repairing broken hard drive

[dan28]

is it possible to repair hard drives i was using itin caddy so it became an external drive it fell from the bed onto floor in the caddy an now it just clicks an doesnt read anything

 

[barry2017]

Chances are not good.

There are professionals who will do a recovery for you. But it is seriously expensive, the bill will be hundreds of pounds.

And I could suggest things to do. But they might in their own right wreck your hard drive. Like taking it out of its caddy (using an antistatic wrist strap), putting it in an antistatic bag, then wrapping it in cellophane and freezing it. Really, it does work sometimes. But only as a last resort.

 

[BerthaPog]

Yep - can be done but is expensive - depending on how much data and what needs to be done to recover it, hundreds of pounds is right.

I stumped up approx £400 to get ~270GB of scanned negatives recovered (freezer trick didn't work for me) unfortunately it wasn't a simple power-supply failure - they stated they had to outsource it to a company that usually does the forenisc recovery for the police when they want to recover things naughty people try and hide. :shock:

The above might have been sales BS, I could have gone through and rescanned them all, but made a time vs money judgement - it had taken a couple of years working my way through them.

Really comes down to how important is the data, and can it be re-generated by other means.

Lesson now learned, important stuff now backed up multiple times to different devices.

 

[mikeekim89]

Regular data, proveded your computer sees it as a drive. even one that won't read, or run and it can be salvaged. all data can be taken off and put onto a new drive..

 

[cyfa2809]

^ yes isnt it still a disc inside which could be salvaged provided its not broken and you know what your doing

 

[mikeekim89]

Provide the drive will run in a caddy some programs can rescue and rebuild files. With around a 90% success rate.

 

[ringo]

Start with the simple stuff, Have you taken the drive out of the caddy...

Chances are (if you haven't) the drive has just come away from the pins...

I had this a couple of years ago after dropping a mates caddy down the stairs...

 

[dan28]

i ve taken it out of the caddy an tried to run it as a slave drive but the computer doesnt see it
if you put your ear next to it you can it clicking as if something has got stuck inside

 

[Kerplunk]

I've had some success in the past with the freezing method. Also worth giving it a few sharp taps to see if that frees it up as a clicking noise is normally the drive heads knackered. Try holding it in a few different positions too. If you do get it going get all the data you want off it immediately as it'll only be a temporary fix.

 

[hamster]

The data recovery guys take the drive apart and fit the platter into another (working) drive. It works for a few hours, enough for it to be read. But it's a job for pros.