Hard Drive Crash – Need Identical Drive for Recovery!

[Todd Perchert]

I have never known anyone to change out the platter before…

You may try some old techniques first. Put the drive in the freezer for a few hours, take it out and hold it flat above a table just a couple of inches, then drop it flat. Put it in and try to get as much data off as possible – IF it works. If it does work, you may need to do this procedure several times. I’ve successfully recovered data from a clicking WD drive using this method.

[Fred Jodry]

A good trick, I`ve used it, but that particular method stems from the days when platter coatings were first cousins of varnish. Heads usually don`t stick to platters anymore. Try putting the drive on a table magnetic side down, circuit board up. Aim a fan at the circuit board. Fire it up and wait a little while. The idea is to get the circuit board extra cool and the magnetic side to it`s pet temperature, sometimes warm, sometimes not. People have been known to unscrew the lid of the drive and go over the plates with a camel`s hair brush, or grab a water pistol and shoot the plates with isopropic alcohol (not if they`re the old plates) or carbon tetrachloride, then fire up the motor for only a minute with them wet. More likely, the top method, or getting some identical circuit cards to try, is much less desperate. Have you replaced the bios battery on the motherboard and the cables to the hard drive? There`s also Drives Solutions in California, amongst other rescue places.

[Jordan Woods]

lol—– There is a reason Drive Savers has the saying that it’s not the crash that makes recovery difficult, it is the user trying to recover the data first that makes their real recovery difficult.

-jw