[TriLUG] Hard drive recovery

[Gary Weinreb via TriLUG]

I've had good luck freezing hard drives thoroughly - several days. I've 
even placed them into a ziplock bag, then into an insulated container 
with freezer packs while opening the corner of the ziplock (Keep ziplock 
seal at the upper end to keep drive/connections dry.) and snaking the 
cables out the top - i.e. keeping the drive iced and dry while I pull 
the data off.  Be sure to layer something electrically non-conductive 
along the circuit board if the bottom of the drive has one exposed - I 
think I used layered paper towels. Sometimes drives will spin in one 
orientation, but won't in another.  Drives that don't spin up at all, 
that are "good as gone" - I've even given 'em a good flat whack on a 
table top and gotten 'em to spin - but that was certainly a hail-Mary.  
It's worth noting that these techniques have not always achieved a result.

After getting the drive to spin - DD the raw data off ASAP, or 
mount/copy from the filesystem if it's intact and mountable.  Get all of 
your recovery environment prepared ahead of time - you may only get a 
few minutes of spin at a time before you have to freeze it again. Seriously.

By far the best (easiest & most consistent) results I've ever gotten 
with crashed drives, including encrypted RAID units - is to send them to 
Drivesavers <http://www.drivesaversdatarecovery.com>. They provide a 
free evaluation service - and have delivered excellent results for me 
and my clients every single time I've used them. They do state on their 
website that one should not do any of the things I've suggested above - 
that those techniques can make the damage worse.  I don't think I've 
ever made a crashed drive worse, but YMMV.  I have had no good result, 
and then shipped to Drivesavers to have them achieve a full recovery.

It comes down to the value of the potentially recoverable data - a 
determination that is purely subjective.  If the drive has content that 
has any appreciable value to your friend - sentimental value included - 
then the cost of a Drivesavers type of service can be totally worthwhile.

If y'all decide to use Drivesavers - mention me as a referral and I can 
pass along a discount - contact me offlist.  (Hope I'm not violating any 
sort of commercial restriction here...)



On 4/13/19 11:27 AM, Keith Woodie via TriLUG wrote:
> I have a friend with an old hard drive from a computer that they said
> stopped working.   The drive isn’t visible via fdisk and I don’t think it
> is even spinning up.   Any ideas on something I could try to get the data
> off?
>
> Thanks