Physically Damaged Drive Recovery

[hockey9592]

My 2.5 SATA 750GB Seagate Momentus drive incurred physical damage in April when my laptop took a nasty spill. I did bring it to a computer repair store shortly after it happened and they were unable to back up my data. They said the damage was great enough that it would require someone to rebuild some of the components inside of the drive. Unfortunately, I can't afford $1,000+ to do that.

 

I recently bought a USB Hard Drive Adapter and to my surprise I was able to power up the damaged drive. However, I receive this message: data error cyclic redundancy check when I try to access the drive. Under Disk Management, the file system for the damaged drive is listed as "RAW" while the other drives are listed as "NTFS."

 

I should mention this is all being done on the same laptop (HP, Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit); however, I do have a new drive it now. To my surprise, my laptop even recognized the letter of the damaged drive "F"

 

I tried using Recuva to recover the data. It was able to detect some of the data, but not much (mostly windows system files). Also, the few files I was able to transfer over, they do not open. Here is a screen shot of what the Disk Management looks like, as well the results using the Recuva program:

 

[mta]

You haven't ask a question per-say so I'll take a stab and guess you want to know - "where to from here?"

 

Personally I think you have 4 options (but I have to say the odds may be stacked against you based on your efforts so far)

• do a chkdsk /r f: from the command line prompt - it works much better then the GUI version and is worth a shot (albeit a long one)
  
• connect the drive to a Linux PC (if you can get access to one) and see if it has better CRC recovery methods
  
• try the freezer technique (has only ever worked once for me but a win is a win)
  
• seek professional data recovery help. very costly but very high success rate.
  

Since you mention 'nasty spill', 'physical damage' and a repair guy (assuming trustworthy and reputable) saying it was damaged, and add to that the RAW status, CRC errors and Recuva failures, there seems to be too many nails in this coffin for any hope of a positive outcome. Hope I'm wrong....

[Alan_B]

Disk Management shows that G:\ is assigned to a 100 MB "System Reserved" volume.

 

Recuva is showing that System32 and SysWOW64 both exist in G:\.

 

Those two things CANNOT be true at the same time.

 

Either drive letters got reassigned in the time between those screen shots,

or there is stupendous confusion caused either by Reparse points within System Volume or by the laptop damage that needs $1000 to rebuild.

[hockey9592]

Yes, I meant to ask what to do from here. Thanks for the advice. I have heard about the freezer method but I will try that after the chkdsk /r f: and Linux methods. Could the freezer method damange it more? And I have no idea how the drive letters were changed. I took the Disk Management screenshot before I tried using Recuva. In-between that time I had connected an external drive that might have had F:\ as well so maybe it was changed in the process.

 

I have also heard if you repalce the circuit board that can fix the problem? I haven't been able to find much info online on how to take apart the drive and try to fix it. Probably harder than it sounds

[mta]

BIG caveat before continuing; this is what I would do if it were me, so what you do based on this advice is entirely up to you.

 

My freezer technique is to wrap the drive in paper towel (because the amount of condensation is surprising).

I then put that into a zip lock plastic bag, and close it almost all the way. The bit left opened, I use to suck out as much of the air as possible then close it all the way.

This goes into the freezer for a good few hours.

After which I plug it into an external enclosure USB box and hope for the best.

 

So to answer your question "Can it damage the drive?" - absolutely it can. Water and electronics are never good bed-fellows.

But I have never worried because this technique to me is a very last ditch attempt when all else has failed. I've tried this method a handful of times and only got lucky once - not a good success rate.

And potentially making the unit physically worse for any future, professional services - so use only after you have studied your goat entrails and sacrificed the virgin.

 

From what you have said about the 'nasty spill', I doubt the controller board is your problem. (it's actually rather an easy task to do with the right screwdriver head)

Much more likely is a head crash and platter surface damage.

Plus the damage happened 6 months ago and I don't know how old the system was before that - so I'm thinking getting a match on the controller for your drives make/model might be difficult unless that series was produced in high numbers.