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My
hard disk has been diagnosed as being dead
My
hard disk has been diagnosed as legitimately being dead (it cannot
be accessed at all). Is there anything I can do to recover the data
on it?
Explanation: A hard disk that has important data on it has been
diagnosed as being dead. The disk cannot be accessed through normal
means to recover the data that is on it, but that data must be retrieved.
Diagnosis: Due to the enormous amount of important data that is
not backed up regularly and is therefore lost to failed hard disks
every year, special companies have sprung up that specialize in
performing special heroics on dead drives to access and retrieve
data on disks that under normal circumstances would never be readable
again. This process is called data recovery. These companies are
expensive, and there are sometimes steps you can perform yourself
instead of hiring them, although you need to carefully weigh your
options before touching your drive and make sure of what you are
attempting. These companies are professionals and their success
rate is actually pretty high.
Warning: Make absolutely sure that the disk is really dead before
you try anything at all in this section. I am assuming that you
have diagnosed it properly and also contacted your manufacturer's
technical support department. If you aren't sure, don't touch the
drive.
Warning: Tinkering with a dead drive can (and often will) void your
warranty. If the drive is under warranty, contact the manufacturer's
technical support department about data recovery options before
you try anything that involves altering the drive. If you alter
the drive then the manufacturer may have no choice but to not honor
the warranty, since they will have no way of knowing if the problem
was indeed caused by your working on the disk.
Recommendation: Assuming that your disk is dead and you want to
try "extreme measures" to try to get it running again,
try some of the above. Note that if you do manage to get the disk
going again, make sure that you will have some other drive set up
to pump the data to. You may only get the disk running again once;
don't miss the opportunity to save the data:
Some drive failures are actually failures of the integrated controller
board, and if you swap this board with an identical one from another
drive, you may be able to get the drive working. You can only do
this with a spare board from an identical board. Contact your manufacturer
about the availability of replacement logic boards. If you feel
daring and have a second of the exact same hard disk you may be
able to "borrow" its board for the test. Needless to say,
this is tricky business so proceed with caution.
Older drives, from around 1990 or before, often fail by refusing
to spin up at all. If this is the case, sometimes it is caused by
the spindle motor getting "stuck", and manually spinning
the motor up will allow the drive to spin free long enough to get
the data off of it. I have even opened up older (1985 era) hard
disks and spun them manually to get them running. These older disks
will tolerate running for a short time with the cover off (the clean
room environment inside the drive is important, but can be violated
if the air is relatively clean and if the drive is only going to
be pumped and then discarded). The idea is simple: open up the disk
and manually move the platters--don't touch the platters, rotate
the hub in the middle--and then turn the disk on and it may spin
up. Empty the disk to another device and then throw the disk out.
It can work--but it is a very risky thing to do and will void the
warranty on any disk you try it on (it's only generally needed on
old disks though). Also, it only generally helps on very old disks
that are physically jammed and thus won't spin up at all when the
power is applied. If the disk is spinning then this fix does not
apply, and I've never tried it on a newer drive.
On rare occasions, simply retrying booting up the hard disk many
times may cause a hard disk with a serious but intermittent problem
to "revive" once to allow it to be pumped. This does not
happen often, but may be worth a try. Turning the system on and
off a lot is hard on other components of the system, so go easy,
and disconnect whatever you can before you start. Always wait at
least 15 seconds after turning off a PC before turning it back on
again.
Contact a data recovery company and ask them for an assessment.
Shop around, because some of these companies are much more competitive
than others. See this section for details on PC repair and dealing
with repair shops.
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