appear to cover data recovery - of course I will want to recover the images.

Fault: Hard drive was performing as normal and then on 2 bootups displayed a NTloader error, on the next boot up the HD was not recognised by the machine and now it just makes ticking sounds. Sounds like the head armature is stuck or something similar.

I called around a number of places that deal with data recovery and have been quoted a three stage price system of about $250, $500 and $1200 depending on the level of recovery they need to escalate to. The ppl I was speaking to indicated that it was unlikely that the minimum charge would fix the problem as the drive would likely need to be taken apart and that would void the warranty.

I really should hvae backed up the drive a month or two ago when I was reformatting and reconfiguring the machine. I didn't have enough DVD's at that time as it would have taken about 25 of them to complete the task.

The cost is quite high and I am wondering if there is another way I might be able to kick start the drive with software or even send the drive internationally (Asia) for a less expensive service.

Any ideas?

[Tannin]

If you want your data, you'll just have to pay the asking price, Wayne. Would you get a knee replacement from a cut-price foreign surgeon? Even as things stand, there is no guarantee at all that you will get your stuff back, it all depends on the nature of the fault. Good luck!

[Robjess]

Gosh mate.. sorry to hear that. But this is a good opportunity to reinforce - backup backup backup!! Seriously, if people are not backing up their data now - please do and do it!! Remember, the best source of backup are 3 copies of the data. i hjave my original data on my HDD on my PC, i then have that data backed up to a removable hard drive, and I then have that data backed up to another removable hard drive. I dont bother with off site storage - which technically you should.

[enduro]

Gosh mate.. sorry to hear that. But this is a good opportunity to reinforce - backup backup backup!! Seriously, if people are not backing up their data now - please do and do it!! Remember, the best source of backup are 3 copies of the data. i hjave my original data on my HDD on my PC, i then have that data backed up to a removable hard drive, and I then have that data backed up to another removable hard drive. I dont bother with off site storage - which technically you should.

All those hard drives sound like and expensive but necessary set of hardware.

[ricktas]

Not really - you can get 500GB drives for under $200.00 these days. Well worth it when you look at the cost of recovering (hopefully) your lost data. I have 2 x 1.5TB backup drives. One lives at a friends, in case of house fire etc.

[enduro]

Not really - you can get 500GB drives for under $200.00 these days. Well worth it when you look at the cost of recovering (hopefully) your lost data. I have 2 x 1.5TB backup drives. One lives at a friends, in case of house fire etc.

I have purchased a 500 today and will pick it up shortly.

The few HD techs I spoke to recommended not getting TB drive as the are reportedly still unstable and they are the most often seen drives for data recovery in their shops.

[ShaneB]

Not really - you can get 500GB drives for under $200.00 these days. Well worth it when you look at the cost of recovering (hopefully) your lost data. I have 2 x 1.5TB backup drives. One lives at a friends, in case of house fire etc.

750G seems to be the sweet spot for price at the moment - in internal SATA drives, anyway.

What I'd like is one the external RAID units sold by WD. $500 gets you two 1T drives which can be RAID 0 or 1 as you chose.

I regularly back up to an old internal SATA drive and an external unit.

Good luck with the data recovery.

[oldfart]

Regrettably my Seagate EIDE 320Gig main hard drive failed last week with about 200Gig of photo's on it!! Fortunately however, it is under warranty until 2012 but the warranty doesn't appear to cover data recovery - of course I will want to recover the images.

Fault: Hard drive was performing as normal and then on 2 bootups displayed a NTloader error, on the next boot up the HD was not recognised by the machine and now it just makes ticking sounds. Sounds like the head armature is stuck or something similar.

You can attempt to save the drive your self, but to try costs you the price of another drive (Identical) and there is no assurances of success.

The circuit board at the bottom of the drive is easy enough to swap, and in alot of drive failures all that is required. The tricky bit is buying the exact same model and version of the drive.

If you can get the drive to spin, and be recognised by the bios, Spinrite from grc.com might recover the drive enough to get the data off it.

If your a religious man, prayer is also strongly recommended.


Freezing the drive was a trick used to recover Fujitsu MPG hard Drives that had a chip that overheated to cause the failure, it is strongly not recommended on other drives as it kills more than it saves.

[enduro]

You can attempt to save the drive your self, but to try costs you the price of another drive (Identical) and there is no assurances of success.

The circuit board at the bottom of the drive is easy enough to swap, and in alot of drive failures all that is required. The tricky bit is buying the exact same model and version of the drive.

If you can get the drive to spin, and be recognised by the bios, Spinrite from grc.com might recover the drive enough to get the data off it.

If your a religious man, prayer is also strongly recommended.


Freezing the drive was a trick used to recover Fujitsu MPG hard Drives that had a chip that overheated to cause the failure, it is strongly not recommended on other drives as it kills more than it saves.

I am about to try Spinrite now and my Q. is will run the same if the faulty drive is set as the slave drive? Can't seem to see a reference to that in the manual thus far.

Drive is not recognised in the BIOS at boot up. Sounds like teh drive it fragged and only opportunity may be to take it to a PRO.

Fortunately not ll my images are on one drive.