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NormPhillips · Sep 25, 2005, 01:12 PM

Well, I feel horrible now. I had my computer on, not doing anything and all of a sudden I heard this clicking noise. I panicked and restarted my computer. Well, next thing I know my computer can't start up. My hard drive has failed. It's a Western Digital 40GB hard drive full of photos, papers, music, etc. that have piled up over the years. I should've run disk warrior more often, I know. I should've backed up my information, I know. I was an idiot and I didn't do it.

Well, anyway, does anyone know how much it will cost for data recovery and where I can get data recovery services? I heard figures around $1,000, but I'm a college student without a lot of money. I heard from someone I know that she knew someone who was able to recover her data with a rubber mallot trick, what was involved in that trick? If someone could please help I'd really appreciate it. I'm sorry if this is a repeat post, I tried to do a search, but the search site won't load.

Thanks

Norm

mediahound · Sep 25, 2005, 01:31 PM

Disk recovery can be very expensive, like $3,000. Most decide it's more worthwhile to just go without the data actually. You could still try to go out and buy Diskwarrior and run it on the drive, you never know. If the problem is disk driver or directory related, Diskwarrior could recover it.

Running Disk Warrior often won't necessarily prevent a hard disk from physically dying. it can certainly help with the directories becoming fragmented/corrupt, but if the actual drive mechanism failed, then it would have failed Disk Warrior or not.

When you replace this drive, I recommend buying 2 drives. One to use and one to backup to. This should be default practice.

CatOne · Sep 25, 2005, 03:51 PM

I guess you gotta learn somehow.

But I have to wonder why people would go for YEARS, knowing that backups are a really good idea, and never doing it? ALL hard drives will eventually fail. It's just a question of when.

MichiganRich · Sep 25, 2005, 05:11 PM

I've recently started my new backup strategy. An off-the-shelf Maxtor 200g in an external USB2/Firewire enclosure. Partitioned three ways: one empty, one with my G5 backup, one with my PowerBook backup. SuperDuper is my new application to 'clone' the drives to the partitons on the external drive, I'm trying it after having used CarbonCopyCloner for a long time.

How about this? Along with the new drive you're buying for your PowerMac, get another one and an enclosure like mine. The enclosures are really affordable and pretty nice now, try Newegg.com. Before you do much monkeying with the dead drive, get the enclosure and put it in there. Boot off your system CD, plug in the external enclosure, and see if Disk Utility will recognize the dead one (now in the firewire enclosure) at all. It might. It might not. If it does, take your favorite route to getting the data off it.

I've not heard of the "rubber mallet" trick, but it sounds interesting. :-) I have heard of, but don't have any experience trying, the "freezer" trick. A friend of a friend (of course) said that if you put the dead drive in the freezer for an hour or so (get it cold but not frost covered) and then place it in the external enclosure you might have a better chance at having it spin up for one last data recovery try.

I've been hearing this 'I didn't backup and now I'm in trouble" refrain a lot more on the forums lately. I wonder if cheap drives are finally giving us what we paid for? All I know is that it finally scared me into getting my backup procedure figured out and in place.

OreoCookie · Sep 25, 2005, 06:22 PM

Originally Posted by NormPhillips

Well, I feel horrible now. I had my computer on, not doing anything and all of a sudden I heard this clicking noise. I panicked and restarted my computer. Well, next thing I know my computer can't start up. My hard drive has failed. It's a Western Digital 40GB hard drive full of photos, papers, music, etc. that have piled up over the years. I should've run disk warrior more often, I know. I should've backed up my information, I know. I was an idiot and I didn't do it.

Well, anyway, does anyone know how much it will cost for data recovery and where I can get data recovery services? I heard figures around $1,000, but I'm a college student without a lot of money. I heard from someone I know that she knew someone who was able to recover her data with a rubber mallot trick, what was involved in that trick? If someone could please help I'd really appreciate it. I'm sorry if this is a repeat post, I tried to do a search, but the search site won't load.

Thanks

Norm

Running DiskWarrior doesn't help if there is a hardware problem. If you want to rescue the data, don't touch the drive. Just don't. Companies are expensive, but reliable, AFAIK it's usually in the lower 4 digit range, depending on the amount of data. The service is reliable, though, especially if it's only the drive mechanics that has failed without damaging the platters.

So if you can't spend that type of money, I'm sorry to say, you're screwed. I won't lecture you about having a backup or whatnot, because what you're going through now, should be the lesson you need to learn only once. (I had three harddrive failures this year, but lost only three files, because I had proper backups.)

NormPhillips · Sep 25, 2005, 09:02 PM

Oh my God! Wow! My hard drive started working all of a sudden (I did have a spare with a really old backup, which I installed 10.4 and Office on to do a paper, and after I installed office I noticed the hard drive icon on the desktop) I quickly backed up my home folder and it's working now! I think I'm still going to buy a new hard drive now just in case.

Thank you everyone though!

OreoCookie · Sep 25, 2005, 09:12 PM

Don't think, buy it now. If it starts clicking, it means mechanical failure is imminent.

astepanuks · 05:10 AM

Originally Posted by MichiganRich

I've recently started my new backup strategy. An off-the-shelf Maxtor 200g in an external USB2/Firewire enclosure. Partitioned three ways: one empty, one with my G5 backup, one with my PowerBook backup. SuperDuper is my new application to 'clone' the drives to the partitons on the external drive, I'm trying it after having used CarbonCopyCloner for a long time.

I guess any back up startegy is better than none.
I have 3 internal drives and one external. I used deja vu to back up my user account on daily basis to a secondary internal drive and I do full clone with Super Duper on external drive on a weekly basis.
I also will allways do a full back up prior any major software upgrade. So far so good
Cheers
andy

MichiganRich · Sep 27, 2005, 04:32 PM

Good idea astepanuks, I like it. I am going to install my new Maxtor Maxline III 300g in the G5 when I get home, which will (after some settling in) leave the stocker 80g free to do the daily user backup. Good idea indeed... :-)

bbales · 09:35 AM

How many people back up to something that's not actually in the room with the computer? I back up regularly, but if there's flood or fire (especially fire -- flood I could grab stuff) I'm in trouble. I keep thinking I should develop a strategy that at least would save my photos and critical financial data in a safety deposit box, or somehwere. (and now that I think about it, I could move at least some stuff to idisk, since I do have .mac.)

Norm -- glad your stuff is safe. BUY A DRIVE NOW, NOW, NOW.

Leander · Oct 24, 2005, 04:28 AM

I suggest you use DataRecoveryWizard to recover your data.

Spliffdaddy · Oct 24, 2005, 09:32 PM

It won't work. The disk is physically dead - so software ain't gonna help.

SpaceMonkey · Oct 24, 2005, 10:55 PM

Originally Posted by bbales

How many people back up to something that's not actually in the room with the computer? I back up regularly, but if there's flood or fire (especially fire -- flood I could grab stuff) I'm in trouble. I keep thinking I should develop a strategy that at least would save my photos and critical financial data in a safety deposit box, or somehwere. (and now that I think about it, I could move at least some stuff to idisk, since I do have .mac.)

Norm -- glad your stuff is safe. BUY A DRIVE NOW, NOW, NOW.

Yeah, you definitely want to store a copy of your most critical data off-site. DVD-Rs are usually the cheapest way to go about this.

vinster · Oct 24, 2005, 11:47 PM

Originally Posted by NormPhillips

Oh my God! Wow! My hard drive started working all of a sudden (I did have a spare with a really old backup, which I installed 10.4 and Office on to do a paper, and after I installed office I noticed the hard drive icon on the desktop) I quickly backed up my home folder and it's working now! I think I'm still going to buy a new hard drive now just in case.

Thank you everyone though!

Norm, I suggest making an image of your drive with a program like carbon copy cloner or super duper so when you get a new one you won't have to reinstall all of your apps.

That HDD will die. The fact that your clicking drive came back to life is a lucky break.