HDD data recovery

[d_source]

I dont know how many of you are in the Toronto area, but last friday we had massive flooding here and many people had sewer backups, including myself. Had about 1.5' of sewage in my basement. Much destruction. Anyways, my pc was down there. It was on. Mobo is fried and so is my primary HDD (secondary HDD is fine even though it was under the primary drive). I waited a few days to try the drives and pc to make sure everything dried out and yes of course the HDD with my most important files is the one that is fried. The pc doesnt even detect it. Does anyone know how to recover data from this drive? I am pretty sure that the insurance will cover that too, even though they havent returned our phone calls, but thats b/c theres so many claims going through from friday.

In case your wondering, memory is fine, video card is fine, burner is fine, processor is fine. Just my mobo and prmary HDD are fried. I am gonna tell the insurance that the video card is fried so that they will buy me a new one of those too, then i'll go SLI b/c i'll still have the old one. Plus i just bought a new LCD monitor and i dont wanna plug it into a video card that may be damaged, just in case.

THX

 

[Law]

To recovery file from a dead harddrive you would probably need to seek professional help. I'm not quite sure but it can't be done with third party software if the harddrive no longer spins.

 

[SHAWN]

Does the HDD power on? If not then you have to send it out to a data recovery center and they will take the drive apart and extract the data. Down fall is it cost 4 figures to do.

 

[htcs]

Data recovery is FUN! LOL

As far as your insurance goes, hope its not Chubb! LOL and man was the weather bad - 5 hrs from Hamilton to Bayview (@401)!!!

A trick - don't laugh... it's worked before - take your hdd, put it in a good freezer for awhile... don't get weirded out just yet, here's why...

when u freeze it, the silicon on the underside of the drive contracts, possibly allowing soldered connections to come together and allow the drive to spin up - just long enough for you to use a boot cd to copy the files that you need to another drive or diskette.

Truthfully, this doesn't work every time - but has saved a real-estate company in Hamilton twice!

Edit:

Make sure when u put the hdd in the freezer that it's In an anti-static bag followed by a ziploc bag - take the air out to prevent ice from forming on the inside.
If it works for you, and then stops, freeze it again and try again.

Good Luck

 

[DJ-CHRIS]

Hey I am from hamilton too, I am a local
Anyways the freezer trick can work and is usually safe. I believe it works for different reasons than stated. I tried to use the freezer trick for data recovery today.

Method 2 which would most likely be used in this case is a PCB swap, which changes the electrical components of the drive. Fairly cheap to do, and I have suscesfully guided a TF member thru this before.

But, if your insurance covers it, take it to a pro. That's all their is to be said.

 

[sinjon]

Wouldn't it be easier to just claim the entire computer as a loss. I wouldn't think that an insurance company would expect someone to determine which components of a computer work or not.

I'd suspect that the worst that would happen is that depeding on the claimed value of the computer that they may request an authorized technician/service center look at system.

 

[ADBen]

I have heard that freezing the HDD carefully will give a window of opputunity to retrieve data.....Cant say I myself have done it, just heard second-hand accounts.....wish you luck, sorry to hear of your misfortune.