Computer People I need help! (hard drive crash)

Sounds like bad juju to me man. There is a chance that you can recover *some* of the data. You need to take it to a local repair shop that does data recovery. Don't get your hopes up though. Most likely it is deader than a door nail.

 

Also.

Never again should you try to move or touch the inside of a PC while it is plugged in and powered on.

Your lucky it was the HD that shorted out and not you!

 

Sorry to hear that. Of all the computers I've ever built or even dropped and had the hard drive been dragged around, this has never happened. Probably the exposed chips touched a metal part and shorted.

Anyway, I'm not sure if you are saying that you can use your slave/second hard drive to boot your computer or not. If so, see if you can hook your former primary drive as the second hdd now. Chances are you already tried this and it still doesn't work. If so, does it even spin? Does it at least get recognized by your BIOS or during the post? If it doesn't, and you just can't get it to recognize, you might have to bring it to a data recovery service place. They are usually expensive though so unless it is critical data or really sentimental stuff, it's probably not worth it. Call your local place and get a quote. Hope it doesn't come to that.

But just FYI, the data is likely still there though. Data can even be recovered when a physical crash happens like when the heads come into contact with the spinning disk. So if it can't be DIY recovered, chances are good a service can recover the data...if your budget is big enough (call for quote though).

Best of luck!

 

Okay, I've never had to try this myself (thank god) but it has worked for quite a few people. Put your HD in a ziplock bag and throw it into the freezer overnight. Then see if it works the next day.

 

I had a hard drive crash, and here's a thread about how it was recovered.

http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showthread.php?t=232061

 

Hehe, the ol' Nintendo cartridge trick, eh? I used to blow into the cartridge through my t-shirt too. Or insert the cartridge until you reach the ledge and then slam down on it. Strangely enough, it'd work more often than not!

People do report success with this freezer method with hard drives when dealing with soft errors or clicking noises. If this is the case, why not try it, but from what I read, it doesn't work for very long. Just long enough maybe to extract some data or make some images. But if the hard drive sparked, shorted, and doesn't even spin up, I don't think the freezer trick will do much. Oh, and don't forget the ziplock to prevent condensation, don't fire it up when its still frozen, and don't mistake it for an Eggo!

 

Freezer isn't going to do anything for that drive. The freezer can help drives with a mechanical failure by shrinking the metal parts and letting the spin freely long enough to recover some data. Chances are a rather expensive data recovery service is the only option for that drive. You probably shorted a controller chip or something of that nature on the drive. They can pull the platters out in a controlled sterile environment and recover the data for them but its not really something you can do at home.

 

Once I had luck swapping the board on a drive that failed. From what you describe the problem is more than likely on the electronics board. But, you have to have another identical drive to give this a try.

Drive reclamation services are expensive! Good luck.