File recovery of a dropped laptop with a Hybrid hard drive.

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kiwipawl

273 posts

Ultimate Geek

#236427 1-Jun-2018 14:19

Hi All,

My son recently dropped his laptop while it was running and can't access the hybrid drive any more. He has taken the drive out and replaced it and reinstalled a new copy of Windows 10.

We fitted the old drive to a external drive housing, but still can't access the files on the old disk.

I tried using a demo version of Hetman Partition Recovery 2.8, which appeared to find some of the files but you can't copy any of them in the demo version.

Does anybody have any experience with this software as it is U$97.95 and I don't want to waste anymore money on this if it doesn't work.

Any other suggestions would also be appreciated.

Thanks Paul.

cruxis

481 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2026957 1-Jun-2018 15:06

Maybe the free version of Recuva https://www.ccleaner.com/recuva

amiga500

1484 posts

Uber Geek
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#2026995 1-Jun-2018 16:06

Free version of Recuva does a great job. If using Linux there is Photorec which is command line but very easy to use. Photorec will recover a long list of file types including .rar and .jpg etc. From my very limited use of photorec it seems to be every bit as good as Recuva.

gareth41

742 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2027037 1-Jun-2018 16:29

Do not use recovery programs like that directly on the disk, it more than likely has bad sectors and using those sorts of recovery programs will only make the problem worse and lessen the chances of successful recover, the vendors of these programs will never tell you this. The disk needs to be low level cloned to a good drive and then the file system recovery done from there. It s not recommended to use Windows for low level cloning either. Use ddrescue on linux. Put both hdd's in a spare machine, download "sysrescure" cd and boot from that, then use hdparm to identify the drives in the command line (probably /dev/sda and /dev/sdb), once identified use ddrescue to do a low level clone to the good drive, it could take a long time of there are bad sectors - make sure to copy sector 0 very important! then do a reverse copy if too many bad sectors are encountered, you'll eventually get the whole drive cloned and then run filesystem rescue utils on the good drive.

Lias

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#2027635 2-Jun-2018 20:33

If you really care about the data, stop trying to recover it, take it into datalab or somewhere else and let the professionals do it.

I'm a geek, a gamer, a dad, a Quic user, and an IT Professional. I have a full rack home lab, size 15 feet, an epic beard and Asperger's. I'm a bit of a Cypherpunk, who believes information wants to be free and the Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it. If you use my Quic signup you can also use the code R570394EKGIZ8 for free setup.

richms

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#2027639 2-Jun-2018 20:39

If there is any mechanical damage to the drive then continued trying to use it on the current mechanics may be making it worse.

If the stuff has ended up being important now, when it wasnt earlier on when choosing to not back it up you need to take it to a professional place that can open the drive in the clean environment and check what is stuffed before doing the recovery.

Richard rich.ms

tchart

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#2028004 3-Jun-2018 21:32

richms:
If there is any mechanical damage to the drive then continued trying to use it on the current mechanics may be making it worse.

If the stuff has ended up being important now, when it wasnt earlier on when choosing to not back it up you need to take it to a professional place that can open the drive in the clean environment and check what is stuffed before doing the recovery.

Sorry to hijack the thread I am in a similar boat.

Today I powered on my laptop and it made a noticeable click. The D drive was still there but now the D drive shows up with a question mark and Disk manager says it's not initialised.

I believe initialisation will wipe the drive.

So do I initialise and hope I can recover or just send it to a pro for recovery?

Most of the data is synced to Dropbox but there are some files which are outside of my Dropbox folder which is like to recover.

gareth41

742 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2028023 3-Jun-2018 22:05

tchart:
richms:

If there is any mechanical damage to the drive then continued trying to use it on the current mechanics may be making it worse.

If the stuff has ended up being important now, when it wasnt earlier on when choosing to not back it up you need to take it to a professional place that can open the drive in the clean environment and check what is stuffed before doing the recovery.

Sorry to hijack the thread I am in a similar boat.

Today I powered on my laptop and it made a noticeable click. The D drive was still there but now the D drive shows up with a question mark and Disk manager says it's not initialised.

I believe initialisation will wipe the drive.

So do I initialise and hope I can recover or just send it to a pro for recovery?

Most of the data is synced to Dropbox but there are some files which are outside of my Dropbox folder which is like to recover.

Don't initialize it, its only giving you that option because Windows can't read sector 0 or the hdd controller is returning all zero's when a read of sector 0 is initiated, hence disk management thinks the disk is brand new and gives the initialize option. Disconnect power from the disk now, its a job for recovery professionals - a lcicking noise means mechanical damage to drive and will need to be temporarily repaired in a clean room using parts from a donor hdd of the same model and batch.

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tchart

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#2029386 4-Jun-2018 19:55

gareth41:

Don't initialize it, its only giving you that option because Windows can't read sector 0 or the hdd controller is returning all zero's when a read of sector 0 is initiated, hence disk management thinks the disk is brand new and gives the initialize option. Disconnect power from the disk now, its a job for recovery professionals - a lcicking noise means mechanical damage to drive and will need to be temporarily repaired in a clean room using parts from a donor hdd of the same model and batch.

Mmmm thanks for the advice.

I had a browse of the ASUS warranty terms and conditions. As per expectations they will not preserve or restore any user data.

So options are;

1) RMA the laptop and get the drive replace the drive - lose everything

2) Remove the drive, get an expert to recover data - assume this will destroy the drive - give up on warranty claim

Any other options I may have missed? Laptop is around 9 months old so still in warranty.

richms

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#2029396 4-Jun-2018 20:04

No, that is about it for options. Some recovery places are certified by some drive vendors for warranty, but you are not the drive vendors customer so that doesnt help you.

The price of a drive is nothing compared to the cost of recovery anyway.

Richard rich.ms

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3122 posts

Uber Geek

#2029773 5-Jun-2018 12:44

First thing to do is stop trying to access the drive, you may be just putting scratches on the disks platters (yes that happens)

In general, decide what the data is worth to you.
Data recovery specialists will charge $500 to many thousands .
PC repair companies often sometimes recover data IF the drive is still readable : thats a cheaper option
PC Repair companies do not have the tools or expertise of data recovery specialist though .

Forget about warranty , you loose warranty as soon as the HD is removed (with some exceptions)
Sometimes the manufacturer will allow some leway so you can try for data recovery.

If you want to try yourself ,
there are plenty of options . Linux can sometimes copy data off when win Refuses .
The hard part is finding recovery software thats not completely useless . You need to accept that not everything is recoverable
This program is quite good, its not free though
https://www.runtime.org/data-recovery-software.htm

amiga500

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#2029797 5-Jun-2018 13:20

I've never owned a hybrid drive but the chance of recovering anything from a SSD versus conventional hard drive does differ. For example if you have accidentally deleted files off a conventional portable hard drive or flash drive & they are not overwritten, your chance of getting them back with Recuva or Photorec can be very good to excellent.

If you have deleted some files off a real SSD (not flash drive) then the chance of getting them back is next to zero, at least when using normal software such as Recuva.

So, what I am trying to say is that a *hybrid* drive may be a complicating factor in recovering any data.

Lias

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#2030222 5-Jun-2018 20:45

tchart:

2) Remove the drive, get an expert to recover data - assume this will destroy the drive - give up on warranty claim

A data recovery is going to cost you several times the cost of a replacement drive anyways,so if you are going down that route the cost of a replacement drive is the least of your worries. That being said, when I got my drive recovered the company replaced the warranty stickers with their own "repaired by xxx" stickers and I got it replaced under warranty with no problems.