[SWLUG] ot: hard disk recovery

[Christopher Mitchell]

whoops forgot to reply to all.


I actually work in data recovery. Grab hold of a copy of MHDD which is a 
DOS based boot floppy/CD which allows you to check your drive for errors 
and narrow down the problem. If it acquires correctly and lets you scan 
you may just have bad sectors and you can count yourself lucky. If it 
doesn't acquire then it could be the board which is the first step to 
check, otherwise it could be heads. Go to a room with very little dust, 
ie no fans, tiled floor if possible etc etc and open up the drive. If 
there is platter damage then you are scuppered so save your cash and 
write it off, and if the heads are mangled then it's either send off for 
a head swap (we charge £400+ for this) or write it off.

Now, for the more adventurous; you can source a replacement. I can give 
you some suppliers who will be able to get you an exact match for your 
hdd, but expect to pay. If you can get an exact PCB match then (usually) 
you have to change the ROM chip as well as the PCB (ie org ROM on donor 
PCB used on org hdd). However doing this yourself will be a lot less 
than paying someone else to do it. Also if you fancy doing a head swap 
yourself I can give you some tips.

Chris

bascule wrote:
> my brothers hard drive has failed badly, it spins but refuses to give 
> up any information returning read errors upon every access, listening 
> to my brothers story i believe that something electronic has burnt out 
> and that the only hope for recovery is one of those expensive labs 
> that swap out boards from working drives and even sometimes remove 
> platters in clean rooms, bro's data isn't worth that much (he marries 
> next week and the drive has his 'wedding plans' on it, not sure what 
> that says!), but i was wondering, there being quite a geek collection 
> on this list, if there was someone who did have some equipment that 
> might help - all i have is standard pc stuff to plug the drive into 
> i.e. a mobo :) or someone training/dabbling in forensic stuff who 
> wanted to practice on a drive that has been given up for dead, then 
> maybe something could be worked out? feel free to email direct.
>
> bascule
>