Hi everyone. I'm brand new here and have been lurking the past week trying to get some answers to my data recovery nightmare. I had a 1.5TB SeaGate GoFlex Free Agent hooked up to my laptop. I came home one night and found that a folder I normally save videos too was not showing up. I saw that the drive was showing up, but when I clicked on it, no files or folders were found. I tried stopping the device, but the device manager said it was busy. I then unplugged the device and plugged it back in, device was not recognized by windows. Noticed drive was making a click-buzz sound every few seconds. Verified it could be the click of death, unplugged it. I sent it off to DriveSavers who seemed optimistic at first, but then I got this e-mail:



I called them and they said something like the actuator arm chewed up the drive too badly, and that even if they could get partial they would have given it to me. There was too much media damage to read the data, that it was turned into dust. I asked them if they had any pictures, they said they didn't and were shipping the drive back to me. They gave me the option to recycle the drive. I called Kroll Ontrack and they said they would not be able to do anything either.

The drive wasn't dropped or jarred so I don't understand how this could have happened all of a sudden. There are irreplaceable videos on that drive that I would pay to get back. I'm already pretty much resigned to my drive being toast, but if there is a chance, would anyone be willing to try?

I am not expert , but have seen in videos ontrack engineer has removed platter for microscopic examination and using 2 liquids remove contamination .
here is one of them
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avpYM_v ... 9xuFrxvxWY

The odds are, the drive is unrecoverable...or, at the very least, very, very expensive to get a very partial clone, corrupt files and with limited or no file structure.

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Luke
Recovery Force Donor Inventory: 5,000+ Fully Cataloged HDDs & Growing

What I saw on this video, is some guys opening drives in non-controlled environment, not wearing gloves, masks etc, and a microscope over an opened drive where they span it and examined surface in x magnification.

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No liquid contamination cleaning shown in that video.

It is possible that the entire room the techs are working in could be a "cleanroom".

@OP: Often such damage can occur. The data storage design on this drive won't allow for retrieval of good files because of missing content from the particular unreadable surface. Especially with video files and such.

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Hard Disk Drive (HDD), Solid State Drive (SSD, SATA, NVMe, etc), USB Flash Drive and RAID Data Recovery Specialist in Massachusetts

in this video some chemical from small tube is applied to platters . Unfortunately that video is not available on youtube. It is named Datenrettungs-Experimente Kroll Ontrack .I have downloaded it will try to upload it somewhere.

There are SO MANY contamination agents in this footage, I would consider this to be definitely not a clean room.

Maybe this is testing/R&D lab, but the lack of gloves etc does not justify anything.

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Oh, yes, definitely, I agree..

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Hard Disk Drive (HDD), Solid State Drive (SSD, SATA, NVMe, etc), USB Flash Drive and RAID Data Recovery Specialist in Massachusetts

try to upload it. we want to see it.

Thanks

Seems like an old video maybe taken around 2001 by the age of the drives and equipment. I don't see a clean room in sight.

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If there is extended media damage chances are slim and price for attempt will be high regardless of result. Would you be willing to spend in that case ?

This is youtube video which shows ontrack technician applying 2 different chemicals on platters & all degraded media was cleaned.
Unfortunately youtube has blocked this video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGyzD7v ... Iw&index=4
If someone could find elsewhere. I am bit reluctant to upload because of possible infringement.

No amount of ANY chemical will fix a physically engraved surface. If it was. it was just dirt (contamination) i.e. from disk immersed in water after flood. DON'T confuse things.

BlakST Here are some pics for you. ----------------

That fluid is used to see media corruption lines. It is a ferra fluid mixture. The room they work is designated as the "clean room" but the entire room is not clean. They do have Clean benches they work under.

In the pics I only see a can of simple RS solvent cleaner, what's the "extraordinary" ?
About the FERROFLUID (not "ferra fluid") it is of no use for REPAIRING a damaged surface. It COULD be used (years ago) for analysis (and you need "something else" also) when you had 1 bit every km. of track length, not today (except for educational purpose or rough analysis that will be quite useless for recovery purpose, if so).
Those days are gone, unless you get some 240 MB disk for recovery or you want to see how servo marks are

oops ! something left from BlackST's clever eyes too .
Here is ontrack enginner is applying there proprietory magic solution.

Sorry for the typo.. It was not used in repair of the drive, just to determine media corruption. It was a final check after all repairs have failed to work. You could see if data lines were written through the servo lines. under a microscope of course.

That is what they thaught me when i was working for them, and i have used that stuff before there. But yes it was for drives that were old, but this was also over 13 years that i worked there.

Thanks cleanroom for right explanation.

Honestly I would have never used ferrofluid + microscope.

Used it an era ago only for educational purpose, you can easily pinpoint media damage with stereo microscope. Also not all media damage is catastrophic for heads.

P.S. you can have a lot of fun with ferrofluid, microscope and recorded 1" or even better 2" audio / video tape and also make your own ferrofluid . Some FF experiments can make you very popular with students and kids