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Thread ID: 107585 2010-02-22 22:32:00 Dead HDD - RIP? Tony (4941) Press F1
Post ID Timestamp Content User
860768 2010-02-23 05:08:00 Yeah that sounds like my Mrs HDD .... I'd ring Data Forensics, describe it to them, they'll set you right. Cameron there who I was dealing with was a real straight up guy, knows his stuff, very good phone manner. Give them a ring! :)

I called a few other places to get quotes (4 others I think?), for varying reasons I chose these guys though.
Chilling_Silence (9)
860769 2010-02-23 06:04:00 It's broken, no question about it

a clunking sound means something is broken. Could be faulty heads, or head amplifiers. Or even the System Area could be corrupted somehow.

If you need the data off the drive, you will need to pay a recovery company

Already said this, ages ago, if anyone was listening...
Agent_24 (57)
860770 2010-02-23 10:06:00 Not very likely. I just took my wifes HDD in to Data Forensics in Auckland CBD, cost $750 + GST to have them recover it. They got ~98% off :)

For that lot, $750 is the deal of the century. They are very good at recovering data & I think they are the only NZ company that does forensic recovery.
Greven (91)
860771 2010-02-23 17:53:00 Yeah some other places were saying it'd cost less to "look at" but potentially up to 2.5x as a "recovery fee". These guys have been very professional the whole way through. Going to pick up her HDD / Data this morning :D Chilling_Silence (9)
860772 2010-02-26 09:52:00 Well, the good news is I seem to have recovered all my lost data without having to pay any money. :clap:clap

What I have just noticed that I omitted to mention is that the HDD was part of a Windows Home Server setup, so of course all the data was duplicated. All I had to do was to get into WHS via the Home Server connector on another PC, tell it to "remove" the dead disk, then repair the database. It took about 3 hours, but at the end of it, I had lost all my WHS backups (not a problem unless I suffer a major meltdown on another PC in the next 24 hours), but all my shared files were recreated.

I guess it is a compliment to WHS that it has been so reliable since I first set it up that I forgot all about the redundancy. I had been looking at the "normal" file system directly from the server desktop, so of course the files seemed to be a total mess.

The slightly less good news is that I contacted Data Forensics and in fact also spoke to Cameron. I told him it was WHS but he made no suggestion about the redundancy (which I hadn't remembered about when I had the conversation). He actually didn't seem to know anything about the WHS file system. I agreed to the recovery deal, he promised to email me the documentation, and I haven't heard a thing since - fortunately, as it turned out.

Anyway, it looks like a good result. Thanks everyone for all the suggestions.
Tony (4941)
860773 2010-02-26 17:48:00 That's what happens when you have good backups ;) Agent_24 (57)
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