western digital clicking

[jsakal]

hELLO

I have a laptop (Dell vostro) which all of a sudden has stopped booting into windows. Well, not all of a sudden, really, laptop fell to the floor one day.
I entered BIOS and it does not find the hard drive.

I removed hard drive from laptop and connected to my desktop pc as internal disk. It is a WD2500BEKT, scorpio Black.

It makes some clicks and then it gets quiet. It doesn't show model number or GB of capacity (it is 250GB).
Then I connected using some usb device, no luck. It clicks few times and then stops.

What do you think? It contains some excel files from my work and pictures from my family. I cant think of losing them.
I gave disk to some friend who knows very well about computers and he said there is nothing he can do, he said there is nothing anyone can do with this error and I should forget it. Maybe -he said- if i spend big money someone could do it. I know there are some data recovery companies in Greece but I dont know if i can trust them, i prefer to send it to someone in Europe.

Can you please tell me about this error and if there is hope?
Thanks!
John

[Vulcan]

What do you think? It contains some excel files from my work and pictures from my family. I cant think of losing them.

The fall has caused internal damage to the drive. Stop powering-on the drive any more, as you could be making the situation worse.

I know there are some data recovery companies in Greece but I dont know if i can trust them

Northwind is a trusted member in Greece (Thessaloniki). If I was in your situation, I would contact him and discuss the problem.

[jono-ats]

I second Northwind. He's not far from you.

[jsakal]

Thanks for the replies. I have decided to trust a company in Athens. I spoke to them on the phone and they said they can do it for 300 - 350 euros. Is this a normal price for this kind of error?

[pcimage]

+3 for northwind

[labtech]

Thanks for the replies. I have decided to trust a company in Athens. I spoke to them on the phone and they said they can do it for 300 - 350 euros. Is this a normal price for this kind of error?

Unless there is a more trivial error, the part drive to do the work by itself is probably worth 100 euro, so total cost 350 euro?!? Not so sure. Maybe starting cost range is at 300 euros and going up to over a thousand.

But I may be wrong... If I was you, I would call more places just confirm the price and then you can kind of get a general idea.

[northwind]

Thanks all for the recommendations

Regarding OP's question about price range, this is outside our price range for these drives.
We work with them all the time, but not for 300 euros. As labtech says, spare parts for this drive would cost (at least) 100 euros. And sometimes more than one set of spare parts are needed.

I hope OP will recover their data and I definitely wish he will come back to tell us what happened.

[porthas]

I do not see how it is possible to get data for 300 euros with a mechanical damage, but certainly would like to see if you succeeded. Our company works with many data recovery providers in Greece, but I would also like to point out Northwind as a great choice.

[jsakal]

This goes to a bad turn. I have just received a phone call from that company I send them my drive, and they said they are not able to recover my data. Reason, "damage of mechanics".

I think i'm gonna give a call to northwind now...

[pcimage]

This goes to a bad turn. I have just received a phone call from that company I send them my drive, and they said they are not able to recover my data. Reason, "damage of mechanics".

I think i'm gonna give a call to northwind now...

What did we say?

Quote was FAR too cheap to be real

Hopefully they have not butchered or sabotaged the drive beyond recovery, even by the magicians at Northwind!

I wish you all the best of luck!!

[jsakal]

Thanks pcimage.
They told me they attempted a head change which was unsuccessful. Then they closed the drive and called me to say it non recoverable.

I called Northwind and they said they can take a look but no promises now

Let's hope they can do it. If they fail too, you think it is worth to send to someone outside Greece, someone very experienced?

[SquaL]

Hi, best thing to do is wait for evaluation from Northwind. Northwind is respected here as a capable company.They will be able to tell if more damage was done by other company, and just how bad things are due to fall.

[jsakal]

Thanks Squal. Yes I have requested my drive to be returned and on Monday I will send to Northwind. I hope they will be able to do it!

[northwind]

OP has called us on weekend and told us the story.

We have explained that the cost now will be higher and recovery more difficult if not impossible.
I am really curious now to see what the condition of the drive is and wether we'd be able to get any data off it.

We'll see...

I think lesson learnt. Cheap =/= good (not always anyways).

[northwind]

We received the drive a while ago.

I think it is still do-able.

At least we didn't find delibarate damages on surface. Or dust, hair, fingerprints, oil, nail polish, some cockroach legs (joking) or any of the other stuff we find when people bring drives which have previously been to such "companies".

I will do what's necessary and update this thread in the next days.

[northwind]

Drive is imaging as we speak.
It seems to have some bad areas @ surface 1, which reads but slowly, but the others are ok. $Bitmap showed 216GB of data (!). So it's gonna take a while to get there

Client will be happy.

[loki]

Congrats

[SquaL]

Good job . Difference between pro and pretend pro.

[jono-ats]

Opa Dimitri!

[pcimage]

Salutations!!!