hard drive recovery?

[amethystmoon.livejournal.com]

Does anyone know of a place in the area that can do hard drive recovery, other than Microcenter or Best Buy (which I'm already looking into)? I've been doing some looking online, but my hard drive is clicking, and a lot of places seem to say they won't deal with that.

Alternatively, does anyone in the area have an Archos Gmini MP3 player, and could lend me the charger for a bit? I used mine as my backup hard drive, but I lost the charger and the battery is presently dead.

Edit: Thank you all for advice and suggestions. I've found a charger for the Archos, and I'm going to try a couple more at-home efforts with the hard drive, involving different boards, the assistance of a kind LJ neighbor, and possibly this fun-sounding freezing option, and chalk it up to a loss if they don't work. Who knew clean rooms were so expensive? ;)

Comments

[ron_newman]

Tagged. Don't know if any of the previous entries are useful, but take a look. There is a computer repair place on the first floor of the Harvard Vanguard medical building on Holland Street, but I've never been inside.

[curiositykt.livejournal.com]

they are pretty reasonable and give good estimates.. I was unable to convince myself that my computer needed repairing rather than replacing so I am not sure how the service actually is though.

[jellobiafrascat.livejournal.com]

how important is the data on the drive and how much of it is there?

Honestly, you don't want just anyone poking around the hard drive if the data is really important. they can end up causing more damage than good.

Trust me on this one, you may have to drop a pretty penny to get the data off safely if its worth the price. I'm going though the same thing with a failed raid 0 set up and a $28,000 film sitting on it. Drivesavers.com

I would agree, but...

[amethystmoon.livejournal.com]

I'd say it's worth a few hundred to me, max. This is just my personal stuff, no business-related or really high-value data. I mostly want my photos from Paris and from my BFA thesis, and my college graphic design work. But thanks!

Re: I would agree, but...

[agharta75.livejournal.com]

If it's clicking, at least a few hundred is what you'll end up paying, unfortunately.

Wish I could recommend a place to you. Do you know any corporate sysadmins who might have had the problem?

[etana.livejournal.com]

No - but your icon is incorrect.

[amethystmoon.livejournal.com]

It's an art piece by Barbara Kruger

[rethcir.livejournal.com]

If I were you I'd keep it the F away from best buy. Any serious computer technician/IT Guy will tell you Geek Squad is an absolute sham. (google "geek squad sucks" for some horror stories on this). In short, they are not a service organization, but a sales organization, so expect to be upsold and not given great service.

ANYWAY. Does the drive still reliably boot up? If so, before it dies you might be able to image the disk to a new hard drive using a tool such as Norton Ghost or G4L (http://sourceforge.net/projects/g4l - this is freeware). This might or might not be beyond your comfort level, but just floating the option.

[amethystmoon.livejournal.com]

Ha! good to know. Unfortunately, it doesn't boot, and doesn't have a functional computer to be in anymore (various other hardware bits in the laptop also died. It was getting old). No disk imaging for me...

[pierceheart.livejournal.com]

Why not?

there are various add on devices that can be used to see a laptop hard drive as an external usb drive, and then, if you have another external drive, you can use acronis' imaging program to copy it ... if it will run with power applied to it ...

unfortunately...

[amethystmoon.livejournal.com]

Its not booting is unrelated to the otherwise mostly dead laptop. I've tried a few configurations of external case plugged into another computer, in all instances the clicking persists and the computer it's plugged into won't recognize the drive. And it sounds, from the websites I've been checking out, like I've probably damaged it further by continuing to try.

Re: unfortunately...

[srakkt.livejournal.com]

I've got a USB gizmo you're welcome to borrow, and if you have another USB HD, we can simply copy the data over.

[mattdm.livejournal.com]

If it won't boot, I'd say you're extremely likely to go over your couple-of-hundred limit in any attempt to recover data. So I'd suggest skipping worrying further about that and concentrate on either getting data from the backup or recreating the data.

[agharta75.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah. This problem is beyond anyone at Best Buy or the equivalent. It's possible that someone at MicroSystems might know where to send it.

TechFusion

[ravingwanderer.livejournal.com]

TechFusion (http://www.techfusion.com/) in Cambridge is supposedly the go-to place. I've not used it (but might -- I have a drive that exhibited similar clicking sounds until I pulled it), but friends have, in business setting. Be prepared to pay just for them to look at it.

Re: TechFusion

[amethystmoon.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

Re: TechFusion

[viellen]

I'd be remiss if I didn't speak up to say I've dealt with Tech Fusion in a professional way, and have heard numerous feedback from my clients denouncing their business. They often make promises they can't keep. They employ technicians who are often uneducated and make poor decisions that end up causing further damage to machines. They have also been very difficult to deal with once they do screw up.

I second what a couple commenters have said, Drive Savers is the standard in the industry. If your HD is clicking, you're looking at a starting price of ~$400 no matter where you go. Realistically, you're looking at at least a grand. Data recovery is a very specialized industry that requires expensive technology and a clean room. If you really care about your data, don't bring it to a local hack; they'll take your $300 and not give you anything to show for it.

Re: TechFusion

[grapefruiteater.livejournal.com]

I've heard that about Tech Fusion, too--directly from Apple, in fact, about one of our work computers.

[bettyw.livejournal.com]

So are you saying that if you can get your data off of the Archos you won't need to try to recover the HD? Do you have another drive to which to transfer the Archos data? I do have a gmini (and the charger) - can't do a meetup today, but I have off work Friday and Monday, and could be available sometime Sat. or Sun.

No offense, but since I don't know you I'd rather not just hand off the charger, but help you get enough charge on the battery to be able to transfer the data off (after it gets a bit of charge back in the battery you can mount it while being powered by the charger). Email me at my LJ name @ livejournal.com to discuss.

[amethystmoon.livejournal.com]

Yes, at least enough of my data is backed up on the Archos that I'd give up on recovering the hard drive if I can get that up and running. I'll email you. Thanks!

[spud.livejournal.com]

Okay... as previously stated, avoid BestBuy, GeekSquad, AND Microcenter. Tech-Fusion is over by Fresh Pond, and they specialize in data recovery from bad drive, but they are very expensive. I have also had several issues of customers coming to me after Tech-Fusion couldn't recover their data without more in-depth work and more associated costs (That the customer just didn't want to spend), and I was able to pull the data off without much trouble. In one other instance, Tech-Fusion had attempted to swap out the circuit board with a total different model board, then forget to swap it back. I had to call them to get the actual original board back!

So... Tech-Fusion has some issues, but they aren't as bad as the others.

All that said; you do need to be careful about how much you are attempting to get the drive up and running. It may be that the drive is really head-locked now, and there really won't be any way to recover without pulling the platters out in a clean-room and swapping them to a new identical drive. That's a LOT of money, and it sounds like maybe not worth it for you right now.

If you'd like to shoot me an e-mail with the Make/Model # of the drive, and if possible the part number and REV # on the circuit board, I can see if I may have an identical board in my stash. That's really the best first step if the drive won't show up if attached to another system via USB or secondary chain.

I've done a LOT of drive recoveries, and I'd be happy to help you out if you'd like. It doesn't mean that I CAN recover your drive, but I'm happy to try.

eldergoth AT gmail

[jaypee.livejournal.com]

Basically, you need to stop doing whatever you are trying to do if you even want the chance to recover any data. I'm going to let you know already that it's going to cost about $1,500 + for a standard hard drive. Raid is far more expensive (2-10X as much). It's going to cost you $300-500 just to have it looked at and to get an estimate (both of cost and probable recovery percentage), but companies will usually credit you with that amount if you choose to recover with them.

It's not cheap, because they physically open the drive and remove the plates in a clean environment, and then place them in special machines to read the data. They also have to use some high level programs running on high end systems to run the algorithms necessary to put the data back together. If it is a physical failure (which is what it is sounding like), then this is the only way to get the data.

Even then, it's not a guarantee that they will get everything. I've used Excalibur Data Recovery (http://www.excaliburdr.com/) at my company a few times, and they've retrieved everything so far. Most of the time people shy away from the cost, as it's for those instances when you simply must get your data back.

My suggestion is to take as a loss, and take it as a lesson to make sure you have multiple backup sources for your data. It sucks, but it happens.

[spud.livejournal.com]

Actually, they only physically open the drives if they are dead, or the heads are locked tight. A great deal of the time, the drive ends up clicking due to problems with the controller on the circuit board and not specifically a mechanical issue. In many cases, swapping the board will resolve the problem to the point where data can be pulled off. In rare cases, freezing the drive will work when the issue is more of a mechanical nature. This is tricky, as you often need to freeze, recover, freeze again, recover more. I've used the method several times in extreme situations with success when nothing else short of platter swap would have worked.

[icecreamempress.livejournal.com]

I've had a good experience with TechFusion and it cost me something in the hundreds of dollars, not in the thousands of dollars. That was a while ago, though, and they were able to remount the hard drive on another machine and transfer the info to disks.

[lesliet-ma.livejournal.com]

A bit of a drive from Davis Square, but I had good luck with CTS Computer on Rte 16 in Newton. See www.ctscomputer.com. They recovered my drive and transferred the data to a new working drive that they installed for just a few hundred dollars.

[hr-macgirl.livejournal.com]

you could always try freezing your hard drive (http://geeksaresexy.blogspot.com/2006/01/freeze-your-hard-drive-to-recover-data.html) to attempt a recovery on your own.

I have tried this three times and it has failed each time, but it may be worth it to you to attempt it.

drive Savers

[jokabri.livejournal.com]

All places are going to charge... but...
http://www.drivesavers.com/