Anyone had any data recovery experience?

blueacid · 22 Nov 2010 at 20:40

Hi Guys,

Not me in trouble here but a friend - one of his drives has developed the click of death. It spins up but gets stuck with a repetitive click.

Has anyone any experience with any UK data recovery companies? Neither of us do, so... well, we haven't the first idea of where to begin with this one!

Thanks,
Blueacid

MouthBoy · 22 Nov 2010 at 22:04

I cannot remember the name of it, but members of my family have used a piece of software (which I think came with some random hardware to work with too) that recovered all the data. It took a few days to run, but it worked very well. I know that doesnt help you but it might jolt someone else into knowing it.

blueacid · 22 Nov 2010 at 23:38

Sadly though the drive can't even sucessfully complete a spin up. The spindle gets going, but the seek heads get "stuck" while it's initialising. The reason I say stuck is there's a repeated "ker-click, ker-click, ker-click". So I doubt software will fix it sadly

MouthBoy · 23 Nov 2010 at 00:20

Sorry, I misread your post.

PhoenixUK · 23 Nov 2010 at 11:06

Try different power cables or if you can, try putting it into external enclousure in another rig.

It might just be power problem.

If putting it in external enclousure and plugging to USB still won't work then there is not much you can do about it yourself and if the data is very important, you will need to contact data recovery specialists like ontrack.

http://www.krollontrack.co.uk/
http://www.ontrackdatarecovery.co.uk/

They will be able to recover data even if you rip you hdd with saw into 4 different pieces BUT they might be pricey so best ask for a quote first.
I haven't used them in a few years now but from what I remember, it's not going to be
any cheaper than few hundred quid up to whatever amount depending on how hard it will be to get back.

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Don't believe any local shops advertising data recovery, they won't be able to do anything with mechanical fault, at best they might only damage your drive further.

deadite66 · 23 Nov 2010 at 11:17

if you want to try and fix it yourself:
spinrite if it's a drive problem
testdisk it it's a filesystem problem.

edscdk · 23 Nov 2010 at 11:20

probably not the PCB but you can get an identical drive and replace the PCB (it could be the power going to the motor / heads) however it sounds more like its an issue with the heads..... for the £10 - £30 it will cost to get another drive from the bay its worth a go...