Hard Drive recovery in South FL?

[Jim_Gunn]

I am usually pretty good about backing up my important personal & business data on my many pcs & external hard drives. But the hard drive my employee just re-installed in my laptop failed yesterday, and there are two weeks worth of recent data I would like to recover. The needle of the hard drive is clicking, so it's a mechanical issue for certain, not something software can fix. My employee, who knows a bit about this stuff, tried to take the hard drive apart and re-set the needle himself, but the top of the drive enclosure wouldn't really come apart easily. I think the whole drive itself needs to come out of the enclosure and be mechanically fixed with a working needle or other parts and in a new enclosure to even have a chance of recovering that data

This drive has a lot of my sensitive personal information, most of which is backed up elsewhere luckily. I am not interested in sending the drive off somewhere. Can anyone recommend someone in South FL who is a whiz with computer hardware that can do the microsurgery necessary to have a chance at recovering this data?

[GrouchyAdmin]

If he opened it in a non-safe environment, chances are that it's fucked - however, thankfully it looks like he was unsuccessful.

This is going to sound really strange, but give this a shot first:

Stick it in an airtight plastic bag and set it in the freezer for an hour or two. If it is just a stuck head, the heat/cool/warm may actually dislodge it. If it's flying and scraping the platter, you're not likely going to cause any more damage than has already been done.

Do not attempt to replace the platter or board with one of the same model - this hasn't worked in years for most drives - each one has different prom settings and mappings.

Finally, Compu-Genie is in South Florida, but I have never used their services, and thus can not endorse them. Their number is 1-888-34-GENIE.

[HorseShit]

So he knows a bit about computers so he tried to take apart the hard drive? LOL

Good luck

[JustDaveXxx]

I am usually pretty good about backing up my important personal & business data on my many pcs & external hard drives. But the hard drive my employee just re-installed in my laptop failed yesterday, and there are two weeks worth of recent data I would like to recover. The needle of the hard drive is clicking, so it's a mechanical issue for certain, not something software can fix. My employee, who knows a bit about this stuff, tried to take the hard drive apart and re-set the needle himself, but the top of the drive enclosure wouldn't really come apart easily. I think the whole drive itself needs to come out of the enclosure and be mechanically fixed with a working needle or other parts and in a new enclosure to even have a chance of recovering that data

This drive has a lot of my sensitive personal information, most of which is backed up elsewhere luckily. I am not interested in sending the drive off somewhere. Can anyone recommend someone in South FL who is a whiz with computer hardware that can do the microsurgery necessary to have a chance at recovering this data?

WOW!! It happened to me a month ago. And that was before i turned in my work. My client wasn't hearing it. I Garentee my work and if i didnt get it off, it was gonna cost me big time.


I did recover everything but i had a shitty feeling for 2 days. Good luck with that I know you will get it off, but its gonna cost a bit.

[Jim_Gunn]

So he knows a bit about computers so he tried to take apart the hard drive? LOL

Good luck

My employee knows what he is doing pretty well and has taken apart other drives including internal & external drives before successfully and salvaged data on those other hard drives that failed. But this is a notebook hard drive, so it is a bit different. There's nothing life changing on there, no client data, just some emails and icq history I would like to save.

[CIVMatt]

yeah try the freezer trick, you wont have it working long, but should be plenty of time to salvage the info off it Jim