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Kirin 01 - portrait

It's dead, Jim - totally dead.

I have a dead hard drive. It's a Western Digital 120gig.
The PC does not recognise nor see the drive at all, nor does the WD diagnostic floppy.

I'm not too worried as I have a replacement, but I'd like to get some stuff off the dead drive if I can. (Just e-mail, documents, bookmarks and addresses)

I've heard that swapping the control board on the drive may work, but I don't have access to a second WD drive to do the swap.

Does anyone out there do data recovery?

Posted on Sep. 21st, 2004 at 04:51 pm | | Leave a comment | 5 comments |

Comments

skipai

Yes, but unless you have lots of $$$$'s it's so going to set you back a lot.

Swapping the PCB may work, it may not but you have to be quick in getting what you want off in one go.

Otherwise, it's use backups if you have backups mind.
Posted on Sep. 21st, 2004 05:19 pm (UTC) | | Thread | Reply

kamau_d_lyon

Drop Rama an email. If he doesn't know how he should be able to point you in the right direction.
Posted on Sep. 21st, 2004 06:19 pm (UTC) | | Thread | Reply

jbadger

As said, if you e-mail me teh model number I can find out from Dr. R about spare parts in the vault.
Posted on Sep. 21st, 2004 09:33 pm (UTC) | | Thread | Reply

smrgol_t_kirin

OK, you didn't ask for that OOPs!

I'll e-mail you the info when I open the box next.
Posted on Sep. 21st, 2004 11:36 pm (UTC) | | Parent | Thread | Reply

camstone

Dead Drive

The answer is "Maybe."

You need to get an exact duplicate of the drive in order to make this work. I did it years ago with a WD 2.6 GB drive, even though WD said not to as the drive wasn't "set up internally to provide acceptable bit-errors in data paths." (Whatever that means...)

Anyway, the chances are 50-50, but far better than nothing. I did it to recover that 2.6 GB drive, and that drive is still running today. (but only in a non-important role.)

I'd suggest looking on eBay for the same drive type and series - You'll even need to get it from the same "lot" and while not necessarily easy, it can be done. Then just swap the controller electronics, (you will need a special hex wrench to do that) and plut it in - and then it will either work... or not. And if it's a head crash, it still won't work regardless.



Sending the drive to a recovery house will cost you around a grand. Maybe more. I had that done at the office with a 30gb drive. It sank the government $2,500 to get back my data... but was worth every dime.
Posted on Sep. 21st, 2004 10:01 pm (UTC) | | Thread | Reply