Dead Hard Drive

[andyaus]

Nowdays we are all storing more and more information on our computers. I personally have over 4 TB of data stored over 8 computers with 6 portable hard drives storing movies, TV programs, photographs, Technical manuals, home videos and general office files. A couple of years ago I bought a 500 gig hard drive (WD My Book) and I foolishly assumed this would be the safest storage I could use.

 

My thinking was that so many times the PC ’s would crash and even though I kept my Windows on a different partition I still lost data. I graduated to a Mac environment and moved most of my photographs and home movies but had to keep my PC for business functions so I kept the WD My Book to store Data.

 

You guessed it ...my WD Portable hard drive just decided to stop working recently. I changed the power pack and changed computers but I just can’t get a connection. Since then two otherpeople have asked me to help them get their Portable Hard Drives working.

 

Now I know about backing up things but it is expensive and to be honest I ould need terrabytes of storage to adequately back things up. I use a “Cloud” accounting package which keeps my important business files safe but I have history files on the Hard Drive and I might need them one day. I know there are people who can recover your data but they charge hundreds of dollars and it may not work.

 

Can anyone tell me if there are cleaver little techs in toucom who might do this type of work. Is it worth bringing my dead HD to Pattaya to get it done?

[stevie161]

yes, there are loads in Tuk Com,,, just ask around first as prices will vary from place to place.. there is a place in the bottom right corner,, they have about 6 -8 techs that should do it for you there and then,, mine was just a download problem,, 150 baht to put right,, got quoted 800 from a one man band shop there,,

[jerry]

Since living in Pattaya i have had a dead HD about every year . Not once they where able to recover anything in Tukcom so don't get false hope .

I back up all the important stuff double now . Costs a lot of extra time and money but better than losing it all .

[gogo dog]

Try taking the disc out of its enclosure and installing it inside a PC. It could be the electronics of the My Book that have failed.

[TomasDR]

Can anyone tell me if there are cleaver little techs in toucom who might do this type of work. Is it worth bringing my dead HD to Pattaya to get it done?

 

It depends.

 

Does the drive spin up and make a tapping/clicking sound as if you were tapping metal against metal but it's a dull sound not a "tingy" sound? If so you are screwed unless you have money ($2,000-$4,000, that's US Dollars) and really want the files back. You have to send it to a specialty company (way beyond Tukcom) and what they do is take apart your drive in a clean room and transfer the platters to another drive. BTW The tapping indicates a failed read/write head.

 

If the drive doesn't spin up at all then you might be in luck. As one poster mentioned remove it from it's enclosure and install it as an internal hard drive.

 

Finally it could be overheating so no joke on the next solution. Freeze it, a solid 8-12 hours, try to spin it up then. BTW This will not fix the drive but allow you "chunks" of time to get the data to new drive.

Edited October 20, 2012 by TomasDR

[Seedy]

This was suggested to me a few years ago and worked on an internal drive:-

Put the drive into the freezer for 24 hours then take it out and give it a try. Mine worked for about 2 hours before it crashed completely.

However in that 2 hours I managed to recover all the data i needed.

[nrvous]

If anyone knows of ANYONE in Tukcom that can recover a DEAD drive, let me know. I have never seen one. Sure, they can use recovery software if the drive isn't dead (you f'd the MBR etc) but if the drive don't spin (or the heads don't move etc), that is a DEAD drive... and that takes tools, parts, and training.

 

beating a dead horse... anything worth saving is wortha backing up. for data just have a 4am job on your computer that copies only special folders of high value to another drive on your computer. or external to your computer. that will solve 99% of the issues people have which is a failed drive.

 

I'd suggest not putting it in the freezer. and don't tap it with a hammer and etc etc. if it really dead give it to a pro and pay for it or forget about the data.

 

Like someone else said, take the drive out and put it in a USB caddy or something, if it doesn't spin up then its a serious problem (could be clicking and this too). if it does spin up and the drive is seen by the OS but no data, find some recovery software (tor sites etc).