A case of newbies helping newbies = FUBAR hard drive. Anyone who is anyone in HDD will know there are no head ramps in Seagates (3.5")

Learn something new everyday.

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It seems that the unluckiest people in the world are those that don't backup.
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Well they don't have parking ramps then. So do they park somewhere?

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It seems that the unluckiest people in the world are those that don't backup.
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AT the ID (inner diameter), closest to the spindle.

Dobre

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Murphy was an optimist

Datarecovery in Belgium, Holland, France and Germany
Datarecoverytools http://www.drtools.eu

I have an similar problem. Please listen the sound that ST3500320AS disk is making. Fw: sd15

Listen please: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=XUCA4W1S

Motor is trying to spinup.
What can I try? Data on disk is not important but anyway I would like to recover it.
Please help

If I am going to try freezing as a method of recovery, I get an external USB or ESATA adapter for the drive, and rig it up so the drive is inside the closed freezer inside a freezer bag while it is running. That way it stays cold, so condensation never gets a chance to form until after you are done. Attach this adapter to a laptop and use DDrescue to clone it if it is now accessible.

Mind you, this is a method of last resort before sending it to the pros as condensation is a legitimate concern, but I have had it work before on drives without spindle seizure, but with other issues. You *should* be able to get around the condensation issue in any case simply by slowly raising the temperature to normal.

I can only speculate that the cold can cause damaged electronics and solder joints in PCB's to contract enabling needed connections to be better established, it can reduce resistances in circuits which may be helpful at times, and it can allow old, worn, and damaged drives to better adapt thier internal mechanics to conditions where something has caused internal mechanical tolerances to become so far out of adjustment that the drive electronics can no longer compensate.

Best Method so far:

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Buy your friends Toshiba\Hitachi and your enemies Seagate.

i agree with drc

99.9 times out of 100, those who are freezing the drive are doing so for a problem that is completely unrelated to head. Drives that were previously frozen before coming here have had blown PCBs, firmware issues, dead heads, major surface damage and the list goes on. Just to play, I've tried the freezer with various dead drives (not live cases) just to see if it works. So far, I've had a 0% success rate. I have, on the occasion, a fan blowing on the drive just to prevent possible overheating. But, if I see it as a major concern, why not just replace the PCB?

What people don't think about is what happens each time that drive "overheats" and cuts out while running. If the heads aren't properly parked before the drive spins down, they likely are touching down on the surface, causing further damage to the drive. Each failed attempt to complete the file transfer/clone of the drive could be the last breath the drive will breath. So, once again, such efforts should only be made on a drive that is not worth paying to have the data recovered by a professional.

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Luke
Recovery Force Data Recovery

I can say personally there is some *VERY* rare occasions where a freezer can be truly beneficial, but these are again *VERY* specific cases with only *certain* brand and model HDD with very *specific* failures.

It is important to note that these specific failures can also be recovered performing much safer, more reliable procedures.

Other then that it is just a complete gamble.

Well, there is always the possibility of having to data recovery on a drive that is so old that there are no donors or tools available to do head swaps or PCB swaps with. These old hard drives can chug along for an awful long time before failing, and legacy systems are everywhere still. Then again, you can throw sawdust in those fuckers and they still work.

I'm reporting again that this freezing method was successful. Recovered all important files and atm copying all unimportant folders/files. Thank u guys very much. Hope I wont need to come back to this forum any time soon.

disk was in freezer 48h, when powered was slowly starting to spin up

Congratulations.

BTW, see Section 2.8.1 of the following document:

Barracuda 7200.11 Serial ATA Product Manual, Rev. F:
http://www.seagate.com/staticfiles/supp ... 52348f.pdf

Ambient temperature

Operating: 0° to 60°C (32° to 140°F)
Nonoperating: –40° to 70°C (–40° to 158°F)

ISTM that there is a great disparity between the above specifications and the claims of the DR community.

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A backup a day keeps DR away.