Hard drive *experts* - help needed.

I see that site asks for OS but it does not have an option for a none OS drive in the quote doubt it makes much of a difference though.

300 does seem cheap compared to other things ive seen

---------- Post added at 15:08 ---------- Previous post was at 15:04 ----------

I just did an online quote for a drive >250 gig Vista and made a note of none OS hard drive with dead logic board and got

Price 1: £260.10
Price 2: £269.07
Price 3: £299.86

[altis]

You might also want to try LC Technology (0115 959 7904):

http://www.lc-tech.co.uk/services/mediarecovery.html

They created the RescuePro software that's included with all high-end Sandisk cards. This does a good job of recovering scraps of jpegs from a HDD. I've never used their recovery service so I can't comment.

These guys have just called me.
They reckon with what I've told them they'll almost certainly be able to recover data from the platters for from £200 and no more than £400 for an individual.
They advised against swapping the logic board tho, saying a different revision may make the drive lose it's original state and make recovery harder - and that I should save the price of the drive and out it towards their fee and look at it that way - they have thousands of parts etc. Nice bloke and a nice interesting geeky chat.

---------- Post added at 15:25 ---------- Previous post was at 15:24 ----------

Originally Posted by altis

You might also want to try LC Technology (0115 959 7904):

http://www.lc-tech.co.uk/services/mediarecovery.html

They created the RescuePro software that's included with all high-end Sandisk cards. This does a good job of recovering scraps of jpegs from a HDD. I've never used their recovery service so I can't comment.

Cheers - I'll have a look.

[altis]

And you can check the warranty status of your drive by tapping in the serial number here:

http://support.seagate.com/customer/...validation.jsp

They also do data recovery:

http://services.seagate.com/index.aspx?lng=en-us

[budwieser]

Originally Posted by kryogenik

Deffo. But a 400gb drive is VERY expensive.
Not an option right now unfortunately.



None taken. "They were on two drives just a fortnight ago. I emptied one to spring clean and start again when I came back from holiday." The big drive's died since. Sods law.

Can`t you do a deleted file recovery on the drive that they used to be on?
That`ll get them back for you.

Originally Posted by altis

And you can check the warranty status of your drive by tapping in the serial number here:

http://support.seagate.com/customer/...validation.jsp

They also do data recovery:

http://services.seagate.com/index.aspx?lng=en-us

Originally Posted by budwieser

Can`t you do a deleted file recovery on the drive that they used to be on?
That`ll get them back for you.

Thanks both.

Yeah, could do but there was a bunch of my nippers videos and some other bits and bobs that I'd like back too.
I've done some data recovery like this once before on another drive and while some stuff was recovered, most of it was corrupt even after giving them proper extensions etc.
I've had the drive down to a friends tonight and tested the enclosure's electrics and all seems fine with that, so it's deffo looking like the logic board on the HDD has failed. I'm going to go gung ho to try and find a way to sort this before forking out 2-400 notes. Maybe a trip to the local computer fair and see if I can spot an identical HDD.

[Dai]

Talk to Duncan at Retrodata

http://www.retrodata.co.uk/

The guy is the dogz.. and not too expensive. Really, don't mess with the disk yourself, it makes recovery harder more often than not.

Originally Posted by DaiNasty

Talk to Duncan at Retrodata

http://www.retrodata.co.uk/

The guy is the dogz.. and not too expensive. Really, don't mess with the disk yourself, it makes recovery harder more often than not.

That's Odie isn't it.
I wonder if he'll remember me from the NG's. He's sent me bits for nowt before now.
Good call.

[Dai]

Originally Posted by kryogenik

That's Odie isn't it.
I wonder if he'll remember me from the NG's. He's sent me bits for nowt before now.
Good call.

Yup, that's your man. Still doing the business and still surprisingly affordable for domestic work.

Thanks Dai. Can't believe I didn't think of him first.
I dropped him a message in one of the NG's but I'll give him a shout elsewhere if he doesn't respond. Do you know where he frequents (PM if you prefer)? Suppose I could just email him at the site really.
In any case, after much Googling last night for firmwares and whatnot, I bought an identical drive with the correct firmware - seems to be an awful lot of people had success with this, so I'm going to give it a go. Worst case scenario if it doesn't work is I'll have a new 400GB drive to have the recovered data transferred to - I'd have had to buy one of those anyway.

[Kymmy]

ebay has a wanted section I think?? Try advertising in there for an identical drive with or without bad sectors.... Also see if there's any (seagate?) forums as someone on there might be able to point you in the right direction...

Ta. Did all the above last night (eBay's I Want It Now is pretty much hit and miss). Seagate official forums are full of proprietary bum-kissers who won't help anyone wanting to swap boards out coz big bad Seagate say it's naughty. But found loads of others (including http://www.deadharddrive.com) which pointed to lots of occasions where people had successfully done the board swap on Barracudas. Looks like a common problem. Hardest thing was trying to find a drive/board with the right firmware, but googling it found a UK company with one in stock, and as I say, this drive is on it's way now. Hope it saves me a few bob..

[haydnwalker]

Good luck! Hope I never have to go through this!

Originally Posted by haydnwalker

Good luck! Hope I never have to go through this!

Thanks. I'm determined never to again. I've always been a good backer uppererer. Caught off-guard this time.
Wouldn't mind, I've got 350GB of online server space so I've no excuses (apart from a pathetic upload speed).
One good thing has come of it, some of my friends have decided to go out and buy decent DVDRs and get those photos saved..

Originally Posted by kryogenik

One good thing has come of it, some of my friends have decided to go out and buy decent DVDRs and get those photos saved..

Indeed, I've always backed up to a Maxtor external HDD but I'm going to be putting my entire 13GB iPhoto library onto some DVDs this weekend.

I really hope this works out for you. Please post back here when you get it fixed.