Bye bye Maxtor, hello RAID-1 :(

So my big fat 120gb Maxtor failed with absolutely no warning signs such as weird noises or clicks.  I had a TON of goodies on this one (and no, no pr0n or nothing), including a portfolio of amateur videos and projects I made.  I\'ve been searching around for data recovery services and it seems most cost $1300-$2000. :sconf:

Sighhhhghhghghhhghhh...  Well I guess what I\'ll do is keep the crappy Maxtor, pray the data doesn\'t deteriorate somehow and when I have the cash I\'ll pay to have it recovered.

But for now I\'ll be ordered two big fat 200gb Seagates and doing RAID-1 (aka- mirroring).  That\'s right an extra 200gigs just to make sure this crap doesn\'t happen again.

:gman:

[Living-In-Clip]

That\'s rough man, but at least it wasn\'t pr0n on that drive. Then you\'d really be screwed.

I am usin\' Seagate drives for this PC I am building. Never had any problems with Seagate drives.

[Paul2]

sad to hear that coming.  How come its cost so much for its to be recover?

thanks for the concern guys, was hoping to create a sense of awareness on the reality of data loss.  One guy on Arstechnica said one company wanted $1325 to recover his 60GB drive, I can only imagine how much they want for 120gigs.  This drive isn\'t that old either, no more than 2 years.

Paul I\'m guessing the high cost is because it\'s very sensitive equipment they\'re working with.  They have to set up a special controlled room that\'s free of dust & dirt, and that\'s just the beginning.  Very time consuming to check which chunks of data are forever lost or can be saved through some repair techniques.

stick it in a airtight plastic bag, stick that plastic bag into another.  put in freezer overnight

place in machine and attempt to boot off it

What\'s this?  A glimmer of hope!?  I did some Googling on this and many seem to have gotten the "freezer trick" to work.

I\'ll wait for the seagate to arrive before doing this so I can quickly back everything up.  Seems it can be a temporary fix.  Thanks for the recommendation!

The wonders of science.

[GmanJoe]

I wonder how they prevent condensation once the metal is exposed to room temperature.

I\'ve recovered data from friends dieing or formatted HD\'s several times.  Check into a little program called OnTrack Easy Data Recovery.  I\'ve pulled like 95% of lost data done after a friend of mine formatted the wrong drive in his computer.. ( and yes... he\'s a dumbass)

http://www.ontrack.com/

they have a free trail version that will scan your HD and tell you if data can be recovered or not (it even shows you the file names and sizes), of course you have to buy the full version to actually recover data.  But at least you won\'t be wasting your money just to find out you can\'t recover anything.

Only problem is it\'s $499, although I got mine much cheaper. :shy:

I\'ve used different types of software to recover data, with a fair amount of success too I might add.

BadCopy and Runtimes GetDataBack are two programs which has helped me a lot in the past.

holy sh!t it\'s working

Just an update for those whoever run into the same prob.  The freezer trick worked.

1st attempt: 8 hrs in freezer.  Placed drive upside down in compy.  OnTrack software couldn\'t pull any files off it.

2nd attempt: 2 hrs in freezer.  This time HD sat right side up and 92mm fan aimed at it.  I almost shat myself when I saw the drive in My Computer, but it soon disappeared when I tried to access it.  OnTrack saw it and was displaying all the files.  I was able to copy over roughly 22 gigs before it screwed up.

3rd attempt: 8 hrs in freezer.  OnTrack saw it all and was able to grab it all.  No time limit this time.

Thanks mm.  Saved me a buncha headaches and money.

Now should I just trash this Maxtor or could it prove useful somehow after a reformat?  Nahhhhh won\'t even risk it!

why does putting it in the freezer work?

I did a little research and found that the freezer trick can work to recover some lost data from a HD.  All this time I thought it was a big joke.

[GmanJoe]

Originally posted by PS2_-\'_\'-_PS2
why does putting it in the freezer work?

the "sticktion" affect can be eliminated temporarily. Freezing it causes the metals to contract a bit.