Hard Drive Recovery Service?

[Jerry Feldman]

You certainly want to use a service that has a clean room. You don't
want a bunch of geeks like us tinkering with it. One servers is Ontrack
http://www.ontrackdatarecovery.com/. They are expensive. Additionally,
the data storage places like Iron Mountain also offer data recovery
services.=20

On Fri, 7 Sep 2007 02:30:18 -0400
"Kristian Erik Hermansen" <kristian.hermansen-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:

> Maybe you guys will get a kick out of my stupidity here in various forms.=
..
>=20
> About a year ago, I had an external USB drive, to which I backed up
> some important data (pictures, documents, etc).  Now, after i moved to
> my new apartment, I mis-identified the power adapter and plugged in
> one with an incorrect amperage/voltage.  I only noticed this after I
> found that I was unable to access the drive.  I checked the power, and
> I saw the mistake I made.  I found the real power supply, but even now
> the power would not light the USB drive LED.  So, I thought maybe
> something in the USB enclosure got fried.
>=20
> I decided to remove the internal hard drive, a Seagate 160 GB, and pop
> it into my desktop machine via the IDE interface.  Interestingly, the
> PC would hang at detecting the disk after the BIOS boot.  So, damn,
> did I fry the electronics in the drive itself?  Being of an
> inquisitive nature, I prodded further.
>=20
> I went so far as to track down and identical model drive on Froogle
> and ordered it.  I hypothesized that the drive electronics had failed
> somehow.  So, a few weeks later and I had the new drive,  However, I
> procrastinated, and just tonight, I got around to going further.  I
> looked at the drives, and indeed they had the same model number, but
> varying firmware revisions.  However, the external circuitry on the
> bottom of the drive seemed identical in terms of all part layouts and
> circuit traces.  So, I thought no big deal.
>=20
> I first attempted to swap the external electronics piece (a 4 x 4 in
> piece) to the old drive, which did not work, so I eliminated that
> possibility.  Further I went.  This was going to suck, but I needed to
> actually remove the platters and swap them!  I have never done this
> before, and I always hear people saying "YOU CAN'T DO THAT, THE
> PLATTERS WILL BE DESTROYED!!!".  Well, I rendered an attempt.  So,
> after about an hour of figuring out how to disassemble the drive
> properly and exactly, with all moving parts, I figured I had it.  I
> took the two platters out from the new drive, opened the old drive,
> and dropped in the old platters.  After a little futzing around and
> reassembly attempts, I hooked up the drive.
>=20
> "Damn, the actuator is clicking!" ... clicks plastic guard into place ...=
 reboot
>=20
> "Oh, the actuator is now moving!!!" ... gets excited
>=20
> So everything was going OK.  On power-on, the actuator goes to the
> center and then to the middle of the disk, where it hangs at the same
> place "Detecting IDE drives...".  If I power-off, the head swiftly
> returns to near the center.  All appears in order.
>=20
> Now, what I want to know is if anyone here knows what the actual steps
> are that is happening during this phase of "Detecting IDE drives..."
> and if I can fool it somehow or force it to get past this snag.  Any
> ideas?  Just to let you know, I have tried this drive on four
> computers now, all with similar effects.  Additionally, I tried
> manually setting the IDE drive to PIO mode 0 in the BIOS, to no avail.
>  So, if anyone knows the hard disk physical boot process, please let
> me know!!
>=20
> Also, if this is futile, who can you recommend that I send the drive
> to in its current state?  Will they accept a drive that have had the
> platters removed and messed with?  What is the approximate cost?  has
> anyone even tried this before?!?!  Thanks, and yes, I know I am
> insane...
> --=20
> Kristian Erik Hermansen
>=20
> --=20
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>=20
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>=20




--=20
Jerry Feldman <gaf-mNDKBlG2WHs at public.gmane.org>
Boston Linux and Unix user group
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