No excuses, no backup, but would like to recover HD data

I'm beginning to doubt whether your techie actually knows anything about data recover from a failed hard drive? :SYou never, never, never open a hard drive exposing the platter in anything other than a clean room, if data recovery is your top priority! That HD read/write head floats microns about the surface, and any dust or particles can now scratch that surface, permanently destroying your data. As an example, smoke particles or fingerprints are said to be about 2x-15x larger than the read/write head gap.

All I can say is good luck at this point. Not even a pro data recovery company will likely be able to help now. So won't have that option. Nor the PCB replacement longshot, which is now a waste of money. Better start re-constructing that Excel spreadsheet. Sorry!

No clicking...

I know I'll catch flak on this (that may be a pun!), but we opened it up and the platter looked unscratched. The arm was not parked, but was reset and it was spinnable after that. That was Saturday. On Sunday he had us return to his house and we took it to him again and he got his Seagate and other tools to do what I've reported. He has helped a lot with our dog shelter needs, including video surveillance security cams.

burlmart wrote:


The fellow that looked at our Samsung 320 Gn HD has been doing this stuff a long time. He said the Seagate device he used saw the data and it looked good. He reported that Seagate or one of his other apps (he named DOS as one) cleaned bad sectors. He mentioned boot and file firmware might be bad.

Among other things, I might see wher I can get a close vintage Samsung and swap firmware.

As long as you don't hear a clicking sound, or the drive appears to struggle when powered on, then keep it running. Don't turn it off. Get what data you can as soon as possible.

If the drive is making a constant clicking sound, then you may be damaging the platters to the point where data can never be recovered. In which case, power off.

Notwithstanding, my thoughts about attempting to swap out the PCB is to contact Samsung to see if it's possible. But I'm fairly confident, the answer will be no. As I don't believe that even data recovery companies do this for hardware failures. Instead, they remove the platters in a clean room, and install them in a similar working drive to attempt data recovery.

Much of what is posted on the net about recovering from hardware related drive failures have been debunked as myths. In fact, you may actually ruin any chances of recovering data by doing so yourself.

I wouldn't advise trying to freeze the disk. This needs to be done in a controlled, sealed environment for specific types of hardware failures. See Seagate article Friends don’t let friends freeze their hard drives!

Another factor in modern hard drives is that the drive's PCB board may contain flashed HD calibration data, specific to that drive when assembled. So replacing the PCB with an identical model does not work in most cases.

The more I think on this, since we need a new HD anyways, maybe I need a good source to order a near 15 month old Samsung 320 Gb HD used in Inspiron 3520 laptops sold at BB.

Any leads on a good and timely source?

There is an upcoming need for the spreadsheet, so Martha is anxious to take action (even if it has to be total starting her work over, which I would like to save her.

Samsung Model ST320LM001
HDD P/N : HN-M320MBB/D1

REV.A
F/W : 2AR20004
DOM 12/2012
Site DGT

Thanks for your speedy and good info, guys. Very much appreciate any angles. I am redneck enough to attack a problem from any angle I am able (ala Duck tape and WD 40). Everthing mentioned so far is solid food for fodder.

Admin, the drive spins, so Sammy HD can avoid a deep freeze.

1492, I am liking and maybe getting warm on cloud auto backup of some things, and the vol group Women’s Council of BR needs to look at this for sure. A local wireless network is another thing, however – I am stretching my abilities at tech already!

The fellow that looked at our Samsung 320 Gn HD has been doing this stuff a long time. He said the Seagate device he used saw the data and it looked good. He reported that Seagate or one of his other apps (he named DOS as one) cleaned bad sectors. He mentioned boot and file firmware might be bad.

TheBearAK, last nite I found this about a Samsung
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5m3MpRL9YJg

Among other things, I might see wher I can get a close vintage Samsung and swap firmware.

The freezer trick might work, but first, just listen to the drive and is it spinning? Can you hear any clicking noises?

Steady click click click is a bad sign and typically can only be recovered by companies like DriveSavers, but as 1492 stated, it is expensive. Typically they want $500 to $600 to even look at the drive.


If not clicking can be heard, and the drive is spinning up, then it may be possible to find an identical drive and swap the circuit boards and recover the data. 320 GB drive would be around $60, so it might be a cheap thing to try. Not guaranteed it will work, but even a 1 in 10 chance of it working might be worth it to some people. However, you have to find the exact same drive to have the best chance.

On a side note, one of the easiest ways to backup important files such as your Excel spreadsheet is by using a Free cloud service. You get at least 2G storage space with Dropbox, or 15G Free with Microsoft OneDrive or with Google Drive.

Just designate the folder to backup and sync, and it does so automatically when you're connected to the Net. So you always have the original on your computer, and a copy auto backed up and encrypted on the cloud drive.

Last ditch try :E

Put it in a ziplock bag,
Put that into another ziplock bag
Put it in the freezer for a few hours.

See if it works, you got one shot and be ready to do whatever you need to do.

Sorry to say, but if no computers can read the failed HD as a "source" drive, or from Disk Management or BIOS, then you're not likely going to be able to recover any data from a software utility. Save your money. The only possibility may be to send it to a data recover firm, who may be able to rebuild the drive to recover files. But, if the data is the result of damaged platters, then the files you specifically want, may be corrupted and unusable. Expect to pay major $$ nonetheless.

Hard drives are among the most unpredictable parts in terms of reliability in any computer, and can fail without any advance warning. They can also run perfectly day in and out for many years.

You may just have to learn from the experience, and setup "automated" backups in the future, so no ongoing intervention necessary on your part. Both system image restore and ongoing file backups. If using a laptop, consider using a wireless network HD solution.

My experience has been that those who rely on manually backing up, tend not to keep those backups updated, even though they have both an external HD setup and software installed.

I've setup my computers to automatically backup personal files, photos, and music a minimum of twice daily. I also have a full system image restore for a clean install, and an image backup of my current installation on a separate USB HD. Has worked flawlessly using freeware or open source backup software. Don't even have to think about it?