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DIY Data Recovery (Power Issue / Unrecognized Drive)
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2019-03-23 at 12:20 AM UTCSo I have an external hard drive (8TB, Seagate) that stopped working (being recognized when plugged in) yesterday.
I tried the routine troubleshooting stuff first:
1. Different USB cable (both Micro Type B).
2. Tried a different power supply (slightly lower voltage and amperage).
3. Removed the drive itself and tried putting it into a new ($30) enclosure.
4. Tried connecting it directly via USB SATA cables (see image below). Not immediately recognized, nor found anywhere in Device Manager (yes, I'm on Windows).
Now I'm calling up the big guns (I live in a relatively small town, and the small computer repair shops I call around here, once I tell them everything I've tried, tell me I'm pretty much stuck going into the city and spending at least a grand for physical plate swapping in a clean room and all that.
I've shopped around, and I'm looking at somewhere between $1,000 (CAD) to $2,000.
Recovering the data is worth paying whatever price to me, even though I don't exactly have this kind of money just sitting around, and will have to resort to a hefty credit withdrawal or loan.
But if I can do it for under a grand and in house / myself, that would be ideal.
What else can I try? -
2019-03-23 at 12:31 AM UTCIs the drive old?
Any idea why it failed? Besides it being Seagate (they have a bad reputation - the worst).
You should try doing the replacement yourself. Get a nice clean room, cold and damp as possible, wear a mask and protective gear, put an air enhancement going (you can make your own for like €10 with a little enhancement material (not necessarily HEPA, HEPA is just compact material - just layer that shit like in an old whey protein container) and throw in an old PC cooling fan). Pretty much any dust still present will be thrown off by centripetal force once the drive spins up.The following users say it would be alright if the author of this post didn't die in a fire! -
2019-03-23 at 12:37 AM UTCI'm not sure how window device manager handles it, will it acknowledge a drive if it's unmountable?
Have you tried booting into linux and seeing if it turns up in /dev/ and what fsck has to say?The following users say it would be alright if the author of this post didn't die in a fire! -
2019-03-23 at 12:41 AM UTCwhat happens when you connect it as internal drive ?
will the bios recognize it ?The following users say it would be alright if the author of this post didn't die in a fire! -
2019-03-23 at 12:47 AM UTC
Originally posted by Lanny I'm not sure how window device managers handles it, will it acknowledge a drive if it's unmountable?
Have you tried booting into linux and seeing if it turns up in /dev/ and what fsck has to say?
Yes, do this shit before you open it up ffs. I once restored the MBR or something of a HFS disk enough to be able pull everything I wanted off it before shitcanning it. -
2019-03-23 at 12:55 AM UTC
Originally posted by Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country Is the drive old?
Less than 6 months old.
And yet, I have 6+ year old external HDDs that still work.
Originally posted by Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country Any idea why it failed? Besides it being Seagate (they have a bad reputation - the worst).
I don't know if this is sufficient to cause such a malfunction, but the two events did coincide perfectly, and that's hard to ignore...
I accidentally plugged my laptop's power supply into the external HDD (apparently they both physically fit the same port) instead of it's own power supply, and after that it stopped working.
Originally posted by Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country You should try doing the replacement yourself. Get a nice clean room, cold and damp as possible, wear a mask and protective gear, put an air enhancement going (you can make your own for like €10 with a little enhancement material (not necessarily HEPA, HEPA is just compact material - just layer that shit like in an old whey protein container) and throw in an old PC cooling fan). Pretty much any dust still present will be thrown off by centripetal force once the drive spins up.
I'm doing all kinds of research into that whole process at the moment, and might just give it a shot. -
2019-03-23 at 12:57 AM UTC
Originally posted by Lanny I'm not sure how window device managers handles it, will it acknowledge a drive if it's unmountable?
Have you tried booting into linux and seeing if it turns up in /dev/ and what fsck has to say?
Should it show up with a simple sudo fdisk -l command before anything else?
I did try that just now but no luck. :( -
2019-03-23 at 12:57 AM UTC
Originally posted by vindicktive vinny what happens when you connect it as internal drive ?
will the bios recognize it ?
I might try something like that tomorrow.
I've had enough drinks at this point to have written off any more physical tampering with anything for the night.
But I might just try that tomorrow. -
2019-03-23 at 12:59 AM UTC
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2019-03-23 at 1:01 AM UTC
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2019-03-23 at 1:02 AM UTCHow much bitcoin/child porn did u lose.
Jk -
2019-03-23 at 1:03 AM UTCIf that's the case though, it might just have fried the small piece of PCB that stands between the SATA + power connectors and the the actual HD itself, right?
That sounds at least promising?
Finding out I might have to pay a substantial fee to get my data back is a bit devastating, but if it's at least theoretically salvageable, it'll significantly brighten my day compared to the alternative. -
2019-03-23 at 1:05 AM UTC
Originally posted by Methuselah How much bitcoin/child porn did u lose.
Jk
lol.
It really is just sentimental stuff mostly (photos, journal entries - yes I write in a journal like a teenage girl, don't judge me, and not to mention literally every financial document or digital communication since my last backup a few months ago).
Although one thing I am a tad paranoid about is that, among those 8TB of data, there is some pirated movie downloads, as well as a few other copyright-violating things... Do professional recovery services have to report stuff like that? -
2019-03-23 at 1:07 AM UTCPorn-wise, they'll just discover that I have a thing for some at-times extreme femdom, and might give me some funny looks for that when I go to pick the drive up.
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2019-03-23 at 1:09 AM UTCI dunno, I know they report CP and shit like that. I would think they dgaf about some movies, and even if they reported it to the cops would they even care?
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2019-03-23 at 1:09 AM UTCAnd that's assuming they're gonna sit there and comb through 8TB of documents, photos, archived porn, mp3's, web pages I save to read later (I don't trust bookmarks because sites go down, so I have lots and lots of HTML files in my "to read" folders), etc.
That seems way too time consuming to me.
But I have no idea what their protocol is. -
2019-03-23 at 1:13 AM UTCThe literal distinct file count is several million.
I'm a digital hoarder.
You know those people they do documentaries and reality TV series' on where they have homes full of the most ridiculous shit like old newspapers and junk mail and various and sundry knick knacks?
I'm the literal digital embodiment of that.
I scan all incoming paper mail and file it away, and going back close to 20 years.
Old emails, again, going back 20 years.
I do a manual backup every few months, but a few months of worth of data, for a legitimate (digital) hoarder like me, is a lot, and it will bug me until I recover it, no matter the cost. -
2019-03-23 at 1:14 AM UTCDamn that’s pretty fucked dude.
And you still picked a Seagate drive huh -
2019-03-23 at 1:17 AM UTC
Originally posted by Methuselah Damn that’s pretty fucked dude.
And you still picked a Seagate drive huh
I have had decent luck with Seagate so far.
I have a 1TB slim/portable Seagate drive that is still going strong like 4-5 years later.
I did just now learn a valuable lesson about backing things up more frequently (ironically, I've recently been writing my own custom automation backup script, and it's almost done... a few days too late apparently). -
2019-03-23 at 1:23 AM UTCJust to be clear, are you sure it's the drive and not just the enclosure that's at fault?
If you don't have anything important - like a bitcoin wallet - on the drive why care so much?
Maybe just forgetting about it all and torrenting it all again as needed is logical.
What format was the disk written in?
A cheap clean room is outside. The nordic air is surprisingly clean this time of year.
