How to Recover Data From a Broken Hard Drive Home Index Donate About Contact Us geekyprojects.com Web How to Recover Data From a Broken Hard Drive18. May 2007, 3:09 Uhr Pablo Garcia If you are reading this article you are probably desperate, but before you panic let me tell you that there is hope, and there is probably more hope than you think…. Even if your hard drive has an internal mechanical malfunction, data can be recovered without having to send the hard Data backup and recovery drive to a data recovery service. Yes! you heard right, I’m Data Center Aligns IT Resources To About Business Needs & Gives Good Benefit sure you have come across articles that will tell you how What is GEEKYPROJECTS all about? Cisco.com/in/DataCenter to recover data from a damaged partition, you will find a Geeky Projects is a site conceived in hopes of ton of those on the web, but when your hard drive starts gathering and documenting interesting projects. malfunctioning none of those articles are going to help We focus on creating quality articles that help you solve your problem, This article will. you become more efficient. more about » Feeds Corrupted file system RSS Posts If the hard drive gets detected by Windows and can be accessed but you do not see any data inside, or you get a RSS Comments message saying that the drive needs to be formatted. You probably have a corrupted file system in you hands. The solution for this is a good file recovery software. I’ve tried many, and my choice is “Recover My Files” from GetData. Many of the recovery suites out there claim that they can recover data and they probably can, but can Meta they find everything that you want to recover? Most likely not! This software can. But don’t take my word for it, download the free version from their website and give it a try, you will see what I’m talking about. The free version is a demo so it will not allow full functionality but, it will let you see what it can recover and will even Monthly Archives let you recover some small files. This software is included in my article: Best Data Recovery Software. September 2011 The software does have its drawbacks. If your file type is not on their list it basically can’t be recovered. If you August 2011 want to recover a file with an uncommon extension that is not on their list you are out of luck. Their list is June 2011 extensive though. Make sure you run the “complete File Search” and not the Fast, as the later is basically worthless. The complete will give you more than you need, even stuff that you erased from your hard drive years May 2011 ago. It will take a long time depending on the size of the hard drive. The program will not allow you to install it April 2011 on the same hard drive where the data needs to be recovered from for obvious reasons. So be prepared to install March 2011 the software on a secondary drive like a USB Flash Drive or External Hard Drive. There are also a free alternatives which work as well or even better than “Recover My Files”. If your disk read my article: How To Repair A February 2011 Damaged Partition or MBR. If you are unable to recover the damaged partition but still want to recover your files, January 2011 read my article: How to Recover Erased Data Using Free Software. December 2010 Clicking noise of death October 2010 If your hard drive is making the common “clung… clung… clung…” sound your head are having trouble reading September 2010 the contents of the drive. This is one of the worst problems you can have since the arm of the drive is not December 2009 functioning properly and therefore cannot read the disks inside. As some of you might know this is not repairable, November 2009 at least not at home, Hard drives need to be opened in dust free environments, and by specialized personnel, so do not even attempt to open it if you want your data back!!!. Many people will just give up at this point and send May 2009 hard drive to a data recovery service. However, before you do that and spend an arm and a leg, there is March 2008 something you can do. I have written an article just for this: How To Recover Data Even When Hard Drive is May 2007 Damaged April 2007 Hard drive does not get detected Recent Comments 24.09.11, 18:03: Best Data Recovery Software - Top 10 List If the computer does not detect the hard drive, or the computer just does not want to turn on when the hard (from Kelsey) drive is connected to it, you might have a bad hard drive board. This is the big circuit board located at the 22.09.11, 11:17: Setup a Clonezilla Server on Ubuntu (from bottom of your drive. These easily replaceable boards tend to get damaged over time due to the heat generated Cory) http://geekyprojects.com/storage/how-to-recover-data-from-a-broken-hard-drive/[10/22/2011 5:08:39 AM] How to Recover Data From a Broken Hard Drive by the hard drive itself. I will tell you how to replace this board with the following solution: 13.09.11, 22:35: Windows Won't Connect to the Internet - Corrupt Winsock Fix (from Chris) There are a number of places on the web that will sell you these boards. If you can’t find it or you are a cheap 13.09.11, 07:31: How to Install VMware 7 on Ubuntu 11.04 bastard you can always resort to eBay and buy a used hard drive with the same model number as yours, remove (from Cyrano) the board from the used drive, and use it on broken one. This will probably cost you less than purchasing the 10.09.11, 04:35: How to Recover Data Even When Hard board alone. If your hard drive is old it makes more sense to buy another hard drive, on the other hand if the Drive is Damaged (from Prashant) hard drive is new you are better off buying the board. These boards run around $50 each. If you decide to 09.09.11, 18:26: How to Install VMware 7 on Ubuntu 11.04 purchase another hard drive or the board alone, make sure you are getting the exact same board! I cannot (from Pablo Garcia) stress this enough. You can have drives with the same brands and specifications with slight variations on their 09.09.11, 07:31: Setup a Clonezilla Server on Ubuntu (from board and consequently on their firmware, if this is the case the board will not work, so make sure you are magnezyle) getting exactly what you need before pressing that “buy now” button! 09.09.11, 04:46: Setup a Clonezilla Server on Ubuntu (from mansoor) 07.09.11, 09:22: How to Format a USB External Hard Drive for Linux (from wpteddy) Hard drive gets detected but still does not work 06.09.11, 21:30: How to Install VMware 7 on Ubuntu 11.04 If Windows detects the hard drive but it can’t be accessed, won’t give you the option to format it, or its (from Cyrano) properties. You probably have dirty contacts on your board. Usually when this happens you do not hear the famous “clicking noise of death” noise, but rather a repetitive “rrrrrr rrrrrr” sound, as if the hard drive is reading the same data over and over, or you do not hear any sound at all. It is important to mention that this behavior does involve the computer detecting the drive but DOES NOT involve the “clicking noise of death”. To solve this problem try the following: Remove the main board from the bottom of the hard drive and clean the bottom contacts. That board that you see underneath the drive is actually sitting on top of un-soldered contacts. Many Hard Drives operate at high temperatures, and this tends to melt the circuit board’s coating. When this happens this coating will spill over these contacts, and since they are not soldered their dirty metal surfaces will no longer touch. To solve this, remove the screws from the board and flip it. You will see a row of contacts usually in more than one location. Rub the surface of the contacts with a pencil eraser, just as if you were erasing something you wrote. This will actually clean those contacts better than any other method. Screw the board back in place and try it. (If your hard drive happens to have pin connectors rather than flat ones, disregard this tip and buy a new board.) Clicking noise of death (Last Resort Solution) This trick will actually work 60% of the cases, so you do have a good probability of getting your data back. I have to warn you that after freezing your hard drive there is also a good chance that the hard drive won’t work ever again, therefore this procedure should only be attempted as a very last resort. 1 – Place the Hard Drive inside a Zip Lock bag and put it in the freezer for about 2 hours. http://geekyprojects.com/storage/how-to-recover-data-from-a-broken-hard-drive/[10/22/2011 5:08:39 AM] How to Recover Data From a Broken Hard Drive 2 – After that take it out and connect it to the computer as fast as you can so that it does not have time to warm up.