HDD Repair - Any One Experienced ?

[Skinner]

Just to be clear since people will chant the backup, backup, backup song, I'm guilty myself This is NOT my back up, my back up is 2 independent drives, this is an Archive system, so was deemed less prone to failure and abuse.

I have (sorry had) a Seagate NAS box running at RAID 1, using 2 x Seagate Barracuda 1.5tb LP Drives of the 7200.12 breed (I specifically avoided the .11 due to the new surface coating stiction issues). I opted for the LP 5900 RPM models because they use the 500gb Patters, and run cooler.

The device is about 18-19 months old, and was due to be replaced along with this laptop (I posted the thread recently).

The box was used purely as an archive, so once things was done with and needed storing for irregular use, they was moved to this device, so most of the stuff hasn't been used for over year thus doesn't exist anywhere else, hense my need for recovery .

Onto the actual problem...

I believe there was a catastrophic failure in the NAS cooling and thermal protection, so its overheated and killed both drives inside the unit.

When I came home after moving 45gb the drive led was pulsing once every 5 seconds. I checked the host machine and the 45gb was successfully moved before failure, since the source folder was empty.

I powered off the box, and back on assuming it was a crash and heard a tapping so the power was cut and I opened the case to find it was blistering hot and the fans was not running.

Drive 0 (nearest to the motherboard) is totally dead, can't hear the spindle move when I rotate the drive, no nothing.

Drive 1 spins up, then gives me the click of death.

I'm pretty much writing drive 0 off as the heads will have touched the heat swollen patters and vaporised them. I fully expect it to be dust, once opened in a clean room.

However drive 1, is where my hope is placed now.

So has anyone had experience of recovering HDDs, like the odds of data recovery ?

A recommendation for a company that has been personally used ?

My past experience has been simply bin the failed drive since there is always a back up but both drives I have never had before, and recovery has been limited to solid state media (flash cards) so zero exp with HDD.

A separate issue, I am now in the market for a replacement NAS, so open to suggestions.

I am looking for Raid 1 (again) only with USB HDD option, where I will have a 6ft cable running to a 3rd hard drive doing nightly back ups. Top running is the Synology DS211 + 4gb unit rendering 2tb usable space.

This is the top runner because it has built in software to backup to the 3rd drive. Nice easy out of the box solution.

 

[grantw]

I used this guy, based in Sheffield:

http://www.abcdatarecovery.co.uk/

He managed to get all my data back. Not cheap, think it came to a few hundred quid but I was getting update emails from him at 4am so he's definitely dedicated

He'll probably give you his opinion on the odds of recovering the data if you give him a call.

Grant

 

[Skinner]

Hey Grant.
Do you you remember what your drive was doing?

I dont want to send it off because i'm pretty sure the slightest screw up will end my hope.

abc quoted me 699 plus vat inc new media, which is fine if they are the real deal. Just heard lots of horror stories.

Seagates own data recovery is a joke they tell me they are legally not allowed to use their own factory stock and must source parts on the open market like everyone else. So they have no access to proprietry software or tools. Then told me 1800 quid.

F-seagate after this, no matter how good my cheetah's have been.

Sorry if this is formatted funny on my phone.

 

[grantw]

Hey Grant.
Do you you remember what your drive was doing?

I dont want to send it off because i'm pretty sure the slightest screw up will end my hope.

abc quoted me 699 plus vat inc new media, which is fine if they are the real deal. Just heard lots of horror stories.

I can't remember the exact issue but the drive wasn't spinning at all. He managed to recover everything off it, there were a few html files that were badly corrupted but apart from that everything else was fine.

I can only speak from my own experience with them, which was a good one.

Grant

 

[Banana]

So has anyone had experience of recovering HDDs, like the odds of data recovery ?

Somebody told me once that wrapping them up (so they get cold, not damp) and leaving in the fridge overnight works .... then move data asap when you reconnect.

Good luck anyway

 

[Banana]

Or it could be the freezer .....

http://geeksaresexy.blogspot.com/2006/01/freeze-your-hard-drive-to-recover-data.html

 

[Banana]

Or fridge .....

http://www.techsupportforum.com/forums/f108/laptop-in-the-fridge-185681.html



I'm going to stop posting now as my head hurts :neutral:

 

[Skinner]

I have heard the Freezer theory before, but the problem is this (probably give you a bigger headache).

The patters swell up and the arms and/or heads get stuck to the patters (disks), so if you freeze the drive and the patters shrink, as the drive warms up again the heads/arms will scrape the patters causing irrepairable damage. If it was only a few files I would try it but there is probably a 1tb of files so the freeze method would be risky.

I have heard they use a tool like a chest freezer filled with a liquid coolant and the drive is submersed in a housing to keep it cool. I also heard of a device like a freezer only has fans moving the air where the drive is run inside it to keep it cool.

Finding exact info on these is like finding drop catching information, no one wants to let the cat out the bag.

Once I get the data back (if), assuming they don't open it, I'll get the old drive back (or use the other) and I'll put it in the freezer and report back

Grant: I didn't mean horror stories about ABC, I meant about so called data recovery guys who operate out their back sheds screwing drives up by not having a decent clean up etc.

 

[aZooZa]

What sort of data are you hoping to retrieve? How is the drive formatted? Which OS? You're probably likely to only be able to retrieve files which are contiguous (non-fragmented) and that have a particular signature, like pics etc. (there are many more). If the file allocation table (FAT) is readable, you have a better chance to recover more data. It's likely that your NAS is hot-swappable. If it's formatted with Win, then get yourself a cheap chassis, and then grab a copy of this:

http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/

You can boot that from a pen drive, or a CD and it will install in RAM.

Here's my experience of it:

http://www.engineers.net/154/dsl-damn-small-linux-will-not-mount-pcmcia-memory-card-by-default/

You'd need to adapt some of those instructions to suit your config, but it's essentially a way of trying Linux to read a screwed up Win drive.

 

[Skinner]

Hey Dale,
Its mostly photo's, and video, there is a lot of retired code and and new projects on there which would be useful but nothing I can't recode over time, but its the photo's mainly which are hard to replace.

At the moment neither drive is detectable, 1 is spinning up but not finishing initialisation, and not even passing SMART / DST tests. The other is just dead weight, no sound, no power. So not even worth trying the nix suggestion unfortunately.

I just bought http://www.scan.co.uk/products/icy-...o-usb-20-and-esata-host-inc-75cm-blue-led-fan today and tested the drive. Its the exact same spin up, whirr, click click click x 30ish.

I inspected the PCB and that looks fine, no scorching, TVS looks ok, nothing looks blown so it is very likely mechanical.

I was just reading a report which says multiple drive failure in off-the-shelf units isn't as uncommon as you'd thinks since both drives are usually from the same batch, with the same wear and tear in the same conditions in the same unit so statistically have the same odds of failure. One suggestion was using drives made by different vendors to change the stats slightly but the results are not much better.

 

[aZooZa]

Jesus - Just posted a long reply and pressed the wrong keys.

Many files have a signature like this .png:

daleictures dale$ hexdump -C SearchEngineLand-Periodic-Table-of-SEO-large.png
00000000 89 50 4e 47 0d 0a 1a 0a 00 00 00 0d 49 48 44 52 |.PNG........IHDR|
00000010 00 00 04 c8 00 00 03 18 08 02 00 00 00 b1 35 4c |..............5L|
00000020 f9 00 00 00 19 74 45 58 74 53 6f 66 74 77 61 72 |.....tEXtSoftwar|
00000030 65 00 41 64 6f 62 65 20 49 6d 61 67 65 52 65 61 |e.Adobe ImageRea|
00000040 64 79 71 c9 65 3c 00 02 ae 7b 49 44 41 54 78 da |dyq.e<...{IDATx.|
00000050 ec bd 0b 7c 54 d5 d5 36 3e f6 ad 09 97 99 28 04 |...|T..6>.....(.|
00000060 84 99 50 82 60 12 e4 f6 4a 2e 10 a9 25 c8 45 5b |..P.`...J...%.E[|
00000070 21 82 95 b6 8a c2 47 2b 62 d1 d6 1b ad d0 5a f8 |!.....G+b.....Z.|

On this basis, many files are recoverable, especially graphics and videos - also some project and other files which are written in a standard format.

 

[Skinner]

I'll have to hope the patters are ok, in which case the file table should be ok and will be fairly good recovery. Most of the project files are .js, .php, etc so not really any standard headers.

There is a local company who say they have some seagate diagnostic tools (connect to a logging port on the drive) which should reveal some of the final data stored, which may show its last recorded temp, what the final operation was (and location of the arm/head) and some other info.

They claim to be able to do it without opening up the drive at all, so will see what they diagnose the problem as tomorrow (or thurs).

 

[Skinner]

I'll keep posting updates here for anyone looking at it later, and detailed info on the drive etc.

I just got back from the local data recovery place, they have hooked up the drive to the diagnostics and its reporting the heads are fubar.

There is no way of telling where exactly the heads was when they crashed. Crashed is as it says, they have likely come to a point on the patter and poof. There is no indication where abouts they was when the crash happened.

The noise its making now is a good indication that its in the 'park' position. If the crash happened in the park position there is a very good chance there is no damage to the patters rendering a 60-70% chance (based on previous exp) of recovering the data.

If this 60-70% chance is works, the data will be 99% complete, just be the odd lost file due to bad sectors and potential heat damage.

There is 25/75 chance on heat damaging the patters, but its not likely since the drive isn't making a scatching or constant dentist drill type noise, and its likely the arms would not in the park was the patters swollen. It is however not unheard of, but is unlikely the for the arm/heads to return to the park position after the patters swelling.

So in summery.

Its unlikely the patters are heat damaged.
The noise indicates the arm has returned to the park position.
Its unlikely to have damaged the patters due to head touching them.
Its very likely the heads are destroyed.
Its quite likely the motor damaged.

Overall odds of any type of recovery are 60% likely, thus they would take the job on.

Now their exposure to the no-data-no-pay is, they have to buy and exact replica of my drived, down to the exact firmware, exact MLC everything.

There are companies who buy 10 of each drive and store these, working as a breaker. Charging up £300 for a PCB, £200 for the main unit of £400 for the complete item. Yet they buy these for £40-80 each. But because 2 PCBs and Parts from 2 of the same model don't always work, due to firmware they are hard to get and source.

My particular drive is

Seagate Barracuda LP
1.5TB - 7200.12 - 5900 RPM
Serial Number 5xxxxx32
Model Number ST31500541AS
Part Number 9TN15R -568
Firmware CC91
Date Code 10046
Site Code WU

Looking around most places want £100-150 for the PCB, and around £200 for the complete drive.

So the recovery company HAS to buy these parts most HDD companies do not sell them. So when they take on your job they MUST shell out this money in the hope of recovering your data. If the drive is screwed it will also destroy the new parts meaning their outlay is nearly always lost if they are unsucessful as the left over parts are of little use nor value unless the whole drive is bought for a PCB only or Mechanical only repair in which case the left over can be sold. It is however more likely your part will be put into the new unit so there is a high chance working, rather than new parts into the old unit which has wear and tear already.

I am visiting a second data recovery place soon.