External HDD Data Recovery Question

[LunchBox]

Greetings,

I got a client with a Seagate FreeAgent External HD 500gigs.

The client know it over and it feel on its side.

Windows (tested on multiple machines) does not detect the HD.

I removed the HD from the case and I am getting ready to see if it will detect.

Before I stated I wanted to see if any one had the issue where the HD wont mount to windows AND it makes a beep sound (kind of faint).

I searched google and all I come up with is that if it beeps its physical damage and it cant be recovered (unless its the pro's where they open the HD).

Any suggesttions? I don't want to continue if it will make matters worse?

 

[anonymous Mac Tech]

I see tons of bad drives where folks want me to try to recover their data. If you hear clicking or beeps the drive is pretty much toast. I've had luck with blowing a fan bad drives to copy data from them, but that's with drives that would at least mount. I've experimented with sealing bad drives in plastic (to avoid condensation) and then throw them in the freezer (the longer, the better). That process would miraculously bring seriously malfunctioning drives back to life, but only for a very short period of time (usually as long as it took for them to warm up again). Sometimes if you have a lot of old drives laying around, you can find an identical drive, swap the circuit board on it and that may breath life into it.

But any of the above mentioned radical methods I never tried with anything a customer was concerned about getting data off of, besides the fan method or swapping the board from an identical drive.

 

[iptech]

Greetings,

I got a client with a Seagate FreeAgent External HD 500gigs.

The client know it over and it feel on its side.

Windows (tested on multiple machines) does not detect the HD.

I removed the HD from the case and I am getting ready to see if it will detect.

Before I stated I wanted to see if any one had the issue where the HD wont mount to windows AND it makes a beep sound (kind of faint).

I searched google and all I come up with is that if it beeps its physical damage and it cant be recovered (unless its the pro's where they open the HD).

Any suggesttions? I don't want to continue if it will make matters worse?

You need to price up on clean room recovery and leave the decision with the customer. You've done everything you could practically do. You're absolutely right, don't continue with any data recovery attempts unless the customer is prepared to accept the risks and costs of forensic recovery. It could make things far worse for you if you continue without being brutally honest with the customer. It's not your fault.

You need to sit down with your customer and discuss the various options, costs and risks.The probability is that he has not lost everything to that hard disk, he will have bank receipts, emails, paper invoice copies and so forth from which he can rebuild his records and data, that will cost, but it's ultimately his problem not yours, don't assume charity status because you could not pull him back from the brink. It's not your fault. You can help him rebuild what is lost and help to prevent such a scenario again, but it's not for you to mitigate his loses. It's not your fault.

Take control, but don't take responsibility. It's not your fault.

 

[LunchBox]

You need to price up on clean room recovery and leave the decision with the customer. You've done everything you could practically do. You're absolutely right, don't continue with any data recovery attempts unless the customer is prepared to accept the risks and costs of forensic recovery. It could make things far worse for you if you continue without being brutally honest with the customer. It's not your fault.

You need to sit down with your customer and discuss the various options, costs and risks.The probability is that he has not lost everything to that hard disk, he will have bank receipts, emails, paper invoice copies and so forth from which he can rebuild his records and data, that will cost, but it's ultimately his problem not yours, don't assume charity status because you could not pull him back from the brink. It's not your fault. You can help him rebuild what is lost and help to prevent such a scenario again, but it's not for you to mitigate his loses. It's not your fault.

Take control, but don't take responsibility. It's not your fault.

Thanks for the It's not my fault. It worked.

It's been a long time since I actually worked on a HD that has problems.

One for question before I call it quits.

I remove the HD from the case and used a sata to USD connector. Windows sees that it is a usb storage but no drive letter. Disk management sees the drive as "not Initialized" from what I remember if I initialized the data is gone.

Is there a way since now it can partially seen to use some tool to recover the data?

 

[iptech]

Thanks for the It's not my fault. It worked.

It's been a long time since I actually worked on a HD that has problems.

One for question before I call it quits.

I remove the HD from the case and used a sata to USD connector. Windows sees that it is a usb storage but no drive letter. Disk management sees the drive as "not Initialized" from what I remember if I initialized the data is gone.

Is there a way since now it can partially seen to use some tool to recover the data?

Yes, if disk manager sees the disk then any low-level data recovery program should be able to pick up the pieces from there.

Do not initialize the disk unless your happy to lose the data that was once contained on it.

 

[LunchBox]

IP TEch - thank you for your advise and expertise

AND

Mac Tech​

Thank you

 

[LunchBox]

Oh, what would a good low level data recovery tool would be. The ones I have work in DOS, is there any what work within Windows?

Thanks again

 

[anonymous Mac Tech]

We have good results with Data Rescue II. Ours is for Mac but I'm pretty sure they offer a Windows version as well. I've seen a few folks post about here in the forums.

 

[LunchBox]

We have good results with Data Rescue II. Ours is for Mac but I'm pretty sure they offer a Windows version as well. I've seen a few folks post about here in the forums.

I am going to give in and buy a Mac (pre intel of course). I have seen couple of buddies of mine who work on windows and macs (but are mac users). For some unknown reason an HD that windows can't read will read in a mac.

I will look into Data Rescue II.

Thanks.

 

[atlanticjim]

LunchBox: Good luck to you.
MacTech: Thanks for the freezer tip. Can't wait to try it.

For all: I dont remember if it was posted here, but I found this video series to be very informative.
Hard Drive Recovery with Scott Moulton

 

[luispic]

Hey guys, I've heard and tryied out the freezer trick to recover data from drives, but I just heard a podcast saying that it isn't such a good idea because of inevitable condensation created inside the hard drive, it could be damaged more.

What they did say that I found useful was a paid tool called Acronis True Image that they used to recover as many data as possible while creating a .img file that could be accesed later to save or look for an independant file when mounted on a virtual drive.

I'm about to test that tool on a drive that I have to recover data from (but the drive is recognized by windows) but still waiting on the new drive to come.

 

[Kenhelms]

When the customer hasnt wanted to go for clean room prices, we have actually frozen the drives in ice, to keep the temp low for long enough. Inside a cooler, etc. etc. Once it warms up, you start loosing results.

usually lab prices are 500-2500

Its best if you can get a image right away, and analyze later. but 500gb might take too long to image if you dont have a hardware imager. You should find out priorities first. For example the last client cared about nothing else but a folder of pictures, so that was recovered first, before the drive failed.