Hard Drive Crash - Data Recovery Recommendations

Hi Folks ..

Had an internal 2TB Hitachi go bad a couple of weeks ago. It was about 3/4 full, and had all my RAWs, and edits from mid 2015 to Oct 2016. I'm not a pro, so there's nothing there I must have, but still .... I'd like to recover the stuff on it.

I bought an exact match drive (refurb), and switched the PCB, but it didn't work; wasted $85

After a lot of listening to the drive, and reading online, I am convinced the spindle mechanism is 'stuck' .. the platters seem to be spinning fine, and there are no heads touching them.

Looks like its gonna need surgery in a clean-room. I have only called one company so far (just looking around online) https://www.krollontra​ck.com/ who quoted $65 to give an exact estimate. They did mention that they were not a mom & pop operation, and that they were expensive; the minimum would be $750, and could go up to $1600. That seems to be the moral of all the horror stories you hear regarding data recovery.

I've got half a mind to try this too

I'm sure I'm not the only one here to experience this; I'd just like to see if anyone would like to share their story, who they used, and what the outcome was.

Merry Christmas!!!

Sucks.

I lost one Seagate drive long ago... don't even remember what was on it but I know about 5 years of my life in pictures was. Thankfully way before I was a photographer though.
The options back there were very expensive and I didn't have the money to get it looked into so it went into the bin. Not sure what they cost now.

So I'll be 'that guy'. You are going to go out and buy TWO drives and backup often, correct. Perhaps find a cloud backup option as well? Look into solid state drives.

Good luck!

I lost an HDD with no backup exactly once. I suspect this will never happen to you again, either. FarmerTed is right, use TWO internal HDDs, and configure some RAID or daily backup system. In addition, make regular backups to external storage, also.

To the problem at hand. If the disks are spinning, you may indeed have a stuck 'head' mechanism. Remove the drive from the computer. Using a small (4-7 oz) finishing hammer, or a heavy-handled table knife, hold the drive level with the floor, and tap the sides of the drive. Try this a few times before giving up, being a bit more aggressive each time. Test between each set of taps. Don't dent that casing.

Two external drives......yes.

I would surely try what Bassat suggested. I have done this more than once with success. A few judicious taps......then, if it works, copy the drive and replace it.

Redundancy is the key, and not too costly when you consider how cheap a gigabyte of storage on harddisk is these days. Having your data on two separate disks is the absolute minimum. Having a very regular file synchronizing routine is a must

nordlysBW wrote in post #18222486
Redundancy is the key, and not too costly when you consider how cheap a gigabyte of storage on harddisk is these days. Having your data on two separate disks is the absolute minimum. Having a very regular file synchronizing routine is a must

Synchronizing/copying is easily done with batch files. More expensive systems abound, but don't make your data any more secure.

I'm fortunate that I've never lost a drive. But we've had drives fail at work without a good backup and always use OnTrack (Kroll) for recovery. Expensive, but worth it. You just need to decide whether your data is worth the expense.

Yes, I do guarantee I will be getting 2x8TB and mirroring them soon ... that should take care of every electronic file in my possession (RAWs, edits, software, personal files, etc.)

Probably gonna look into one of these guys ... google drive gives you 10GB free, and almost everyone (myself included) has a google account anyway .. might as well start uploading full size edits up there.

I'm gonna try the 'tap with a hammer' trick now

I'm assuming that you were able to format the new drive and scratch install the OS so you have an operational computer. If so, many times you can just plug in the old drive and the new OS will at least see some of the files depending on how damaged the drive is.

I've got 3 or 4 duplicate hard drives of photo and design archives, stashed far apart.

Rapping on the drive is called percussive maintenance. Use the handle of a screwdriver.

Did the 'percussive maint.' ... no cigar

Opened the drive up (YES I DID!!), and the heads were NOT on parked on the platter .. they are just not moving .. just sitting there clicking (trying to move)

This gives me a little hope ... gotta hit the youtube videos ..

I did not open it up while powered on BTW ..

Brave man. I have used drive savers in the past with great success. The data was worth the price paid however.

That was in my early days. I now backup like crazy with RAID, backups of the RAID and unlimited storage cloud with version control.