[Ham-Computers] HD Data Lost. Can You Help

[Duane Fischer, W8DBF]

Hi Jim,

A refrigerator, heh? Now I thought that we professional Magicians knew all 
the tricks! Guess I missed the frozen facts of life on this one -

The only way I could recover my important data, which is only a few Meg, is 
to take my failed HD apart, remove the disk, put it in an identical drive 
and go for it. Or so I am being told anyhow.

Now I have done dozens upon dozens of things thought impossible for anyone 
who is totally blind and come out a winner. Now there were those other times 
I nearly killed myself off, as well as a couple of equally stupid friends 
who were crazy enough to help me with my latest gadget or technique to allow 
the blind to do what the sighted folk did! Nobody did get seriously injured, 
worse yet, killed, other than myself! I am not sure to this day if the 
battle wounds were worth the wounds!

I called several of the companies that are reputable to get prices for data 
recovery. Wow! About $900 to fix the drive, that is, if it was fixable. If 
not, from two thousand to four thousand to recover data from the drive.

I need the data desperately, but I can not afford that kind of cost!

I have worked on computers for thirty-two years Jim. I am always telling 
people to backup their data, then do it again to be certain it is protected. 
I intended to do it, but the past six months my life has been a living Hell 
of sorts and what I planned to do, more often then not, did not get done 
when I planned to do it!


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jim Hill" <hro5-2 at cox.net>
To: "Computers (or other) used for amateur radio, communications,or 
experimenting" <ham-computers at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Thursday, December 20, 2012 12:09 PM
Subject: Re: [Ham-Computers] HD Data Lost. Can You Help


>I have heard that if you cool your hard drive in your refrigerator, it may 
>run for a while.  I've never tried it, personally.
>
> I had a flash drive fail, and used Eraseus 
> http://www.easeus.com/datarecovery/   I tried the free version 
> http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizard/free-data-recovery-software.htm 
> It is for only 1 GB of data,  but I discovered I could look at more but 
> only transfer  1 GB to somewhere else.  Once the 1 gb limit was reached, I 
> restarted Eraseus and tried again.  Unfortunately the recovered data was 
> all mixed up, with duplicates of some files and others not recoverable and 
> all listed in special folders.  It was pretty labor intensive.
>
> I've learned something else - flash drives fail, too.  I've reduced the 
> failure rate by not using unknown brands purchased at Sears, etc.   I only 
> use Kingston flash drives, and back up important stuff a second time, 
> and/or seldom using the flash drive.
>
> Good luck
>
> Jim
>
> At 03:08 PM 12/18/2012, you wrote:
>
>
>>Hi All,
>>
>>Much to my horror, when I powered the computer up Thursday morning 
>>December 6, 2012 the HD failed to do anything. It was simply a case of 
>>dying in its sleep! That is, if one assumes that chips sleep!
>>
>>I am desperate! I had not backed my data up in six months for four 
>>directories. The rest I do have on CDS or zip disks. Unfortunately the 
>>data I put on that computer the past six months is absolutely critical to 
>>me! Figures, heh?
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