Hard drive mechanical crash

[mabr]

Well it happened I had my hard drive mechanically crash yesterday. Called the geek Sq they said it had to be brought in (its 3 months old) for warranty. Toshiba is replacing the hard drive with all OS to original which is good.

Of course I hadn't backed anything up so now I'm looking at trying to get a few critical folders off the hard drive restored if possible. Anyone had to do this and if so where? Locally?

[jac714]

There is an outfit in Eden Prairie, Kroll Ontrack who do this type of thing, be warned it is expensive but if anyone can do it they can.

[upnorth]

Depending no how bad the drive is hosed the geek sq may be able get it for you. I have pulled folder off drives in the past, but if they won't spin up I am not sure you can do much.

[PurpleFloyd]

There is an outfit in Eden Prairie, Kroll Ontrack who do this type of thing, be warned it is expensive but if anyone can do it they can.

Yep. There are several outfits like them. I believe you are looking at 800 dollars minimum and up to 3500.

[jac714]

I did say it was expensive, but depending on the files it may be worth it.

[Shack]

LOL drop the "a" from your screen name and you have a possible cause of your HDD issue. "mbr" Master Boot Record

You would be amazed with what hard drive manufacture offer, for free, at their websites. Most of them will have software that even tests a non-spinning drive. It tests other portions that will send back signals as to the cause of failure and even a possible repair. Some of the better options have to be performed using the command line (cmd). You will have to know you way around running your recovery machine as usr or root.

This is about the easiest fix for a non-spinner:

Mobile 2.5" drives are what I see most of the times. I assume due to being "mobile" and laptops not being allowed to breath most likely is the reason. 2 out of 2 attempts I was successfully able to remove the main cover and free the the actuator arm enough to read the data for recovery/cloning. It is not easy but if there is no physical damage and you know what you doing you could "attempt" a hard disk swap to a known good donor. Mobile Hard drive disks are simple and I have been able to recover 3 out 3 full blown transplants attempts. Multi-plate ide and sata drives are very tricky. I have experimented on a few 40g or under old clunkers IDE drives with some success. You start getting around the 1tb-2tb with 3, 4 or more plates it becomes a venture. Keeping the heads from themselves and the disks during the swap is the key without damaging either of them. If it works and everything is clean (clean is huge deal) you will get at least one good spin up and readings to follow. Once it does though, do not shut it down until after recovery has been done. Once the data os recovered the drive is toast and should not be used.

If your drive is spinning and has data on it there are several decent free software programs you can use that will get most, if not all, of the data back.

If you know anyone using Linux/Unix (Ubuntu, Fedora, etc...) they have some of the best recovery options. They dig extremely deep and bring back a block by block clone verses most of the Windows options. DD or DDrescue are the couple I have used and they are rather quick. Depending on the amount of data being recovered, Windows programs can take days and only pull 1/3-1/2.

Here is a good explanation of the "click of death" but goes over some other topics as well:

Right now I am actually doing an SD card recovery for image files which were deleted by accident. I would say I am getting back about all the 200+ photos but wont know for sure until the morning.

You can try the freeze method but as described only works when the arm is stuck.

[pureinsanity]

Keep in mind just because you can copy something over doesn't mean it isn't corrupted or going to work when its loaded onto the new hard drive....

[Shack]

LOL! I guess it's betta than nothing and in some cases worth the risk. Good to note if you are going to be sending the drive off for the big dollars to try. I think if they screw up you still have to paying?

[pureinsanity]

Shack I was just adding to your post, not knocking your idea.......

Yours is a great solution, however that doesn't mean its going to work. I have been able to copy stuff over from a bad hard drive with a bad boot sector only to find out certain areas of the hard drive were also bad.

I was able to copy all the files in that area of the hard drive over but still wasn't able to access the folders because the files were all corrupted.

[mabr]

SHACK, You the man. I do get the click of death on start up. I took these tonight to see what you guys think. Im not sure what toshiba is going to let me do with the hard drive right now. Im thinking it would void my warranty if I touch it. But im going to see if i can get it back from them to try and recover some of the files.

[Shack]

Shack I was just adding to your post, not knocking your idea.......

Dude~Sorry PI. Non-taken and I was LOLin' because that is exactly true.

[Shack]

Yes mabr it will void the warranty if you crack it open. There is a hidden screw under the top label that needs to be peeled to enter the HDD. You might have to let them to the warranty repair and ask them if you can have the old drive back to recover your data.

I would say the downside to dealing with the Geek Squad is they have to answer to Toshiba and have a habit of calling you when the laptop is already on a UPS truck. Best to request beforehand.

Although the serial and make is not being displayed, your major + is that is picking up a hard drive since it states it is failed. If you want to give this a try, you could go over to Micro Center or order a SATA to usb cable and play around a little with connecting and un-connecting. This has worked before. My next option would be trying another PC or laptop.

Do not let it click too much as this causes further damage. Does the kicking time out and stop after 20-30 seconds?

[mabr]

yes the clicking stops after about 20 seconds.

What you mention about trying another pc or laptop , what do you mean by that?

[upnorth]

If it would have found a drive it would have stated it found one. Could be the SATA controller too, not just the hard drive. And wouldn't be the first time I have seen a poor cable connection cause a "drive failure" type of error. Seen that even on very high end SATA drives.

[pureinsanity]

I have taken a long cable hooked it to a hard drive and started it up when I hear the click I give it a good flick of the wrist to try and get it to spin up. It works sometimes, and it should only be done now and then. If you can get a cable to plug into another computer and try this when you try to access the drive you can possibly pull information...

Consider it a jump start to the hard drive. You run the risk of damaging it further, or having the drive spin over.

Also, some people put them in a ziplock bag and throwm them in the freezer for a half hour to an hour and sometimes that gives you enough lean way to get the info you need copied over onto another drive...

and other times a mild firm tap with the drive against a table can spin them up too.

its all up to you what you want to do. I have only done these methods because I already had enough drive ready to go and my computer booted up waiting to access the other drive...

Make sure you adjust the jumper so its not a master if you are plugging the drive into another computer.

[pureinsanity]

oh and whatever you do, do not pull the power out of the drive this can cause lots of problems

[Tator2k]

I've been about to jump start a few of these drives by taking a screwdriver and rapping on the side the drive with the handle to get the actuators to move again.

[Shack]

If it would have found a drive it would have stated it found one.

If the drive was not detected then how could the bios diagnosis it as failed? It is not showing the serial of model but SMART detected it is as failed some how. IMHO this is a huge plus.

LOL just thought of this. Have you went into your BIOS (F2 on Post screen) and see if your have a setting for SMART hdd/ssd protect of and other hard-drive power down protection enabled. I am almost positive if you shut this feature off the HDD will read enough to get into your desktop and allow you to back up.

I have never been a fan of SMART and Toshiba's hdd/ssd detection and protection. Too many updates to fix issues like this.

The reason using another PC is that it takes less out of the hdd if it is not booting into an operating system. I agree with PI but I feel pulling the power at this point (if the above does not) will only help as this has jump started the heads into read for me in the past. Even if it power up and ran great I would no longer consider this drive a usable one. Unless you are going to send it in, I would gradually work into beating the heck out of it or doing the above mentioned.

[upnorth]

Usually the message is there cuz it failed to find one.

[pureinsanity]

Usually the message is there cuz it failed to find one.

+1

[Shack]

LOL it makes it to the boot failure screen? It says its "failed" and unless it has telepathy, it had to test something. I will assume you are just screwing with me.

Now, upon further examination of the blank stare right in front out images mabr provided, what do they tell you? It's not booting.

Scratch my previous statements and I advise to nothing other than loading a recovery disk and performing start up recovery. Or holding down the 0 key while pressing the power button. This will boot the recovery partition but I feel you will need the disk. You will need to hold F12 on start up to select the DVD to boot.

[upnorth]

Those tests are within the bios. They are not running from the disk. It is saying it can't find a device on that controller.

[Shack]

You just blew your cover UP . How is the BIOS able to perform these tests then on "something" it can not see?????? Seriously UpNorth! Think about it dude. How can you perform tests on a server and declare it "failed" when you can not see or detect it?

Yes BIOS SAYS the HDD is bad. BIOS chip makers come out with updates for a current v-XXX ROM all the time to cure false positives being tested on good hardware. Most likely the HDD is bad, but maybe Geek Squad did not going beyond a tested failed HDD. They might have just tested the HDD bad and followed protocol by only contacting the Manu. to see what they are willing to pay and fix.

I am starting to think it is my first guess of Master Boot Record. . It being corrupt would trigger the BIOS alert, cause clicking and at least get you to the disk boot partition.

[Shack]

I just checked HE IS GETTING to a boot failed screen similar to a GRUB recovery screen expect no prompt. That's on the disk and not BIOS. There was no bootable device and would most likely say just this.

It is possible the BIOS is doing a stress test of sorts to conduct this test using what I mentioned earlier. Just not the norm for BIOS to conduct this type of low level test.

It would be good to know the make, model and serial of the drive if mabr is interested in furthering this. Take a picture if you want.

[mabr]

Shack, Here is what Toshiba lists that it has in it. First is the model# Satellite, A665-5170, HD is MKxx65GSX, 640 GB, 2.5-Inch / 5,400 RPM / SATA. 2 plates/disks, 4 heads

Im not going to open the case. I lost Toshiba 2 times last night on the phone and they never called back. I asked if I could remove the HD and recover the data. They said as long as the HD was there when i send it to them it would be ok (no disks needed). BUT I want them to put in the record for warranty reasons.