hard drive repair tools?

[raverx3m]

I accumulated a few drives that are damaged. unreadable in windows etc

are there any tools I can buy on ebay to do more than basic troubleshooting and repair?
I was reading that HD repair shops have some special hardware they use with the diagnostic port or something like that.

are those available online to buy?
my dad send me 3 dead drives and I have 3-4 dead of my own that I stored to possibly get files from when I have time. now I have time and wanted to get it all done at once.

 

[carnageX]

Boot off of a Linux LiveCD (such as Ubuntu) and try and recover the files that way. I've had more luck in reading files off of drives that are full of bad sectors / corruption issues in Linux than Windows, due to how it tries to read drives.

Bad sectors = physical damage, so there's no "fixing" them; just marking the bad sectors as bad, but bad sectors can spread. The best utility I've found for trying to repair bad drives (after recovering the data already of course) is SpinRite:
https://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm

 

[raverx3m]

what about that service plug on the hard drives?
is that more effective?

 

[carnageX]

You'd need special hardware/software to interact with that.

 

[raverx3m]

that's what I was asking about. is that expensive?
will that give me more chances at retrieving the info?

 

[carnageX]

The best chance at recovering data is by taking it to a Data Recovery company/specialist, which is usually $500+ per drive.

The Linux LiveCD method is what works 85% of the time for me, especially if it's just bad sectors. If it's a borked partition table, that's easily repairable as well.

The specialty hardware/software needed may be expensive - didn't find any prices.

 

[bob.thomas.pt]

Hello raverx3m,

Taking the drive to the repairing center may cost you high. So, before going to the repairing center, I would advise you to first try the manual option to make your damaged drive healthy.

In order to repair the dead drive, you can try check disk command: Open Command Prompt and type chkdsk D: /f (where D stands for drive letter name and /F stands for the fix). Check disk command is very helpful for detecting the issue with the drive and then fix them to make the drive workable again.

If the check disk command does not help you out, then you can download a trial version of Stellar Phoenix Windows data recovery software to recover your data from your father's hard drive.

Kindly acknowledge after using the above recommended software.

 

[raverx3m]

one of the drives is Seagate. from what I read is a circuitboard issue.

which number do I need to find a replacement circuit board for it?


its not detected in wondows at all
I tried the freezer trick also on it
tried to scan and I have few recovery software that I have used before
that's why I was asking for the hardware.
it popped up in windows once after the freeze but I couldn't see any files it just detected in windows but had no acess to the drive

it spins up and needle parks itself constantly jumping and then it stops

that one was my backup drive the second of 3 Seagate drives that I had that went dead
and has all my camera pictures and videos on it... and bunch of documents and taxes back up etc.

 

[carnageX]

one of the drives is Seagate. from what I read is a circuitboard issue.

which number do I need to find a replacement circuit board for it?

Same model of drive and same firmware version are needed to be a working replacement controller board.

its not detected in wondows at all
I tried the freezer trick also on it
tried to scan and I have few recovery software that I have used before
that's why I was asking for the hardware.
it popped up in windows once after the freeze but I couldn't see any files it just detected in windows but had no acess to the drive

it spins up and needle parks itself constantly jumping and then it stops

that one was my backup drive the second of 3 Seagate drives that I had that went dead
and has all my camera pictures and videos on it... and bunch of documents and taxes back up etc.

Did you ever try the Linux LiveCD like I suggested?

 

[raverx3m]

not yet ive been busy lol and my dad sent me 4 more drives and last month the last Seagate drive started acting up so I disconnected it right away before it got worse because that was my second backup drive with the rest of my files