[TriLUG] Hard drive recovery

[Brian Henning]

I have some $$$$ data-recovery software, and I don't mind scanning the drive
for a nominal charge..  That's if you can't get anywhere with the tools you
have.

The software I have (Ontrack EasyRecovery) can work past a lot of data
errors and some hardware errors..  I used it to recover a good amount of
data from a drive that was making some pretty sickening clicking sounds.  It
may or may not be able to find anything without swapping the electronics
with an identical drive.  The fact that your BIOS recognizes the drive is a
good sign, though; that is, if anybody's machine can successfully boot with
it connected.  In my setup, it would be hanging off a PCI controller though.

By all means exhaust your options with people that don't want any money
first. ;-)  If you don't get anywhere though, feel free to drop me a line.

Just out of curiosity, how much data are we talking about?

Good luck!
~Brian

-----Original Message-----
From: trilug-bounces at trilug.org [mailto:trilug-bounces at trilug.org]On
Behalf Of Mark Shuford
Sent: Friday, August 26, 2005 10:32 PM
To: Triangle Linux Users Group discussion list
Subject: Re: [TriLUG] Hard drive recovery



If you can find another of the same drive (you did say it was only a few
months old) you can try a little surgery...

Get the PC board off the new drive and put it on the broken one. If it's
a electronics problem, rather than physical or corrupted meta-data, this
may revive it for a bit to get your data. Then collect on the warranty
so's you'll have the two drives.

I've fixed a couple of drives like this in the past.

No guarantee... and some chance that it could MUNG what's there already
if the PC board starts writing to the drive... which I don't see a good
reason for, but I must still give the warning.

Probably not for the faint-of-heart.

If the meta-data is hosed then the course is a data-recovery service or
deep digging yourself (if you have the tools and are up for it).




mds


On Fri, 26 Aug 2005 22:22:37 -0400
Owen Berry <oberry at trilug.org> wrote:

> I think that's what's happening. They're on different channels, and I
> tried a few mixtures of jumper settings, but no luck.
>
> I'm keen to give the PCI controller a try, but I'll have to get my
> hands on one. Maybe now is the time to go for RAID with 2 hard drives.
> Only problem is a lack of funds. This drive is only a few months old!
> Should be under warranty at least.
>
> In the mean time, anybody know of good/reasonably affordable data
> recovery services in the area, that might have a better go at it? I'd
> have to weigh cost against data, but there are some photos of my 7
> month old son that hadn't made it to a backup yet that I wouldn't mind
> getting back. I see Intrex advertises that they do some data recovery.
> Any idea how good an option they would be? Any location a better
> choice?
>
> I guess this has become OT, but it did kind of start off as a Knoppix
> question. Apologies to those who mind.
>
> -- Owen
>
> On Fri, 2005-08-26 at 20:36 -0400, Jason Tower wrote:
> > a hosed hdd can interfere with other ide devices, i've seen this
> > kind of behavior before.  make sure they're not on the same channel,
> > and be sure to try different jumper settings.  if that fails try
> > using a pci ide controller for the hdd.  if that doesn't work you're
> > probably sol.
> >
> > jason
> >
> > Owen Berry wrote:
> > > This morning my wife's computer crashed, the hard drive started
> > > making clicking noises, and, when rebooted would get past the BIOS
> > > startup and then stop with a flashing cursor in the top left hand
> > > corner of the screen. The only good sign is that the BIOS detects
> > > the hard drive.
> > >
> > > Seems pretty bad. My first thought was to try to recover whatever
> > > possible using Knoppix. Tried booting off the CD, but all I got
> > > was the flashing cursor. Went into the BIOS and double checked
> > > that the CD drive came before the hard drive in terms of startup
> > > devices - it was. To be sure, I changed all 3 options to be the CD
> > > drive. Still the same result.
> > >
> > > I tried unplugging the hard drive and then booting off Knoppix,
> > > and everything worked fine. Any ideas what I could be missing
> > > here?
> > >
> > > Thanks.
> > >
> > > -- Owen
> > >
> > >
>
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--
Mark Shuford
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