Hard drive data recovery

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Queen Bee

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I had an accident with my 80GB external hard drive. Long story short: I managed to accidentally drop it while it was still running. The fall was from about 4ft and on tile floor. I got an error bubble stating that files had been lost when I reconnected it to my laptop. Not to mention a scary whirring sound coming out of the HD when I plugged it in :happy:

Is it possible to recover the files I had on it if I take it in for repair? I guess the big issue I've got is that I never got it insured with a warranty. What kind of price range should I expect for the repair job if recovering the lost data is possible?

Thanks in advance!
 
For physical HD failures, I have heard of recovery costs running from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars unfortunately.
 
Yeah, I'd look around for a freelance technician (someone like me who works for a big org but moonlights for other clients on the side). Are you in school? IF so, check with the IT department. Our HelpDesk now offers diagnostic support for students for only $15. Basically, we try everything we can based on the software and equipment we already have, but there's no guarantees.
 
Try freezing it. Put in ziplock, get all the air out of baggie and put it in the freezer for around 10-15 minutes. Take out, and quickly connect to computer, and see if you can get the files off.

I have done this before, and managed to get a few gb's of files off a bad hard drive. MAY not work since you dropped it, but worth a try.

(BTW, I had to freeze mine about 4-5 times to get everything off. But it works)
 
So glad it worked. :up:

~BrightestStar~ said:
I'm technologically incompetent, so perhaps this is a silly question..
But my curiosity insists I ask anyway.
How does freezing it help?


If the drive is failing because the parts (head/platter) are touching, I think freezing it can make the metal shrink a bit so that they're not touching and allow you a short time to grab your data.
 
To answer the original question;

I've had to get data off of two destroyed hard drives. I sent them off and both incidents cost me $185 a piece.
 
~BrightestStar~ said:
I'm technologically incompetent, so perhaps this is a silly question..
But my curiosity insists I ask anyway.
How does freezing it help?
A lot of times when a hard drive is jostled enough to stop reading data, it is due to a component overheating after a certain amount of time when the HD is spinning.

Freezing the drive, or cooling it off really, allows the component that is overheating to remain cool long enough to transfer data using the drive. I've seen an article on the internet where someone was actually 'icing' a hard drive like a wound while trying to get the majority of their data recovered. It worked.
 
I came in here for something else and just read this thread...I'm amazed at the freezing thing..wow. This place is awesome:up:
 
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