HDD failure
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Hello guys. I have xperienced a problem with two of my hard drives.I had them connected on my friends' PC and when I took them to work to copy some things, they jus died.Firstly they opened, but now they cant open.When I connect them, the PC doesnt power on.I have them connected as slaves.I went back to the friends' PC to connect them again and now they dont open there either. They have ver delicate information I cant affort to lose.So please guys, can someone help me with ways to retrieve this data.I knw now that they have been infected with a virus.But how do I retrieve the data back. Thank you in advance.
kagiso
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Hello guys. I have xperienced a problem with two of my hard drives.I had them connected on my friends' PC and when I took them to work to copy some things, they jus died.Firstly they opened, but now they cant open.When I connect them, the PC doesnt power on.I have them connected as slaves.I went back to the friends' PC to connect them again and now they dont open there either. They have ver delicate information I cant affort to lose.So please guys, can someone help me with ways to retrieve this data.I knw now that they have been infected with a virus.But how do I retrieve the data back. Thank you in advance.
kagiso
Its doubtful that a virus can make a harddrive permantely not start, because it does not have the really really low level access, both of both hardware and software. Since the computer doesnt power on (how far does it get? fans start spinning? screen turn on? bios show something) it could be a master/slave conflict, (unlikley) Most likely it could be static damage, or physicall abuse (ie that a chip has been crushed). if this is the case replacing the hdds electronics (which is easy) with one of exactly the same model, and close production date, you should be able to get the data back. Dont give up on the hard drive. Keep trying. Just dont do anything till your are sure it is the best thing you can do. As you might have limited time or tries in some cases... You wrote "I have them connected as slaves.", well they can both have jumper pins set to slave, but only if they are on seperate IDE channels... It also seems strange that both die at the same time? How could this be? Tell us more info.. There is alot of information about hdds dieing since it is quite common, so like google around :) As a start you might want to look at Hard Drive Recovery Part 1[^] And all of its parts, My Hard Drive Died | Scott A. Moulton[^]
//Johannes
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Its doubtful that a virus can make a harddrive permantely not start, because it does not have the really really low level access, both of both hardware and software. Since the computer doesnt power on (how far does it get? fans start spinning? screen turn on? bios show something) it could be a master/slave conflict, (unlikley) Most likely it could be static damage, or physicall abuse (ie that a chip has been crushed). if this is the case replacing the hdds electronics (which is easy) with one of exactly the same model, and close production date, you should be able to get the data back. Dont give up on the hard drive. Keep trying. Just dont do anything till your are sure it is the best thing you can do. As you might have limited time or tries in some cases... You wrote "I have them connected as slaves.", well they can both have jumper pins set to slave, but only if they are on seperate IDE channels... It also seems strange that both die at the same time? How could this be? Tell us more info.. There is alot of information about hdds dieing since it is quite common, so like google around :) As a start you might want to look at Hard Drive Recovery Part 1[^] And all of its parts, My Hard Drive Died | Scott A. Moulton[^]
//Johannes
Well, when I say, "I connected them as slaves", I mean, one at a time.What happens is that when I connect them(because they do not have OS on them), I had to connect as slaves and the jumpers are set to slaves, the power doesnt come on.Fans came on once then died.Nothing came on again.No bios, no screen.Nothing.U switch on, nothing happens, and I mean, complete darkness with no ohm of power. I mite have to try the electronics method coz my boss suggested something about the board underneath the drive, maybe its faulty.So he mite have to replace it for me.Thank you so much, you have been helpful.I will keep you posted if I manage to get there.
kagiso
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Well, when I say, "I connected them as slaves", I mean, one at a time.What happens is that when I connect them(because they do not have OS on them), I had to connect as slaves and the jumpers are set to slaves, the power doesnt come on.Fans came on once then died.Nothing came on again.No bios, no screen.Nothing.U switch on, nothing happens, and I mean, complete darkness with no ohm of power. I mite have to try the electronics method coz my boss suggested something about the board underneath the drive, maybe its faulty.So he mite have to replace it for me.Thank you so much, you have been helpful.I will keep you posted if I manage to get there.
kagiso
Slave/master has nothing to do with there being an OS on the disk. It has to do with which position on the ribbon cable they're plugged into, and each ribbon needs a master disk to control it, if you only have a slave drive it won't work. Be aware that by breaking the cleanroom seal to do a circuit board swap you're allowing dust into the mechanism and massively reducing the drives expected lifetime as a result. If this works immediately copy all your data off the repaired drive and don't use it for anything else ever again. The other thing to consider is that if the data on the drive is worth paying a professional company several hundred to several thousand dollars for data recovery any sort of physical manipulation you do is going to greatly decrease the odds (and increase the expense) of getting your data back if it fails.
-- You have to explain to them [VB coders] what you mean by "typed". their first response is likely to be something like, "Of course my code is typed. Do you think i magically project it onto the screen with the power of my mind?" --- John Simmons / outlaw programmer
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Slave/master has nothing to do with there being an OS on the disk. It has to do with which position on the ribbon cable they're plugged into, and each ribbon needs a master disk to control it, if you only have a slave drive it won't work. Be aware that by breaking the cleanroom seal to do a circuit board swap you're allowing dust into the mechanism and massively reducing the drives expected lifetime as a result. If this works immediately copy all your data off the repaired drive and don't use it for anything else ever again. The other thing to consider is that if the data on the drive is worth paying a professional company several hundred to several thousand dollars for data recovery any sort of physical manipulation you do is going to greatly decrease the odds (and increase the expense) of getting your data back if it fails.
-- You have to explain to them [VB coders] what you mean by "typed". their first response is likely to be something like, "Of course my code is typed. Do you think i magically project it onto the screen with the power of my mind?" --- John Simmons / outlaw programmer
dan neely wrote:
Be aware that by breaking the cleanroom seal to do a circuit board swap you're allowing dust into the mechanism and massively reducing the drives expected lifetime as a result.
Ive taken apart many many hard drives, probably around 50 or so, some really old (20 mb) and new ones (120gb) i cant remember any drives which when the electronics board is removed air-tight seals are damaged... Because both in new hard drives and old the wires go though air tight seals too, and all these wires are snap-off or simply pushed onto the board. I can imagine some might have it, but its not very common.
//Johannes
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dan neely wrote:
Be aware that by breaking the cleanroom seal to do a circuit board swap you're allowing dust into the mechanism and massively reducing the drives expected lifetime as a result.
Ive taken apart many many hard drives, probably around 50 or so, some really old (20 mb) and new ones (120gb) i cant remember any drives which when the electronics board is removed air-tight seals are damaged... Because both in new hard drives and old the wires go though air tight seals too, and all these wires are snap-off or simply pushed onto the board. I can imagine some might have it, but its not very common.
//Johannes
I'll take your word for it, I was repeating what I'd been told by others, but never've dismantled a drive myself to look, although I've been tempted to replace my ancient halfgig drives enclosure with Plexiglass and use it as an external just for giggles..
-- You have to explain to them [VB coders] what you mean by "typed". their first response is likely to be something like, "Of course my code is typed. Do you think i magically project it onto the screen with the power of my mind?" --- John Simmons / outlaw programmer
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I'll take your word for it, I was repeating what I'd been told by others, but never've dismantled a drive myself to look, although I've been tempted to replace my ancient halfgig drives enclosure with Plexiglass and use it as an external just for giggles..
-- You have to explain to them [VB coders] what you mean by "typed". their first response is likely to be something like, "Of course my code is typed. Do you think i magically project it onto the screen with the power of my mind?" --- John Simmons / outlaw programmer
dan neely wrote:
I've been tempted to replace my ancient halfgig drives enclosure with Plexiglass and use it as an external just for giggles..
A friend of mine has done that, its quite neat to see the head skip around for different sectors. If you gonna do it, try to get a hard drive that doesnt have screws in the center of the metal lid (ie like a screw in the center of the spindle, or ontop of read-head swing arm) They still go bad after a while (even if its in a clean room) since theres allways some grain which falls inside and tumbles around :) You can just take one and unscrew it right now, and smack it into some old computer and it will work fine with like windows and stuff for a few days (unless you decide to play with it like i end up doing :rolleyes:)
//Johannes
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dan neely wrote:
Be aware that by breaking the cleanroom seal to do a circuit board swap you're allowing dust into the mechanism and massively reducing the drives expected lifetime as a result.
Ive taken apart many many hard drives, probably around 50 or so, some really old (20 mb) and new ones (120gb) i cant remember any drives which when the electronics board is removed air-tight seals are damaged... Because both in new hard drives and old the wires go though air tight seals too, and all these wires are snap-off or simply pushed onto the board. I can imagine some might have it, but its not very common.
//Johannes
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dan neely wrote:
I've been tempted to replace my ancient halfgig drives enclosure with Plexiglass and use it as an external just for giggles..
A friend of mine has done that, its quite neat to see the head skip around for different sectors. If you gonna do it, try to get a hard drive that doesnt have screws in the center of the metal lid (ie like a screw in the center of the spindle, or ontop of read-head swing arm) They still go bad after a while (even if its in a clean room) since theres allways some grain which falls inside and tumbles around :) You can just take one and unscrew it right now, and smack it into some old computer and it will work fine with like windows and stuff for a few days (unless you decide to play with it like i end up doing :rolleyes:)
//Johannes
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Well, when I say, "I connected them as slaves", I mean, one at a time.What happens is that when I connect them(because they do not have OS on them), I had to connect as slaves and the jumpers are set to slaves, the power doesnt come on.Fans came on once then died.Nothing came on again.No bios, no screen.Nothing.U switch on, nothing happens, and I mean, complete darkness with no ohm of power. I mite have to try the electronics method coz my boss suggested something about the board underneath the drive, maybe its faulty.So he mite have to replace it for me.Thank you so much, you have been helpful.I will keep you posted if I manage to get there.
kagiso
matjame wrote:
the power doesnt come on.Fans came on once then died.Nothing came on again.No bios, no screen.
POST should happen before the machine goes anywhere near initialising the IDE or SATA connections. I'd suggest that the problem has very little to do with the drives, and that in fact you've either knocked out the power connector to the motherboard or blown the PSU. Have you tried another drive in this machine, or these drives in another machine?