hard drive dead - lost 180+ gigs video

[Zal42]

When I was a lowly tech I recovered quite a few dead drives without a cleanroom and special equipment apart from a macroscope and GRC's Spinrite which I have used ever since the 1st WD copper platter.

Well, I stand corrected. You learn something new every day

[offline]

Zal42: Well, I stand corrected. You learn something new every day

Try it yourself on a drive you no longer want. I once ran a Quantum for 3 months without it's cover with no issues. Using a cleanroom is playing it ultra safe, but far from necessary.

Anyone interested in data recovery should check out
http://www.grc.com

[rhegedus]

How exactly did your HD die?

[zenith52]

If you are in the UK/Europe I would recommend this data recovery company.
They are approved by all of the major HD manufacturers and are not as expensive as most.
www.1ct.com

Regards
Zen

[RabidDog]

lesson has to be backup,and then backup the backup. WHy not to tape?? this is considered the most reliable storage by large corps (DLT,mainframe tapes), only reason its being superseded is speed and storage. might be too expensive for home users. Raid 1 is another solution, as is regular (nightly, weekly) backups to a seperate HD, using something like ghost.
"If you're using IDE for your RAID devices, you should install them on different controllers"

[edsmith77]

RabidDog,

Storage capacity of tapes far exceeds todays hdds. Your speed issue, I do agree with but all in all it ain't bad. However, the main reason tape backup storage is falling from grace is that proper tape storage is not practiced by all ITs with the necessary discipline. Many tapes are just flopped on or in storage bins without regards to temp/humidity concerns. Left in machines for many days on end. Physical abuse to no end. Electromagnetic environment is not very friendly to tapes. It only takes one bit to throw off an entire tape. Who knows why that tape ended up next to the power supply in the maintenance room. Not to mention that in typical tape backup schemes, the cyclical reuse of tapes often exceeds the durability of the tape itself. Sure there are problems that could or can be solved with proper management oversight, but.......

Unfortunately, the above problems NEVER surface until one has to do a data restore.

I can see why in my organization the move to DVD for data backup. Yes, it requires more disks. The cost is a bit more but the durability of the data in the IT maintenance environment enjoys a longer life span. If your organization can afford it Raid 5 is certainly a way to proceed. But anything that is "mission critical" must be afforded an extra degree of protection.

For the original poster, I do feel the pain. And as others have said, desparate times calls for desparate actions. Just be sure you are desparate.

[au7usa]

I've had THREE Western Digital hard drives fail. I only have one WD drive left, the rest are Maxtor (or Seagate Cheetah).

WHEN then thing finally dies it will be replaced with MAXTOR!

[lordsmurf]

I've worked for a lot of places that had tape backups. They never worked right. Tapes were made for perfect environments that do not exist for most places. Some places I've been were just downright filthy places in terms of dust and temperatures.

Anywhere I've been has ditched tape and gone to ZIP, CD or DVD ... normally because I made them. They were just more reliable, and easier to make several instant copies for storing both on shelves and in a safe somewhere (maybe even offsite).

The number one reason to hate tape is that they are JUST LIKE AUDIO CASSETTES and can get eaten. Just like a VHS tape too. Lose 2GB of data instantly. Tape wrinkles, attract dust and lint, decay over time. Etc etc.

For servers, I'd suggest a large RAID array for redundancy of the data. Tape is a good option here, but again, you have to baby the damned things. Better to go DVD-RAM and just live with the speed (not much worse than tape anyway).

[babyboo]

I had 2 Western Digital 160GB drives die on me this past year. The 2 recomendations made to me at the time were to try GetDataBack which would attempt to reconstruct the master boot record from the data itself and the other recomendation was Spinrite which would attempt to read & write to every bit on every sector of the drive. At the time the first drive died I really didn't have a clear understand how GetDataBack and Spinrite differed...so I used Spinrite first. Since it physically tries to reconstruct the data bit by bit it toasted what was left of my drive, literally melting part of the plastic cover as it attempted to read/write to each bit. I sent the drive back and got it replaced. When the second drive failed I tried GetDataBack. A few hours later it had reconstructed the master boot record and I was able to transfer all of the data to a different drive...I didn't loose a single file. Before sending that one back for replacement and just for shits and giggles I then ran Spinrite on it. A few hours later the drive was toast just like the first one. I would definitely try GetDataBack.

[au7usa]

How stable is DVD-Ram?

How susceptible is the DVD-Ram media to ultraviolet light?

Do they all use the cartridge stye package?

[ktnwin]

It's a bad thing to lose your HDD (I meant the content) like this.
I have learned to backup my system drive on CD-R and for the video drive (I have a Maxtor 250GB), it's only for video workspace. Once I am done with one or two projects, I always burn it to DVD-R or save it back on DV tapes. Then I re-format the video drive, ready for the next project again.

Regarding the quote:

WD is not as good as Maxtor, but Max bought WD, makes many of them. Ancient Quantum is WD, not Max.

I will let others to judge on quality of the drives (in my favor though, no argument here). However, this is the facts:
1) WD, MAXTOR, QUANTUM used to be 3 separate HDD companies (WD comes late as an HDD company as they start in the HDD controller business, making PCB only)
2) MAXTOR bought QUANTUM in Apr-2001 offcially
3) MAXTOR never bought WD
4) CONNER is another one , bought by SEAGATE (in my opinion, Seagate has the worst quality IDE drives, thye are the biggest however)

[jlietz]

Wow, it looks like many of you have had a similar experience!

In response to what is wrong with the drive...
The BIOS won't even detect it. I have swapped ribbon and power cables, but still no change. When I power up the computer with only the power cable attached (disconnecting the ribbon cable) it does the same thing which tells me the problem resides on the drive and not on, say, my hdd controller. Specifically, the drive makes a sound like it is trying to power up and access data. This takes about 3 seconds and then repeats for about 45 seconds when it finally dies unitl my next boot.

In response to those who suggest data recovery...
I'd love too try, but I don't want to do anything that would void the warranty. It is more important to me to get a free replacement drive than to recover the data. Even if I could recover the data I would still have to purchase another drive. Add onto that the cost of a new dvd burner and media (which I'll need to get to prevent this from happening again) and the cost will quickly balloon. I'll just have to start over.

On the bright side, I don't think it will take me as long to capture, edit, and convert the tapes again. I was a complete newbie in this area 7 months ago, but thanks to this site (and LordSmurf's) and those who were kind enough to answer my questions (no matter how stupid ) I have already travelled the learning curve.
Thanks again.

[lafjax]

You guys have gotten me so scared I'm signing off to do a backup right now...

[rhegedus]

On the subject of backups, I've just bought Drive Image 7. Looks to be much more friendly than Norton Ghost and it's all windows based. Infact, it's so good Symantec (Norton) have bought it!

[Cricket90]

hmmmmm I used a old kinda trick

stuck HD In freezer for half hour took it up put it back in PC was able to recover 89% of customers data

Also ontrack datarecover they have a trybefore you buy on the website

cricket

[Cricket90]

How stable is DVD-Ram?

How susceptible is the DVD-Ram media to ultraviolet light?

Do they all use the cartridge stye package?

My lg multidrive is not cartridge iv used the DVDram many times

[Nelson37]

JLIETZ - your problem is a common one, and is OFTEN solved by the board swap I mentioned earlier. I want to emphasize that if done with reasonable care this is NOT DETECTABLE by the manufacturer (You do have to put them back, they are numbered). The problem is either the motor is not receiving proper voltage, or the drive is not detecting a spin up to full speed. These are electronic rather than mechanical problems, most of the time. You can also try attempting power on multiple times in quick succession, however you need to have a backup medium available if it does boot.

The hard slam also might work, and is again undetectable, unless you tell them about it. Must be done on a smooth surface, rough might scuff the top of the case and be obvious. Remember, they expect the drive not to work when they get it back, they tear them down for component re-use or recycling. They may very well replace that board and send your old drive out as someoone else's warranty replacement.

KTNWIN's info on company ownership is correct, contradicting an earlier misinformed poster. I also agree with his assessment of Seagate, they are my least favorite. WD slightly better than Maxtor, Maxtor slightly cheaper. WD also has a performance edge, generally. All drives will fail eventually, all companies have an occassional bad design. Beyond my own experience I use my wholesaler's RMA rates as a gauge, returns on both WD and Maxtor very close. He doesn't much like Seagate, either.

[neomaine]

Maybe its a WD flu going around but I lost a WD drive in two seperate computers within a week (two weeks ago). One of them still spins up but locks up the pc when recovering (normal?) and the other simply clicks away.

Any chance a third party could be playing around and sabotaging WD drives? Seemed almost too coincidental.

Luckily, Office Max had some 160gb Maxtors for $79 after rebates.

[007craft]

what wrong with you people..? Ir ecently lost 150 gbs on my western digital 250 gb hdd but it was my fault cause i tried to parition it in some wierd way and it messed up.. I fixed all now tho.. Anyway I looked into data recovery and there are many programs out there that can recover the data no problemo.. EVEN if u format... as long as u dont keep copying stuff to your hdd.. On another note.. if like u said your drvie cant even be detected then there is no such things as data recovery.. even if a professional were to look at you cant recover the data if it wont start.. perhaps you could open it up and fix the broken chips/s that are causing it not to start... but keep in mind that once u open up a hdd even a particle of dust would would screw up your clusters and whatnot.. you would have to do it in a static free clean room with special tools which I doubt u have nor could afford to use. This kinda technique would only be used by people like the FBI and whatnot if they had some importatn evidence or something they could recover. As for you im sorry... your only option is to return it to WD and get a new one.. i mean u do have 1 year warenty right?

on another note i dont understand why every has hard drive problems? I have worked with computers for 15 years and not once has an hdd crashed on me. hell my old maxtor 2gb (which i paid TONS of $$$ when it was brand new) is now sitting in my 486 comp and is still working great. (well actually about 25% of the drive is corupt but it still works )

[Doggiedaddy]

This thread is deja'vu, but no less a painful lesson. I too have had this same problem more times than I will admit. I run a dozen or more machines at any given time and I do complete B/U to external H/D's weekly. This makes a full day format and install per machine into a hour or so job.

I believe Leo Laporte said it best, if you only know three things about your computer they should be, Back-up, Back-up and Back-up often.

Good luck Dd

[northcat_8]

I didn't mean to start a hard drive war...

...I am by no means a HDD expert, I just know what I have experienced. I've had various HD's since I bought my first computer back in 1993 (Pentium 60 don't laugh, that was fast then) ...I've only had 1 HD fail on me and it was a western digital, my 60 GB WD was on it's way out until I converted it to NTFS and for whatever reason it is doing fine now...maybe I'm on borrowed time with it, I don't know...I got it imaged with Norton Ghost, so I don't care. But those are the only 2 WD drives I have ever purchased and I've had trouble with both of them. I have 4 Maxtor drives and have used a few of them as OS drives and never had any problems with them. So from my experience...and it may be wrong or illogical but I will stick with Maxtor.

[lordsmurf]

Maxtor bought Quantum:
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-255087.html

(But it is interesting that a friend of mine had a "SEAGATE QUANTUM FIREBALL" drive for a few years. It was 4GB I think, crashed a few years back, doubt he has it now. I remember that clearly.)

Maxtor and WD merger rumors fell apart in 2003. IBM and WD merger talks failed in 2003. I had read (and heard from techs) where they had overlap of some sort, but apparently not from being co-owned.

I've dealt with 3-4 MAXTOR crashes, about 2-3 WD crashes and 0 Seagate crashes. Not me, but people I have helped. Only 1 of my drives ever bit the dust, a WD 40GB that was bought used for cheap.

[verchad]

For an easy backup solution, you can get some swappable drive trays online cheap. I now have a 60 gb and an old 5 1/4" 12 gb in my computer. I use the 1 - 30 gb & 1 - 13 gb in the swappable trays/bay for regular backups. I also backed up my mp3 collection to cdrom just to be safe.

[TBoneit]

And on a couple at work, that just went, clack, clack,clack and so on...

I tried the freezer trick, sit drive in freezer for a while, and was able to run em until the warmed up and get data off too.
Then refroze and got some more...

Could work too.
FWIW I personally don't like maxtor drives, got to be a reason they're cheapest. And got to be a reason they were the first to go to a 1 year warranty.

I amd running a Maxtor, 5 WDs, 1 seagate SATA 120GB, that's acting up. Just stops working after hours of use. and now a 150GB SATA Samsung, Quiet, 3 year warranty, Fastest warranty service I've seen at work, We can send em out standard, not advance replacment, and get em back same week. I've had Samsungs warranty beat out a WD advance w/credit card warranty drive.

We do lots of warranty on customers drives.

Anyway Try freezing it first, I've seen it work.

Cheers and Good Luck

Roger T

[CaseyComb]

Hmmm...had a similar problem with an external hardrive for my mac...I believe I used some norton program to recover the data...so there are programs out there that can do this sort of thing. Not all hope is lost.

[offline]

so I used Spinrite first. Since it physically tries to reconstruct the data bit by bit it toasted what was left of my drive

Spin rite does stress drives - as do all software solutions to some extent. This is why it is better to focus on the mechanics prior to using any software based recovery in many cases.

Never use the deep level analysis/sector recovery on a drive that has heat issues or is making "chunk" or "grinding" noises. In the past I've used a hair dryer set on fan only to cool drives which I've placed on their side. I also never plugged the drive in as a primary; and always attempted a media descriptor restore 1st and a MBR restore 2nd unless the drive has a software overlay (or (U)nix was used.) It also helps if you have a factory tools

[offline]

drvie cant even be detected then there is no such things as data recovery

Rubbish!

once u open up a hdd even a particle of dust would would screw up your clusters and whatnot.. you would have to do it in a static free clean room with special tools which I doubt u have nor could afford to use

This is a myth. While dust can destroy drives, it is in the original manufacturing process that high air filter levels are required - not so when opening the drive for data recovery.

This kinda technique would only be used by people like the FBI and whatnot if they had some importatn evidence

Not true.
Data recovery experts charge a clean room fee to businesses all the time. They sell the extra expense as a form of insurance - as in what if a dust particle crashed a head?/ smugged a DAT...etc

[xtreemkareem]

The WD 80 gb 7200 RPM model is one that seems t fail quite often. I had a friend buy a brand new 80 GB WD b/c his 15 GB WD failed and after a few weeks the 80 GB WD completely died so he bought a new one which lo and behold was defective. My Maxtor has been going pretty strong for about a year now. I dunno. I have been told by many that WD is pretty good and MAxtor is above it... from my experience w/ PC's, I'd rank reliability o hard drives in the following order

1) Maxtor
2) Seagate/Quantam
3) WD

[rhegedus]

In all this talk of HDs, no one's mentioned IBM.

I've got 400Gbs worth and they work seamlessly. I have got a WD 120Gb as wel though.........

[lacywest]

http://www.newtechunlimited.com/Extras/200_ways_to_revive_a_hard_drive.htm

or website >>> http://techrepublic.com.com/5100-6255-5029761-2.html

200 ways to revive a hard drive
Page 2 of 14

Freeze it
From: Travis Standen
One trick I have learned as a technician, when the problem is data-read errors off the platters themselves, is to freeze the hard drive overnight. It makes the data more 'readable,' but for a one-shot deal. If this data is critical, and you have a replacement hard drive (which, if it's a drive failure, you probably do), then you can hook up your frozen hard drive and immediately fetch the data off before it warms up.



From: Thedeedj
If the problem is heat related, I put the drive in the freezer for about 15 minutes to cool it down... sometimes this gets the drive up long enough to copy any critical files...

From: Itguy1
Put the drive in a waterproof sealed bag, put it in the fridge for an hour or so, then have another go.

From: Kelly Reid
Well, I won't start playing with your specific situation, too many steps or possible solutions where everything starts "If that last thing didn't work try..."

But I'll give you one for free that was a nice hero moment for me. Had a drive where it sounded like the drive motor was engaging but not getting anywhere, so we stuck it in the office freezer for an hour! I'll be darned if it didn't work. The drive was up long enough to get the data ghosted to another drive and we turfed it, even though it sounded fine at that point. I can't really take credit for it though—I had heard it in some geek bull session but I thought it was some jedi-geek urban myth. Goes to show you that you know you're really screwed when you say something to the effect of "Okay, hold on tight, I'm gonna try something I saw in a cartoon once but I'm pretty sure I can do it."

From: mpicpu
If this drive isn't spinning up, putting it in the freezer for about an hour will usually get the drive spinning again so you can copy needed files before the drive warms up again. The first thing you want to do is run a disk utility like Norton disk doctor or wddiag (if it's a western digital drive) to verify whether the drive is working mechanically or not. If it is a master boot record problem, sometimes running Fdisk/mbr will correct the problem. It could also be a virus, and a program like F-prot will look at the drive as a physical unit. As an A+ PC technician I have seen this problem many times. Usually if the drive is not making a clicking sound, I am successful in recovering the data.

From: Scott Greving
I've run into this scenario numerous times. One time it involved the main Novell SYS volume on our HP File Server. I was really sweating as the server would not boot. I took the drive out and put it in a freezer for 30 minutes. I then reinstalled it into the file server and Presto! I was up and running. Needless to say, I quickly mirrored the drive onto another and got rid of the bad drive.

In stand alone client systems, the method I've had the most luck with reviving drives from death has been removing the drive, firmly tapping the top of its case several times, and then re-installing it making sure all cables are secure. I've had a better than 60 percent success rate with this method.

From: jphillips
If the drive is spinning and you are experiencing these kinds of errors, my experience has been that you are out of luck.

If the drive is not spinning, I have been able to remove it from the computer and 'spin' the drive on a flat smooth surface (much like spin the bottle). This will usually free the drive and when placed back in the machine, it will boot. You should immediately back up you data after a successful boot, because the problem will return.

The next 'fix' was actually given to me by a Compaq technician several years ago. I had a drive that would not spin and he told me to put the drive in a plastic bag in the freezer overnight and then install back in the computer. Believe it or not, the drive booted. I have only tried this the one time.

From: John Turcotte
In the past, when a drive has failed after it has been running for a short period, I have removed it from the machine and placed it in a freezer for a couple of hours, then hooked it up again. It sometimes will run long enough to remove the data to another safe storage medium.

From: David Furlow
One of the methods I have used before (sometimes even successfully) is to actually remove the drive from the PC, place it in the freezer for a day, then quickly put it back in the machine and try to access it. Why does this work? Who knows, but I heard about this tactic years ago, and it has saved my behind on a couple of occasions. (Of course, if it comes back up, back up the data immediately.... Guess that should go without saying.)

From: Keri D.
Hard drive revival:

A technique I have learned is if you bring the temperature of the hard drive down to the freezing point by putting it in a freezer first and then taking it back out, somehow the condensation from bringing it back to room temperature helps revive it for about 20 minutes. It can be repeated about five to six times tops. Long enough to get out any important files that need to be backed up. It has been proven to work a number of times.

From: Christopher Post
How do you bring a hard drive back to life?

My situation:

Half of a volume set goes south on a WinNT server, no good backup, and an angry boss screaming about the data being mission critical.

My solution:

(A bit unorthodox, but it has saved my butt!)

Turn off the server.
Take out the failing hard drive and wrap a static bag around it.
Throw it in the freezer conveniently located in the break room.
Pray for 1 1/2 to 2 hours.
Leaving the hard drive in the bag, quickly plug the drive back into the server. (Just plug the in cables and go.)
Cross fingers, turn it on, and move all data off the drive as fast as you can! Then add a tape drive and start backing the dumb thing up!

My so-called logic:

Metal contracts when it is cold.... so the platters shrink and increase the clearance for the read/write heads.

From: Chris Poole
Put the drive in the freezer for about a week and then you can usually get one last read off the drive.

From: Cheyenne Robert Alspach
Here are some drive recovery tricks that have worked for me, in the order that I do them. Try booting the drive and copying the data off after every step.

Hold the drive upside down, making gravity change the head geometry ever so slightly. Vertical is also another option.
Slightly rap the drive with your knuckle, (but nowhere near hard enough to damage the drive).
Try the drive in another machine, (slight drive voltage change assumed to be the miracle worker here).
Rap the drive just SLIGHTLY harder than you did above in step 2.
Freeze the hard drive in the freezer for two hours, and place in a plastic zip lock bag to prevent condensation from forming on the drive when you plug it back into the system, (head geometry, electrical resistance lowered, electrical contact points adjusted, etc., assumed to be the miracle here).
After the drive warms up to room temperature or better, rap it even harder with your knuckle this time.
Repeat all of above steps on next day, as sometimes I've gotten data off drive simply by trying again.

From: James McLaughlin
Hmmm sounds like a toughy to me. Back in the old days when I first started teching, if we ran into a problem like this, there were only a few ways to deal with it. I will go over these options now:

QUESTION: What do you think you can do about this, Mr. Tech?

First Answer: Nothing, your computer is too old, and the data on there is not really of that much importance. If you really want it back, you can get a hold of a company called "Total Recall" out of Denver and get charged thousands of dollars to get your files back. Besides, with Y2K, this machine ain’t gonna run anyway, and prices are so low right now, there is no reason why you should not upgrade now.

2) Well, I can take it back to the shop and pretend like I know what I am doing for three to six hours. Then I will call you the for the next week-and-a-half giving you excuses as to why I am not able to get your information off of that hard drive. Of course, I won’t charge you anything, but I will expect compensation for all the time I wasted on your hard drive.

3) I could take the hard drive out of your machine, plug into my Secondary IDE controller, and boot up. Hopefully, I can see your hard drive and have the ability to copy all of your files to a temp folder on my machine called "Your Name." After I collect all information, I would run IBM's WIPE on the drive and then a thorough scandisk, just to see if the cause was sunspot related or not.

If this was not working, then extreme temperatures always have a way of talking older hard drives into giving us what we want. I would then wrap the HD in a Ziplock bag and slam it in the freezer for 12 hours. Pull it out the next day and very quickly plug it into my machine, copying what I can as quickly as possible until the drive dies again, repeating until all files are copied and safe.

If that don’t work, move onto the extreme heat. A shrink wrap gun works best, but a hairdryer will do the trick if that is all you have. Wrap one end of the HD in a towel and use the shrink wrap gun or dryer to heat the hard drive. Very quickly plug it in and copy files until finished. Repeat until all necessary files are copied and you are done.

You may not think it works, but when you are down to that as your last option...it does.

From: Lichtenwalner Allen L TSgt
Solution:

Carefully remove it from the computer.
Place it in the freezer for 24 hours, then put it back in the computer. You should have approximately 30 minutes of good spin time left before a final—and much more permanent—shut down.

This problem often arises from a catastrophic hard disk crash—bearings are usually the culprit, coupled with badly worn read/write heads. I've used this technique on many computers throughout the last fifteen years as "resident expert" and saved virtually all important data.

If you're in a pinch for time, such as critical data needed for a briefing in twenty minutes, you can opt for the more drastic cooling technique—a C02 fire extinguisher...

From: Jeff Smoley
Here is a solution for really dead drives: ones that won't spin or ones that make those funny grinding noises:

Put the drive in the fridge for a few hours. This can shrink up something inside that might let it run long enough to get critical data. If not, try the freezer for a few more.

This actually has worked for me in the past.

From: Neal Menkus
Things we have done in the past that worked:

Remove the drive, grab it, and shake the hell out of it: "What could it hurt? It's not working anyway…."
Place the drive in a freezer for about 10 minutes.
Open the drive case in a laminar flow-hood, and give it a spin. (Once it was closed up and reinstalled, it worked long enough to suck the data off of it.)
Swap the logic board with one on another drive of the same type.

Numbers 1, 2, and 3 worked with older Seagate (which we no longer purchase) drives, which were prone to "stiction" problems. Number 4 worked following an electrical surge (lightning strike), since the data on the platters were still there and OK.

From: Clifford Liles
Depending on the drive failure, I have had success with some rather extreme solutions to data recovery.

Symptom: Invalid Drive Specifications

Basic treatment:

Check your cmos battery

Check your IDE cable and connections

Check your jumper settings

Remove all other IDE connections but the drive in question

Advanced treatment:

Try disk manager software

Try data recovery software

Use a bios upgrade card ($39) and allow it to setup the drive

Look up the drive specifications on the manufacturer’s Web site and plug

them in manually

Turn Off or On Write Precomp—32bit disk access

Symptom: Drive does not spin up: "Sticktion"

Basic treatment:

Lightly tap the side of the drive case with a screwdriver—no power

Lightly tap the side of the drive case with a screwdriver–—power on

Advanced treatments:

Cold soak the drive: Freeze in a zip-lock bag

Spray drive case with inverted can of canned air

Lightly slap the drive on a desk top: (mild frustration)

Repeated hammering of the drive on a desk top: (last resort—total frustration only)

Symptom: Invalid media type

Basic treatment:

Boot with a FAT32 Windows 95 boot disk

Sys the drive

Advanced treatment:

fdisk /mbr

Check for a virus from a known clean boot disk

These are but a few techniques for the doomed platters. These techniques can be used in conjunction with one another to arrive at the desired solution. Lather, rinse, and repeat if necessary.

From: Daniel Philpott
Here is the solutions checklist for this problem:

Tools needed:

Bootable CD or locked floppy disk—Formatted with an OS that can see the file system of the hard drive. DOS is usually the preferred OS for this function with NTFSDOS from Sysinternals for NTFS reads and DOS utilities for diagnostics/repair.
It should have the ability to boot to and/or see CD-ROM drives, read FAT, FAT32, NTFS, or other common file systems, run common network card drivers and see the network, have disk diagnostic and/or repair utilities, and have antivirus scanning software with current definitions.
OnTrack Data Advisor—A free download from www.OnTrack.com Hard Drive (large capacity)—Formatted for a FAT file system (or whatever is your common file system) and preferably with BeOS as the boot operating system.
Computer Repair Tool Kit—Standard repair tools.
Freezer—The one in your kitchen will do quite nicely.
The first task to recovering a drive is not at all technical—It is social. Prepare your user for the worst but also explain what the realistic chances of recovery are. Then start collecting information that you will need. Here is what you need to know before starting:
What is the goal of recovery, returning to the previous state or recovering the data?
Which is most important?
What is the client willing to spend on recovery?
What OS (NT, 95, Linux) and DOS (FAT, NTFS, FAT32) was the system running?
Where is the computer located?
Check the environment: The last question from step 1 is often forgotten and can lead to extensive troubleshooting of a simple problem. Look for an environmental problem that may cause problems for the hard drive. Are there magnets on the computer case close to the hard drive? Is there a fan or heater near the computer? Is a transformer, electrical junction box, or high-energy device near the computer (on a floor above or in a nearby wall)? All of these will produce a magnetic (or electromagnetic) field that can cause problems. Equipment that may vibrate the computer even at a very low frequency can cause hard drive heads to skip and jump or even scratch the platters.
Turn off the computer, remove the cover, and get ready to the turn the computer on. Then put your ear right next to the drive and power the system on. If you hear any kind of grinding, scratching, or rattling from the drive, turn the computer off as quickly as possible and go to the next step. Otherwise go on to step 5.
If the disk has made noise that indicates some sort of mechanical stress, then the problem is the domain of data recovery experts. This is where the client has to make a decision. Do they want to send the drive to a data recovery service, or do they want to destroy the disk in an attempt to recover some data? If the client has information that absolutely needs to be recovered, then send it to the professionals. Remember, you cannot service a hard drive unless you are working in a clean room.
If they are willing to destroy the disk and try to get some data off the drive, there is a quick hack available. Place the drive in a static-free bag, then place the drive and static-free bag into a ziplock bag to seal out moisture. Place this into a freezer turned to as low as possible for 24 hours. After 24 hours, pull the drive out and immediately put it into a computer (the faster the better) that boots to a floppy and has another hard drive to transfer data to. If the drive wasn't damaged too much previously, you should be able to pull some data off before the metal of the drive heats up and starts destroying the data storage platters. You can repeat the process only if you shut down almost immediately and go through the 24 hour freeze process again. Chances are that the first time attempt will be the only chance to recover data.
If the drive boots to an operating system and you can get to either a network or backup medium, then start copying the most important data off first. Once that data is off, you can back up less important data. The best bet is to listen to your client to find out what absolutely must be recovered.
If the client wants to restore the drive to its previous state and continue operating, then you need to do two things to see if this is feasible.
First, run a virus scan on the drive. Update the virus definitions then scan every file on the computer.
Second, boot to a floppy-disk-based hard drive utility and run a low-level bad sector discovery utility.
If both tests pass and the computer boots to the operating system, then your job is done and you are eligible for a pat on the back. Otherwise, continue.
If the drive does not boot, then try booting to a bootable CD or a bootable locked floppy disk. If you can see the file system, continue to step 8.
If you cannot see the file system, then assess your tools. If you have Hard Drive Mechanic from Higher Ground Diagnostics or Tiramisu from OnTrack, then you can use these to diagnose and recover data. Otherwise, boot to the Data Advisor disk to find out whether data can be recovered. They will recover it or suggest a recovery plan or even require the disk be sent to a data recovery center like OnTrack. The client needs to make the choice as to whether the expense of this solution is worth the recovery of the data.
If you can see the file system, then priority actions are:
Copy the most important data off the drive.
Copy the rest of the data off the drive.
Determine if the drive can be recovered (scan with virus checker and disk utilities).
Repair the operating system.

The best way of doing this is to install your spare hard drive in the computer and boot to either it or the CD/floppy bootable. Copy the important data off first, copy the less important data off next, and then do your diagnostics. If your diagnostics look like the drive is repairable, then go right ahead and repair it.

The reason I suggest BeOS be the boot OS on the hard drive is that it has the ability to mount more file systems than I even knew existed before using it. If you need to access an exotic file system, BeOS 4.5 is almost sure to have a driver available for it. However, the FAT (or FAT16) is the most commonly readable file system around, so generally you will want to transfer data to this file system.

If it becomes apparent that the file system is intact and not infected with a virus (or has had a boot sector virus removed), then you may need to replace the Master Boot Record (MBR) of the drive. Simple. Boot to a DOS disk that has the fdisk utility and run an 'fdisk /MBR' to replace the MBR. Remember, balance the time it takes to restore the operating system against the time it takes to recover data, get a new drive, and install a fresh operating system.

Normally, disk recovery is simply a matter of recovering the data. Returning a drive to its previous state is a goal but may simply be more costly than recovering the data and replacing the drive. How much effort to expend on the process is entirely up to you and the client.