

Ask HN: Anyone know what to do with a failed external hard drive? - villageidiot

Sorry if this is not an appropriate place to ask this question but I'm a little desperate. My external hard drive died and it has a bunch of important files and documents. I searched around online and a couple of places recommend freezing it. I tried that - it didn't work. There seem to be numerous services that will take the failed disk and copy the data to a new drive but, inexplicably, they charge upwards of a thousand dollars for a seemingly basic service. I don't have that kind of money.<p>Does anyone know if there's a kit that you can buy to fix it yourself?
======
SwellJoe
_but, inexplicably, they charge upwards of a thousand dollars for a seemingly
basic service_

If it were actually inexplicable, someone would have started a business to do
it for much less. The fact that no one has (or has, but failed to stay in
business) indicates that it's probably an expensive and high risk business.

What is the problem exactly? This makes a big difference in how you go about
getting data off of it.

Does it not spin up? Maybe this will help:
[http://web.archive.org/web/20080207080550/http://www.deadhar...](http://web.archive.org/web/20080207080550/http://www.deadharddrive.com/)

Does it spin up but have lots of errors? Try mounting read only from a Linux
live CD and use dd with the noerror option (this tells it to keep going even
if there are errors) to mirror the contents to a new hard disk (same size or
larger). I've used this technique many times over the years, and usually
gotten most of the data restored.

Freezing is a method of nearly last resort, IMHO. After freezing comes "take
the platters out and put them in a whole new, but otherwise identical, drive".
This one is entirely last resort (and assumes you don't plan to use one of
those expensive services, since this _will_ be the last thing you ever do with
this drive), and assumes your data is worth the cost of a hard disk to be
thrown away at the end. I don't actually know if you can even get the platters
out of modern disks, but I've done it in the olden days...maybe 10 years
ago...and was able to recover _some_ data, but nowhere near most. The disk
gets eaten up with errors within a few hours of spinning up after using this
technique.

The expensive services presumably have clean room conditions for performing
the last technique without the resulting destruction of the drive. They also
probably have variable speed enclosures to allow slow reads of data (I'm
guessing, but if I were building tools to operate such a business, that's the
kind of thing I would be working on).

And, of course, the _best_ way to fix a broken hard disk is to replace it and
restore from recent backups.

~~~
villageidiot
To be honest, I don't know if it spins up or not. I'll tell you what it sounds
like though. It sounds like a helicopter when the pilot turns on the engine
and it starts revving up - for maybe half a second - then a loud Click! like a
camera shutter - and then it starts to wind up again for another half second
followed another Click!

Don't know if that's a good description really but it's the best I can do. I'm
really not a hardware guy. My guess is that this description indicates it does
not spin up but hopefully you can tell me?

You're probably right about it being an expensive business. Another reason I
don't want to hand over my drive is: Who are these people? And how do I really
know what they are going to do with my private data?

Did you say "recent backups"? Ha. That's funny.

~~~
SwellJoe
_To be honest, I don't know if it spins up or not. I'll tell you what it
sounds like though. It sounds like a helicopter when the pilot turns on the
engine and it starts revving up - for maybe half a second - then a loud
Click!_

Yeah, I've heard that sound. It's usually followed immediately by a "CLUNK" as
I toss the disk in the trash.

If the disk shows up in the BIOS disk scan, or when Linux detects the disks,
you might still be able to get some data off of it with dd. That'd be my first
plan, if I were in your shoes.

If that doesn't work, you might have some luck with the logic assembly
replacement idea. If it's the controller circuitry that's out of whack, it
might be fixed by a new board. If the motor or head are actually sticking and
unable to do their job, it's a more dramatic situation. And, I'm not sure what
the mechanics of such things look like these days. This might be one of those
situations where putting the platters in another identical drive is the only
option.

 _Did you say "recent backups"? Ha. That's funny._

Yes. You'll learn. Someday. The cost of not learning is infrequent, but can be
very, very, high.

~~~
villageidiot
Thanks for the tips. Yes, it does show up in the BIOS scan. Maybe there's hope
for the software option. I'll save your hardware-related tips for later since
I'm more or less incompetent when it comes to the non-virtual.

------
olefoo
You could try taking it out of it's housing and using another housing. But
that is only worth trying if it's a failure of the electronics, not of the
drive itself.

Since you mention downthreaed that's it's making click+grind noises... It
sounds like it's dead.

Freezing a drive of any vintage more recent than Y2k is less than useful.
Older drives were built to looser tolerances and thermal shrink could actually
move the drive head off the platter. More recent drives aren't going to be
dealt w/ that way, and freezing the drive can cause condensation in places you
don't want condensation.

Unless your data is worth considerably more than $10k, don't bother with drive
recovery services since you will in all probability be wasting your money.

~~~
villageidiot
That's an important possibility to know about. I assumed that if I was willing
to spend enough, that there might be a solution. So it's good to know that
that is not necessarily true. Much appreciated.

------
shubhamharnal
[http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2008/07/weekend_project_har...](http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2008/07/weekend_project_hard_driv_1.html)

~~~
villageidiot
Oh, I really hope not.

------
noodle
if spinrite can't fix it, you'll probably have to spend a fortune to get the
data off of it.

~~~
villageidiot
Thanks for the tip. I tried a piece of software last week - can't remember the
name - but I just heard the disk clicking repeatedly while the software was
trying to access the disk - it didn't get anywhere, so I didn't think a pure
software solution would work. But I will take a look at Spinrite - I hadn't
heard of it. Maybe it works better than the one I tried already, although I'm
skeptical. I have a hunch that what I really need is some kind of hardware
solution along the lines of whatever they use at these commercial services for
copying a failed disk. But I'm expecting such a device to cost an arm and a
leg.

