Computer dead.

[oamilcar]

Alright fellows, projects on this device from my side will be in hold or even cancelled if I can revive my computer back or can't get the information I need from her to go on. In her I have years of set up and work. And is my only computer.

What happened I don't know. I woke up, turn on my screen and there it was a message about the hard drive so I think everything is lost. :banghead: :banghead:

 

[Gendo420]

Slave that drive in another computer or if you have an adapter to plug it in via usb, you should be able to pull that data off. I would leave the computer off, so the HD doesn't get worse. Though I'm sure you already know this.

 

[Codegerm]

Ouch, that is not good. I hope you recover your data okay. I had to replace the 500 gig drive in my laptop Luckily I have backups and restore DVD's I created, and I ghost my data to my network drive on my router.

 

[oamilcar]

Tried everything but to many bad sectors on HD. I can now say everything is lost. Time for an upgrade.

 

[Frisco]

Alright fellows, projects on this device from my side will be in hold or even cancelled if I can revive my computer back or can't get the information I need from her to go on. In her I have years of set up and work. And is my only computer.

What happened I don't know. I woke up, turn on my screen and there it was a message about the hard drive so I think everything is lost. :banghead: :banghead:

Maybe some of those who frequent this Computers and IT sub-forum can help you, oamilcar. I've moved your thread here with that hope in mind.

 

[lunatic59]

Sometimes as drives age the read/write heads go out of alignment enough to cause these errors. There is one trick you might try that has worked for me with limited success. Take your hard drive out and put it in the freezer. Yep, I said freezer. After an hour or so, try booting up again. If it boots or at least gets further than before, turn off your PC immediately and put the drive back in the freezer.

Now, go get a replacement drive of the same size or larger. If it's an older drive, even the smallest new drive will probably be 5 or 6 times larger anyway.

Go find another PC that can burn CD's and download the .iso image file and burn the live CD of Parted Magic.

Then put the old cold drive and the new drive in the PC (or connect them to a different PC using an adapter or external case) and boot using the Parted Magic live cd. Using the tools on the CD clone the old drive to the new one. Do not try a file copy as this will most likely take too long and fail. If it succeeds you can then get any files that weren't damaged off the new drive.

I like to keep the old drive as cold as possible while it's being cloned so I will usually use an adapter and put a freezer pack on top of it (making sure no condensation drips onto the drive or the connectors!

It's not always going to work, but it does sometimes. Good luck.

 

[oamilcar]

Maybe some of those who frequent this Computers and IT sub-forum can help you, oamilcar. I've moved your thread here with that hope in mind.

Thanks!! I appreciate you moving this thread :beer:
:thumbup:

Take your hard drive out and put it in the freezer. Yep, I said freezer. After an hour or so, try booting up again. If it boots or at least gets further than before, turn off your PC immediately and put the drive back in the freezer.

Thanks!! ill give it a shot and see what happens, @ this point I have nothing to lose. :beer:

 

[oamilcar]

Didn't work.

So now I'm running Spinrite data recovery as my last option. By the time is done running (405 hours ) ill have another computer. Lol

 

[lunatic59]

It was worth a shot. I knew it would be iffy, but you didn't mention the "click of death" so I thought there was some hope.

I won't lecture, but years ago I lost some images that i sorely miss now because I was intending to backup ... tomorrow. Now I have a RAID1 terrabyte NAS drive that holds the nightly file backups and every few weeks I take a complete image of the system.

 

[Joelgp83]

There is, of course, the mother-of-all-longshots.

If you can get your hands on an identical make and model of the drive that failed, you could remove the failed drive's circuit board and replace it with the one from said identical drive. There's a chance that the its just the drive controller that died and not the physical, moving parts or the disks themselves.

BUT! This move is only for the desperate and crazy technically inclined people amoung us.

 

[oamilcar]

Thanks again guys.
I got my hands on a new 500 gb HDD.
Now Computer is back and running. Time to set it up.