Hard Drive Recovery

[dave23572]

Originally Posted by tcb 180

Thanks Dave. Sent an inquiry off to them just now.

It won't be cheap, but may be your only option from what I've read.

I run an IT support business myself.
If your drive was just corrupt or with only minor hardware failure, I should be able to recover the data for you, but it sounds like you have a higher degree of hardware failure so I expect you'll need a specialist data recovery firm to take the drive platters out and recover the data using their machinery in their clean room.


On a general note, here is some advice for all you hard drive users out there:-

Backup your data regularly to a device that is not left permanently connected to your computer. Only connect the device to your computer for backups then remove it and store it somewhere else, preferably fireproof.


SMART monitoring
It is a good idea to have a hard drive SMART monitoring program running on your computer. Hard drives generally fail gradually rather than suddenly. Like a car, they wear out over time. Wear and tear in the motor, head mechanism and also the drive surface itself.

A SMART monitor will alert you to many of the error states hard drives can report. Normally these errors are not picked up by Microsoft Windows at all, until of course it gets so bad that Windows becomes unstable, freezing, or not booting, possibly with data loss at the worst stage.

A hard drive SMART monitor will give you a much earlier warning of impending drive failure, so you can get the drive replaced long before you hit the real problems.

I install a SMART monitor on not only my own computers, but all my customer's computers. The one I use is CrystalDiskInfo which is free software.
Install the "Standard Edition" and during the installation process be sure to choose "Custom Installation" and de-select the junk software that is attached to it, such as it is with many free programs. Otherwise it will also install software you don't want, possibly even adware. As long as you de-select it, it's fine.

Once it's running it will show you information about your hard drive status.
Under the function menu set both "Resident" & "Startup" to ON, to make it run silently in the background going forward.
You can also configure it to e-mail you if problems are detected (under the "Function / Alert Features" menu).
All my customer's computers are set to e-mail me if CrystalDiskInfo detects a problem.

More information about SMART



Regards...
D Hale
http://www.dhcomputing.co.uk

[peterzs]

thanks Dave, good advice.

[tcb 180]

The good news is: YES THEY CAN DO IT !

The bad news is : IT WILL COST BETWEEN £299 - £999 PLUS VAT

Don't care what anyone says, that is taking the ****!

[Jason04r]

There not cheap , we sent a customers hdd and they charged £899 ... It was a government owned hdd so they didn't care.

Smart protection works very poorly .I change hdd's daily and smart didn't detected a problem on say 90% of the drives yet failed on short dst test.

[tcb 180]

The most needed things on there are the refurb of the Astra Gte, in case we sell it one day. My old Zed pics CA 03 MXC and car shows.

[dave23572]

Originally Posted by Jason04r

There not cheap , we sent a customers hdd and they charged £899 ... It was a government owned hdd so they didn't care.

Smart protection works very poorly .I change hdd's daily and smart didn't detected a problem on say 90% of the drives yet failed on short dst test.

Oh yes I know SMART monitoring isn't the complete solution and doesn't pick up all faults, but it's still worth it if it's free software.

What hard drive testing tools do you recommend?

Dave

[tcb 180]

Been put in touch with a family friend who's working in computers in the states so hopefully he can either come up with a fix or be able to get it done cheaper? Awaiting a reply with fingers crossed.

[peterzs]

Good luck, sounds a nightmare.

[Jason04r]

Originally Posted by dave23572

Oh yes I know SMART monitoring isn't the complete solution and doesn't pick up all faults, but it's still worth it if it's free software.

What hard drive testing tools do you recommend?

Dave

Generally seatools from bootable disk , depends on the machine . Dells diagnostic normally finds issues before needing seatools ... Seems I normally fix dells then any other brand