HSMITH Posted June 6, 2008 Share Posted June 6, 2008 My home PC is toast it appears, hopefully I will be able to recover the stuff on it but I don't have a lot of hope....... I will have limited access to email and the web until I get it fixed/replaced. This sucks!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sskp1 Posted June 6, 2008 Share Posted June 6, 2008 Sorry to hear that hope you get it worked out. Kevin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JThompson Posted June 6, 2008 Share Posted June 6, 2008 My home PC is toast it appears, hopefully I will be able to recover the stuff on it but I don't have a lot of hope.......I will have limited access to email and the web until I get it fixed/replaced. This sucks!!!! Does the drive spin up? Does it make a clicking noise? If it clicks you're screwed. If it spins up you have a shot. I have all the software here for data recovery... if you don't have it send me a PM and we can see if we can hook ya up. J Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bberkley Posted June 6, 2008 Share Posted June 6, 2008 When you have an opportunity to download a couple of ISO's and burn some CD's, these two should be in your PC emergency kit: 1. Ultimate Boot CD 2. Ubuntu 8.04 Desktop Also, you might try Recuva out as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EricW Posted June 6, 2008 Share Posted June 6, 2008 Try removing the drive and banging it flat on a table. Sometimes that will free up a sticky drive bearing long enough to rescue your stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vluc Posted June 6, 2008 Share Posted June 6, 2008 Could even be the lithium battery on the mobo needs replaced. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bountyhunter Posted June 6, 2008 Share Posted June 6, 2008 My home PC is toast it appears, hopefully I will be able to recover the stuff on it but I don't have a lot of hope.......I will have limited access to email and the web until I get it fixed/replaced. This sucks!!!! Had the same thing a while back. You can get a big HD pretty cheap (under a $100) and nearly all computers have the slot wired up inside for a second drive. Took me five minutes to install. Back up the main drive onto the second drive for all importamt stuff. You can also get external drives that plug in the SCSI port and you don't need to open the computer to use. I think I got a 300MB on sale for about $60 at FRY's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HSMITH Posted June 6, 2008 Author Share Posted June 6, 2008 Thanks guys. Ihave two hard drives in the computer, one, the one I really need, clicks. They both spin up, but error message says primary hard drive can't be found. Changed drive settings in the BIOS, moved connections, tried everything I know of to get it to boot and it won't find a hard disk no matter what I do. Jim, if you can think of anything for me to try shoot me a PM. Brian, the first link looks cool, but I don't know what to do with that stuff. The second looks like an OS? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bberkley Posted June 6, 2008 Share Posted June 6, 2008 Howard, the ultimate boot cd has all kinds of utilities for repairing or testing the various components of your system. Ubuntu is a Live Linux CD, and you can mount your file system if your OS (Windows) won't boot, and access your data or even migrate it to another box/drive. If the drive clicks, you can try dropping it flat on a hard surface from 6-10 inches, but with modern drives, stiction isn't as much a problem. Its likely dead, and you should think about what its worth to you to recover it. There are places that actually rebuild the disk and extract the data, but they aren't cheap. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SLM Posted June 6, 2008 Share Posted June 6, 2008 Man Howard, that sucks. I feel your pain... Been there, done that and didn't even get a T-Shirt to prove it!! I've had some luck recovering info from a "dead" drive by first putting it in a zip lock type bag, putting it in the freezer for a few hours, hooking it up and see what it does then. Sometimes a little extra persuasion in the form of a screwdriver handle (tap rather firmly with the handle end on the drive) will help also. Good luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bgary Posted June 6, 2008 Share Posted June 6, 2008 OK, so... ... job one is to get the thing to boot, preferably from a hard drive. If you make make the second drive bootable, do whatever you can to get the computer up and running on it. You may need to change jumpers on the drive controller (eg, make it a "master" drive) .. once you have the computer up and running, add the sick drive back in (in other words, change only one variable at a time). if [only] the boot sector on the drive is damaged, everything else will be recoverable. Note that you may be able to shortcut to this by taking your sick drive to another computer (that runs) and adding it to the computer as a secondary drive. Don't give up. even really-really-really sick drives can regurgitate data, if you can only get them to wake up and spin for a little while. That's a whole lot easier ask than trying to get it to boot up an OS. B Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
benos Posted June 6, 2008 Share Posted June 6, 2008 I remember George (Geoff Linder) told me that freezing a drive with frozen bearings (in the freezer) would sometimes allow it to spin up long enough to get the data off it. But please check with someone else before trying that. Or in other words, I've never done it. be Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JThompson Posted June 6, 2008 Share Posted June 6, 2008 (edited) Thanks guys.Ihave two hard drives in the computer, one, the one I really need, clicks. They both spin up, but error message says primary hard drive can't be found. Changed drive settings in the BIOS, moved connections, tried everything I know of to get it to boot and it won't find a hard disk no matter what I do. Jim, if you can think of anything for me to try shoot me a PM. Brian, the first link looks cool, but I don't know what to do with that stuff. The second looks like an OS? If it clicks the controller is smacking the heads from one side to the other meaning it's lost it's mind. I have had them stop long enough to get data, but it doesn't happen often. Edited June 7, 2008 by JThompson Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uscbigdawg Posted June 6, 2008 Share Posted June 6, 2008 Good luck bro. This happened to me a couple of months ago and still don't think it's totally fixed and yeah...I recovered nothing. Rich Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
benos Posted June 7, 2008 Share Posted June 7, 2008 Quite a few years ago I lost everything. I think it was the next day I heard, "There are two types of computer users: "Those who have lost all their work, and those who are going to loose all their work." I understood that, then. be Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LJE Posted June 7, 2008 Share Posted June 7, 2008 I remember George (Geoff Linder) told me that freezing a drive with frozen bearings (in the freezer) would sometimes allow it to spin up long enough to get the data off it. But please check with someone else before trying that. Or in other words, I've never done it.be A friend of mine is an IT Tech for a very large company. His last ditch effort is to seal the drive in a plastic bag to prevent moisture contamination, put it in the freezer for 2 days, then install the drive to recover data. He said this usually works 60% of the time. LJE Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HSMITH Posted June 7, 2008 Author Share Posted June 7, 2008 Thanks guys, a friend is an IT type and is going to take a look at it for me, see if anything can be done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UW Mitch Posted June 7, 2008 Share Posted June 7, 2008 Doesn't help you now, but on your next build you could do a RAID set-up. There's different way of setting up multiple disks and different RAID configs, but the simplest is what I've got - Basically two disks that mirror each other, so if one drive dies, you've got the other with all your data on it. Good luck Howard! ~Mitch Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bountyhunter Posted June 8, 2008 Share Posted June 8, 2008 Man Howard, that sucks. I feel your pain... Been there, done that and didn't even get a T-Shirt to prove it!!I've had some luck recovering info from a "dead" drive by first putting it in a zip lock type bag, putting it in the freezer for a few hours, hooking it up and see what it does then. Was that to punish it for being naughty? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HSMITH Posted June 8, 2008 Author Share Posted June 8, 2008 Brian, thanks for the clarification. Some good news, took the box to a buddy that is an IT guy, lost one hard drive with all of the software and so on, but didn't lose the pictures of the kids, gun pictures, music, etc that was on the other drive. He is going to put a new drive in and get an OS set up. Should be able to get it all put back together and functioning in the early part of the week. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JThompson Posted June 8, 2008 Share Posted June 8, 2008 Brian, thanks for the clarification. Some good news, took the box to a buddy that is an IT guy, lost one hard drive with all of the software and so on, but didn't lose the pictures of the kids, gun pictures, music, etc that was on the other drive. He is going to put a new drive in and get an OS set up. Should be able to get it all put back together and functioning in the early part of the week. Both drives weren't bad H... the boot drive went and the other was fine. The odds of having two go at once is astronomical. I'm glad to hear you managed to save some of you files though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HSMITH Posted June 8, 2008 Author Share Posted June 8, 2008 The one that was clicking is the one that lived....... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AustinMike Posted June 8, 2008 Share Posted June 8, 2008 I remember George (Geoff Linder) told me that freezing a drive with frozen bearings (in the freezer) would sometimes allow it to spin up long enough to get the data off it. But please check with someone else before trying that. Or in other words, I've never done it.be I work in the industry as a systems test engineer. I have actually seen this work. As a last ditch effort, we put a non spinning drive into a plastic bag in the freezer for a few hours and got the thing to spin long enough to copy the data off. Back up your data daily, folks! In my line of work, I see hard drives fail a lot! It's not a matter of if a drive will fail, it's when. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JThompson Posted June 8, 2008 Share Posted June 8, 2008 (edited) The one that was clicking is the one that lived....... You saying both drives were bad? I think there was probably some confusion as to the one that was clicking then cause I've replaced hundreds of them and got data off one that stopped clicking for a short time. You spoke of replacing the OS which is the boot drive. If the drive that lived was clicking, you had better get that one out of there as well, or it will fail. Edited June 8, 2008 by JThompson Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HSMITH Posted June 8, 2008 Author Share Posted June 8, 2008 Nope, the boot drive was dead, totally dead. The second drive was clicking, thunk thunk kinda sound. My only guess is it couldn't see the first HD so it went to the second looking for boot software? I don't know, but I know I felt the clicking in the big drive..... Has a new boot drive, new OS, all of that. Second drive was fine. As soon as it dries out I will fire it up and start getting things set back up, it was in 100% humidity for at least 5 hours and got a little rain on it when I moved it from his truck to my truck at the match this morning. I'll get up to date on back up DVD's as soon as I get it fired up, then I don't care if the other drive dies too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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