Help recovering wedding photos from a WD3200AAKS

[brainfire9]

Hi All,

Hoping someone might be able to point me in the right direction (or let me know if the only option is professional recovery). A friend had both her hard drives go at the same time (power problem? who knows), one just wouldn't boot anymore and the other was a drive from an older computer that had all her wedding photos and music on it.

The one that wouldn't boot wasn't a problem, I just reinstalled her OS. The older 'data' drive with the wedding photos will not come up in either Windows or Ubuntu (have tried both directly attached to the mobo as well as a USB/SATA cable). I have not run chkdsk on it, I can't even get a drive letter to show up. Oddly enough, the drive will show up in BIOS about half the time, but not always (when directly attached to the mobo).

I have never heard what I'm hearing from this HD before ... no clicks or odd noises, it sounds pretty normal to me while spinning up for about 20 seconds and then it just stops. No weird sounds, just stops like the power was pulled. Then it starts up again, 20 seconds each time and then nothing. It does this several times, same results whether directly attached or USB. If I leave it plugged into Windows via USB and just walk away, after enough time it shows a 'Your hardware has been installed and is ready to use' message but it still doesn't actually show up anywhere.

WD3200AAKS
WD Caviar SE16

MDL: WD3200AAKS-22VYA0
DATE: 08 FEB 2006
DCM: HHRNHTJMHN
S/N:WCARW3794310

Is it worth tracking down a donor HD to swap the PCB, or is there a chance the preamp is gone? I feel so bad for my friend, I think this is going to be a very harsh lesson in backing things up If a professional is the only choice, I don't want to lessen their chances by messing with it. In all honesty, anytime I couldn't get to the data with a USB to SATA (and possibly Ubuntu for a weird ext3 file system on a WD MyBook once), I just get a new drive.

I hope I've given enough information -- many thanks for any advice!

[Nick_CT]

Personally, I think you should save yourself some time and money and get it recovered professionally straight from the word go. This isn't a DIY fix

[poehere]

You issues on this HDD will not be solved by the USB or SATA on this computer. You need a professional tool that can hand this drive and clone it to another HDD. You have other issues in this drive and if you keep going on like this you can risk the chance of killing it for sure or causing some major damage to it. Better to stop now what you are doing and go to a repair shop that does DR work and get them to look at this one for you.

[drc]

Spinning down probably indicates heads problem

[brainfire9]

Kind of what I was thinking, I'll stop messing with it -- I'd really like to see her get those wedding photos back. I don't suppose anyone could recommend a data recovery service in the Colorado (Denver Metro) area? There's one by the computer parts store I go to all the time, but just because I drive by it all the time doesn't mean anything other than it's close I believe they are called DataTech Labs Data Recovery.

Many thanks for the help!

[drc]

Its probably just a virtual office that ships off to their lab anyway. Most "local" locations of DR firms are.

[Russwinters]

Data Tech labs are good guys, I have met them recently.

This should be well in their scope of capabilities.

[BlackST]

Difficult to run a sw on a drive that spin down...

[brainfire9]

Thanks for the helpful answers guys, much appreciated!

[Alexii]

Ur drive belongs to Tornado family, infamous for its shitty boards. Rule of thumb when working on the drives of that family is : unless the drive is reported droped or u hear the scratches inside - change the PCB.