Data recovery, Data recovery methods for broken HDD Options

[palindromic]

Hey guys I recently had my main hard drive for my PC suddenly stop working (by main I mean includes my OS) and I was wondering the most efficient/safe ways to recover the lost data.

I can confirm it is the hard drive that is malfunctioning after doing tests with another hard drive and a disc drive with several different ports and SATA cables.

If there is a way to fix the hard drive that would of course be extremely welcome but any and all help would be appreciated.

[Dasa]

is the hdd being detected?
if not i know people have successfully replaced the pcb on a hdd with one from a hdd of the same model
but if its hdd internals thats the problem not its control then there is no choice but to send it of to someone who recovers data from hdd and that wont be cheap

another thing that has worked for some is placing the hdd in the freezer and it can sometimes work long enough afterwards to get a few of your critical files back but its hard to know what will help till you provide some more info then im sure someone with some experience will point you in the right direction

This post has been edited by Dasa: Apr 26 2012, 10:37 PM

[palindromic]

No the hdd is not being detected whatsoever, trying to replace the pcb sounds good but as you said it wont do much if it is the internals that are broken and I don't know how to test for one or the other.

It does seem more likely that it is just the detection though as I am pretty sure it still turns on when I turn on the pc.

[discoInferno]

I've successfully used TestDisk and PhotoRec to recover some (not all) of my data off a dying hard drive of mine around a year ago. As far as I can remember the drive has to still be detected for either of these to work, so probably not particularly helpful for you, but it might be worth having a look anyway.

From memory I put the drive in an external caddy that I had, and after installing windows on a new drive, had a crack at recovering data off the dead one.

[aliali]

No the hdd is not being detected whatsoever, trying to replace the pcb sounds good but as you said it wont do much if it is the internals that are broken and I don't know how to test for one or the other.

It does seem more likely that it is just the detection though as I am pretty sure it still turns on when I turn on the pc.

PCB has to be exactly the same right down to firmware version, chipset and everything.
Easiest way to tell if it is spinning up is to disconnect all other HDDs and put a finger on the top of the drive then turn on the PC. You should feel slight vibration and hear the whine of the motor spinning up.

If the data is very important then send it to a professional data recovery firm who can do it properly.
I have used these guys
http://www.recoverdata.com.au/datarecovery...ecoveryfees.htm
twice for customers and they have managed to get nearly all the data back. One drive failed to spin up at all and wasn't recognised by the bios, the other was suffering head crashes and spin downs.
Both where drives from small businesses with important account and customer data on them. Of course neither SOHO had any sort of backups. :-(
Yes it is expensive but the most reliable way to get your data back.
Physically taking the drive to a data recovery firm is the best, saves the risk of it getting lost in transit (unfortunately not an option for me).

Oh an do note that the more you stuff around with a dead HDD the less likely it is that data can be recovered.


This post has been edited by aliali: Apr 27 2012, 05:50 PM