heartworm Posted March 13, 2008 Share Posted March 13, 2008 my external just heated up masively after the laptop froze transferring files, ive let it cool down an the computer isn't picking it up, although you can hear it spinning, is it recoverable? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DamanC Posted March 13, 2008 Share Posted March 13, 2008 Put it in the freezer overnight Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heartworm Posted March 13, 2008 Author Share Posted March 13, 2008 Put it in the freezer overnight tempting, but its back to normal temperature now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GeordieSteve Posted March 13, 2008 Share Posted March 13, 2008 Do it. Seriously it's worked for me before Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Homer Posted March 13, 2008 Share Posted March 13, 2008 The freezer trick can really work, it's saved one drive in the past for me (and also for some mates) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heartworm Posted March 13, 2008 Author Share Posted March 13, 2008 im doing it just now, nothing too lose, a bit frustrating I thought I had everything backed up, but I dont have my 1st and 2nd year uni work backed up, while I don't need it, its nice to keep to look back on... in a plastic bag it goes then into the freezer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
and1c Posted March 14, 2008 Share Posted March 14, 2008 im doing it just now, nothing too lose, a bit frustrating I thought I had everything backed up, but I dont have my 1st and 2nd year uni work backed up, while I don't need it, its nice to keep to look back on... in a plastic bag it goes then into the freezer Dont mess about when you take it out of the freezer after ~24 hours. You will possibly only have an hour or two max before it starts to fade again. So backup your stuff asap! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shovels Posted March 14, 2008 Share Posted March 14, 2008 I had a quote from a HDD recovery company - the drive had stopped spinning and my client wanted their data off - but when they quoted between £800 - £1000 my client decided the data wasn't 'that' important! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carl0s Posted March 14, 2008 Share Posted March 14, 2008 The fact that it's spinning is a good sign. It's when they don't spin, or they go "whiirr (sounding good so far) bahjiinngg (uh oh..) whiiir .. bahjiiing .. (repeat for ever)" that you're really out of luck. Can you be sure it's not the external interface that's broken (the usb to ide/sata) ? You should maybe take the drive out of the housing and have a go plugging it into a computer directly. You could do with checking the system event log to see if the drive is being picked up. If you're seeing a lot of red read errors then it could be that the drive is being detected fine but due to read errors the filesystem can't be read. Explorer tries to mount the filesystem automatically and this can be a hinderance to getting data off a failing drive. If that's happening you can kill explorer and run something windows based like Stellar Phoenix or GetDataBack to recover a disk image that the software will attempt to rebuild a filesystem out of. Or you could use something DOS based like ProTools to clone the drive to a new drive for doing the recovery on (my preferred idea if it's on its last legs). But really you need to know if the drive is being recognised at all.. i.e. is it reporting itself to the system properly.. either check device manager to see if the drive name exists or plug in to a pc properly and see if the bios finds the drive properly. This information is read from a part of the disk, so if its not being read, the drive won't report its type properly and may just give either nothing or a generic model name (in which case you're out of luck, without sending it to somebody like Seagate Recovery Services). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DamanC Posted March 14, 2008 Share Posted March 14, 2008 Excuse the quick reply last night. I should have added something along the lines of what Carlos was talking about. I wont as that will just be repeatition, ill just add a link to freeware software that has some nice hard disk recovery tools; http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carl0s Posted March 14, 2008 Share Posted March 14, 2008 Excuse the quick reply last night. I should have added something along the lines of what Carlos was talking about. I wont as that will just be repeatition, ill just add a link to freeware software that has some nice hard disk recovery tools; http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/ Good CD. an even better but illegal one is Hiren's Boot CD, but that's just naughty I suppose. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DamanC Posted March 14, 2008 Share Posted March 14, 2008 *goes to look* Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carl0s Posted March 14, 2008 Share Posted March 14, 2008 *goes to look* 9.4 is on some BT sites. Don't run the "Keyboard patch". If you look at the batch file, it looks like it could be just a very convincing way of renaming one of the included files to .exe and running it.. (suspect trojan). Just take the ISO and burn it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DamanC Posted March 14, 2008 Share Posted March 14, 2008 Ten Four, cheers. I can bin a couple of single CDs I run around with. Ghost, Partition Magic being two of them! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heartworm Posted March 14, 2008 Author Share Posted March 14, 2008 Thanks guys, ill let everyone know how it goes when I get back from uni, There isn't anything really important to me on it, but would be really nice not to have to download the 200Gigs of stuff on it. Your a very helpful bunch on here Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heartworm Posted March 17, 2008 Author Share Posted March 17, 2008 well, it didn't work, so I took it down to the local computer shop and they can't get anything at all from it, which is a bit dissapointing, im just grateful the most important thing stored on it wasn't of great importance. Whats the best way to get rid of one of these things, as it did have some details such as CVs on it and such like, not that i think someone is likely to get it and find anything on it, but just incase. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DamanC Posted March 17, 2008 Share Posted March 17, 2008 A large hammer, again im serious Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heartworm Posted March 18, 2008 Author Share Posted March 18, 2008 A large hammer, again im serious That was my thinking, either that or a large magnet Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shovels Posted March 18, 2008 Share Posted March 18, 2008 well, it didn't work, so I took it down to the local computer shop and they can't get anything at all from it, which is a bit dissapointing, im just grateful the most important thing stored on it wasn't of great importance. Whats the best way to get rid of one of these things, as it did have some details such as CVs on it and such like, not that i think someone is likely to get it and find anything on it, but just incase. Please don't take this the wrong way, but if it's spinning there's a very good chance you can get the data off (with the right tools). One drive took nearly 2 days to recover the data, but it was possible. If you want me to take a look at it (FOC) I'm more than happy. If you do drop me a PM and I'll send you my address. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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