Data recovery from dead hard disk
in [Storage]
|
Prev: Dual interface external drive shows up as unformatted when I switch connection
Next: SATA Notebook in Desktop - connectors and mounts?
From: Jonathan de Boyne Pollard on 2 May 2010 09:59 > >> >> Can anyone recommend a good and cost-effective service for recovering >> data from a dead hard drive? My development and boot drive just died >> on me. I have reason to believe that the disk medium is still in >> excellent shape, but the drive electronics themselves are >> malfunctioning. >> >> The symptom is that every time the drive is connected to my power >> supply, either by itself or with other devices, my power supply shuts >> down (probably because of excessive draw). When all other devices are >> plugged into the power supply without this drive, the system stays up >> and running, and attempts to boot. So it looks like drive electronics >> to me. >> >> How much does data recovery usually cost in this case? Will the fact >> that it's from a JFS partition make it difficult? Or can they >> possibly recover an entire raw image of the partition in question? >> >> Anyone with experience is appreciated. >> >> [Yes, I know I'm an idiot for not backing up this stuff.] >> > I looked into this a while ago. I had a different problem � apparently > the bearings on the R/W heads are gone. I understand what they do in > this case is basically rebuild the drive in a clean room to get the > data off of it, for around $300 or so. > > I don't know whether they'd have to do this for bad electronics. If > so, there are apparently only a few places in the country that do > this, and everyone else just sends the drives there. I think they > understand most major file systems. Just getting a raw image would be > pretty rough, that's a lot of data to have to plough through. > Rough for them, possibly. But not rough for you, the customer. I had occasion to use one of those services, some years ago, with a disc that died. All of the volumes were formatted as HPFS. I asked them whether they could just image the drive onto CD-ROM for me. I received a stack of CD-ROMs, with one image file per CD-ROM, whose contents I simply concatenated together myself and dumped onto a new, empty disk. CD-ROM is not really a practical approach for modern drive sizes. But I had reason to go back to them more recently, and they confirmed that for customers who want it, one can send the dead hard disc and a new hard disc, and they'll just image the dead one (or as much of it as can be recovered) onto the new one. They did, of course, offer more services as well. Such places also provide data recovery services for corrupted filesystems and files. They'll do all sorts of forensic analyses if one wants. In my case, I only wanted a raw image of every block on the disc, knowing that the volumes were relatively clean, or clean enough that nothing more than running CHKDSK was needed, at the point of the unit failure. So that's all that I asked for.
From: Franc Zabkar on 3 May 2010 02:50 On Sat, 01 May 2010 14:25:43 -0700, Marty <net(a)comcast.martyamodeo> put finger to keyboard and composed: >The symptom is that every time the drive is connected to my power >supply, either by itself or with other devices, my power supply shuts >down (probably because of excessive draw). Your drive probably has a shorted TVS (transient voltage suppression) diode. There is usually one across each of the +5V and +12V supply rails. The fix is to remove it. Either desolder it, or snip it out with flush cutters. The drive will work perfectly OK without it, but it will no longer have any overvoltage protection on the affected supply. So be sure your PSU is OK. This article should help you identify the components: HDD from inside: Main parts: http://hddscan.com/doc/HDD_from_inside.html If, for continued protection, you wish to replace the diode, then a 5V TVS diode can be substituted with an SMAJ5.0A, and a 12V diode with an SMBJ12A. They can be ordered from Farnell, Mouser, Digikey. If you need help identifying the faulty component, then upload a detailed photo to a file sharing site (eg ImageShack or RapidShare). - Franc Zabkar -- Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.
From: Arno on 3 May 2010 11:44 In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Franc Zabkar <fzabkar(a)iinternode.on.net> wrote: > On Sat, 01 May 2010 14:25:43 -0700, Marty <net(a)comcast.martyamodeo> > put finger to keyboard and composed: >>The symptom is that every time the drive is connected to my power >>supply, either by itself or with other devices, my power supply shuts >>down (probably because of excessive draw). > Your drive probably has a shorted TVS (transient voltage suppression) > diode. There is usually one across each of the +5V and +12V supply > rails. The fix is to remove it. Either desolder it, or snip it out > with flush cutters. The drive will work perfectly OK without it, but > it will no longer have any overvoltage protection on the affected > supply. So be sure your PSU is OK. > This article should help you identify the components: > HDD from inside: Main parts: > http://hddscan.com/doc/HDD_from_inside.html > If, for continued protection, you wish to replace the diode, then a 5V > TVS diode can be substituted with an SMAJ5.0A, and a 12V diode with an > SMBJ12A. > They can be ordered from Farnell, Mouser, Digikey. > If you need help identifying the faulty component, then upload a > detailed photo to a file sharing site (eg ImageShack or RapidShare). > - Franc Zabkar > -- > Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email. Sounds likely. The way these "Transil" dioses fail is in short chircuit, in the idea that a short is better than an unprotected circuit. They do fail this way only after severe overload, so you may want to replace the PSU that caused this as well. Arno -- Arno Wagner, Dr. sc. techn., Dipl. Inform., CISSP -- Email: arno(a)wagner.name GnuPG: ID: 1E25338F FP: 0C30 5782 9D93 F785 E79C 0296 797F 6B50 1E25 338F ---- Cuddly UI's are the manifestation of wishful thinking. -- Dylan Evans
From: Grant on 3 May 2010 19:18 On 3 May 2010 15:44:09 GMT, Arno <me(a)privacy.net> wrote: >In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Franc Zabkar <fzabkar(a)iinternode.on.net> wrote: >> On Sat, 01 May 2010 14:25:43 -0700, Marty <net(a)comcast.martyamodeo> >> put finger to keyboard and composed: > >>>The symptom is that every time the drive is connected to my power >>>supply, either by itself or with other devices, my power supply shuts >>>down (probably because of excessive draw). > >> Your drive probably has a shorted TVS (transient voltage suppression) >> diode. There is usually one across each of the +5V and +12V supply >> rails. The fix is to remove it. Either desolder it, or snip it out >> with flush cutters. The drive will work perfectly OK without it, but >> it will no longer have any overvoltage protection on the affected >> supply. So be sure your PSU is OK. > >> This article should help you identify the components: > >> HDD from inside: Main parts: >> http://hddscan.com/doc/HDD_from_inside.html > >> If, for continued protection, you wish to replace the diode, then a 5V >> TVS diode can be substituted with an SMAJ5.0A, and a 12V diode with an >> SMBJ12A. > >> They can be ordered from Farnell, Mouser, Digikey. > >> If you need help identifying the faulty component, then upload a >> detailed photo to a file sharing site (eg ImageShack or RapidShare). > .... >Sounds likely. The way these "Transil" dioses fail is in short >chircuit, in the idea that a short is better than an unprotected >circuit. They do fail this way only after severe overload, so you >may want to replace the PSU that caused this as well. Interesting, only recently I came across a HDD that shorted out one of the rails, I didn't think to check for a TVS gone short, just assumed from quick look those things were caps across the supply. Good site reference :) Though hddscan didn't see my HDDs under win7 :( Grant. -- http://bugs.id.au/
From: Franc Zabkar on 4 May 2010 00:46
On Tue, 04 May 2010 09:18:02 +1000, Grant <omg(a)grrr.id.au> put finger to keyboard and composed: >Interesting, only recently I came across a HDD that shorted out one of >the rails, I didn't think to check for a TVS gone short, just assumed >from quick look those things were caps across the supply. Other manufacturers sometimes place a fuse in series with each TVS diode. Shorted protection diodes are a very common problem, especially in external drives. People often plug a 19V laptop adapter into a 12V drive ... - Franc Zabkar -- Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email. |