Old 7200RPM HDD still alive, but can't access data. Help?

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1Philip

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#283981 23-Mar-2021 15:01

I have an old Seagate Barracuda 2TB RPM drive.

It hasn't loaded on my desktop for some time (Windows 7).

I recently purchased a external enclosure to see if it would help (verified as working with another drive), still no luck.

I can hear the drive spinning, at least the drive lets off heat and vibrates. The light on the external enclosure sometimes shows it reading.

In my computer, it shows a USB 3.0 Mass storage device, that I've narrowed down to meaning the external HDD enclosure (unsure yet if it still shows when no HDD is inside it).

My question is, is there anything I can do to get data off this drive?

It was my backup drive for ~four different computers and a couple of cameras over a 4 year period, so a lot of precious memories on there!

I would put a budget of about $500 - $1000 on getting it fixed/restored/data extracted if there is some suggestions here that taking it to a shop would be of use.

Thank you in advance.

xpd

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#2679324 23-Mar-2021 15:18

Sounds like mechanics of the drive may be dead/dying.

If the data wasnt important, I'd give it the old "bash and smash" - ie: whack it against a tabletop/smack it firmly. Can sometimes kick things into life for a short period.

But since you're happy to spend money on it, you can try a data recovery option, but suspect costs may be more than youre willing - www.datalab.co.nz

Do NOT take it to an "IT specialist" shop down the road - they will either do the "bash and smash", or run software on trying to recover it which can actually make things worse if it fails.

If you want to try the software route yourself, take a look at https://dmde.com/

But again, this can make things worse if fails.

XPD / Gavin

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1Philip

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#2679327 23-Mar-2021 15:23

Update:

Having done nothing except sit at my computer for longer with it connected.....

I am now showing two new drives,

F: System reserved ~100mb

G: Local disk ~1.8TB

Says G: Must be formatted to be used.

Obviously I'm not going to format it, but, now what?

Hopefully this suggests I might be able to use a software option?? Or am I screwed :( ?

1Philip

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#2679328 23-Mar-2021 15:24

xpd:

Sounds like mechanics of the drive may be dead/dying.

If the data wasnt important, I'd give it the old "bash and smash" - ie: whack it against a tabletop/smack it firmly. Can sometimes kick things into life for a short period.

But since you're happy to spend money on it, you can try a data recovery option, but suspect costs may be more than youre willing - www.datalab.co.nz

Do NOT take it to an "IT specialist" shop down the road - they will either do the "bash and smash", or run software on trying to recover it which can actually make things worse if it fails.

If you want to try the software route yourself, take a look at https://dmde.com/

But again, this can make things worse if fails.

Thanks very much, could you please have a look at the update I just posted and how that might change things?

xpd

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#2679330 23-Mar-2021 15:26

G: will be the primary drive - so you can try a software recovery (as above or the other I've used is "Recuva").

Sometimes a simple partition recovery will work - http://active-undelete.com/howto_restore_part.htm

But again, it can make things harder for a data recovery firm if your attempts fail.

XPD / Gavin

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#2679335 23-Mar-2021 15:34

If you care about the data enough to spend money, power it off, do not attempt further self recovery, take it to Datalab.

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#2679369 23-Mar-2021 16:05

I vote for the above. Your know-how for this sort of thing seems limited and you will almost certainly only make things worse. I speak from experience because I have done that many times. If the data is important to you, shut it down, leave it alone, take it to a specialist.

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openmedia

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#2679474 23-Mar-2021 18:43

Beware as not all USB-SATA caddys work the same. I've seen some that obscure the last blocks on a HDD which causes issues with GPT formatted drives.

I recommend running a full disk image onto a spare larger drive and them performing data recovery from there.

Also check the smart info for the drive to see if you've got an above zero uncorrected blocks count

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SomeoneSomewhere

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#2679478 23-Mar-2021 18:58

Yeah, step one is read the SMART data - CrystalDiskInfo is the go-to for Windows, or smartctl -a on linux.

If there's lots of bad hardware errors, ship it off.

If the drive says it's fine, it very likely is and Windows has screwed something up. This is much less common than it used to be.

Whatever you do, have at least 2TB of empty storage before you start, preferably 4+. If you're after most of the data (not just a couple of specific files), ideally you want to take an image of the whole drive, then use the software data recovery tools on that image.

1101

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#2679637 24-Mar-2021 10:03

If the data has ZERO value, then just keep trying yourself.

If the data is needed, as mentioned several times above, stop playing with it.
Take it to a specialist , eg Datalab. Budget in $1000 upwards

You can actually be making it worse & actually make it unrecoverable JUST from having it powered up . I know of that happening .

If you dont want to pay a specialist $1000+ , take it out of the USB caddy & connect via sata cable.
Use some data recovery software to attempt to get your data (eg getdataback). Dont wast your time with free software :-)
https://www.runtime.org/data-recovery-software.htm

You can also try a Linux based bootable CD , Linux is alot less fussy than Win when accessing corrupted HD's .

1101

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#2679639 24-Mar-2021 10:10

One other suggestion , if you want to try to recover the data yourself

put your ear up against it when you power it up (dont move a spinning drive though).
The noises it makes will give some idea of the state its in.
Clicks , speedup & speed down & up & down, or any other abnormal noises are a sign of hardware failure .

Its often hardware failure of some sort .
Smart will give you some idea of its state , but keep in mind some failing HD's can pass every test you throw at them (incl smart)

lurker

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#2679642 24-Mar-2021 10:20

I've had success in the past with Linux distros. They can sometimes mount a drive where Windows can't do anything with it