DOs and DON'Ts of Data Recovery:
Common Hard Drive Failures and Data Loss Situations:
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Defective Hard Disk Drive Heads:
Your hard disk is clicking. This is commonly known as the 'Click of Death'. Your hard drive is
failing, and with it your data will be lost as
well. When the drive initially powers up, a logical procedural
check is initiated to ensure that the drive has gained the required level of
speed before positioning
the heads across
the platters.
If the drive does not reach a 'Ready' state, the logic is repeated
for a set number of times causing a clicking sound, after which it stops trying.
The hard
disk drive will appear dead. |
Do not run "software" recovery programs in this state. They cause Disk I/O read
/ writes, and
this exerts a lot of stress on the read/write heads, which in turn causes errors to be written
onto
the disk,
further decreasing the chances of data recovery.
Crashed Hard Drive Heads: In the event
of a head crash, the hard drive will most likely make a grinding
or scraping noise. This is very serious and may strip
the magnetic
coating off the platters. This is highly damaging to the drive. Immediately turn the drive off and disconnect it from
your computer.
DO NOT ATTEMPT TO POWER ON THE COMPUTER OR THE HARD DRIVE AS
THIS MAY CAUSE IRREVERSIBLE DAMAGE. At this stage, you need to call the Data
Recovery Lab technicians on 0845 257 9164 who will advise you what to do
next.
Hard Disk Drive Motor Failure: A typical hard drive motor usually spins between 4200rpm
and can go up to 15000rpm in high-end end desktop or server hard
drives. The speed is controlled by firmware- information held in the system
area of the hard drive-to enable synchronisation for reading the
data from the
platters.
Hard drive motor can fail in two ways; it neither spins
nor
starts. In this case the motor gets stuck and you can usually feel a slight vibration or hear a humming sound on
the drive when
it powers up. Erratic
speed variations
of the motor may cause the drive to take an extended period of time to come to
the 'Ready'
state. Please note that prolonged or repeatedly powering up the hard drive could
cause further
damage. Turn the computer off or disconnect
the hard drive and call the Data Recovery Lab technicians on 0845 257 9164
who would advise you what to do next.
Remember, data recovery analysis and consultation is FREE with Data Recovery
Lab. Unlike many other UK data recovery companies, we do not charge for data
recovery analysis or data recovery consultancy. You only pay if we successfully
recover your data.
Hard Disk Drive not detected in the BIOS: BIOS stands for Basic Input/Output
System and
it simply provides a set of instructions to your computer, telling it how to start, and
how to interface to
the first 'Boot' device. When it reaches the first boot device, it then
receives further
instructions thereof to follow up. This eventually leads to loading up your operating system,
if everything is OK.
During the
start-up, the
BIOS may fail to detect the hard drive, and therefore it is not listed by the
BIOS during POST. First,
check all
connections and try again. If it still doesn't work, failure to recognise
the hard drive may have been caused by a number
of factors, like
corrupt boot sector. However, at start-up, your computer can tell you whether
the hard drive has been detected by the BIOS or not. Power up the computer, and look for the on-screen
instruction to
tell you how to enter the BIOS. Usually this is achieved by pressing F1, F2 or
DEL keys.
Examine the menus for options on viewing the BIOS IDE peripheral setup and set
your BIOS to
automatically detect IDE drives.
On some BIOSes there is an option to "automatically detect
hard drives now". If you run this option and the computer 'hangs' or appears
inactive for a a
minute or more then it is likely that your hard disk drive has failed to
identify itself to the
system BIOS. Before getting too worried, power down the computer and unplug the
hard disk and check if all the jumpers on the hard drive are set correctly
according to the hard disk manufacturer's instructions.
Incorrect jumper setting
can prevent the hard drive from being detected by the BIOS. In some hard drives
such as IBM and Hitachi, incorrect jumper settings will corrupt the data and damage the
logical structure of the hard disk. Again, at this stage, you need to consult a
Data Recovery Lab technicians who would advise you what to do next.
Remember, data recovery analysis and consultation is FREE with Data Recovery
Lab. Unlike many other UK data recovery companies, we do not charge for data
recovery analysis or data recovery consultancy. You only pay if we successfully
recover your data.
Power Surge, Reversed Polarity, Power Supply plugged in the wrong way around:
This is a frequent occurrence - particularly plugging the power lead in the wrong
way around.
Despite the shape of the molex connector, the cheaper versions are often are made of
a soft plastic
and can easily be plugged in incorrectly. Often this results in the drive
appearing totally
dead with no noise coming from the motor and an unpleasant burning smell.
This is specially true if you try to plug a laptop hard drive in a USB enclosure
or if you plug the laptop hard drive to a an IDE-to-laptop connector
incorrectly. You must make sure you do the right thing as the outcome
of your mistakes can be disastrous. Similar faults occur
when the power surge can damage the computer motherboard and hard drive
circuitry. In this case, you must immediately unplug the computer from the mains
power supply and remove the hard
drive to a safe
place until you send off the hard drive to the Data Recovery Lab for data
recovery.
Data Recovery Lab technicians can recover data from the
following faulty hard drives:
- Desktop/Laptop/Notebook USB & Firewire IEEE1394 hard disks;
- Repair / Recover fix Mechanical / Electrical / Firmware Hard Disk drive Problems;
- Hard Disk Drive not recognised in BIOS;
- Noisy Hard Drives with clicking, scraping or clunking sound;
- Hard disks with read/write head crashes;
File
Repair and/or data recovery from the following file systems:
FAT FAT32 and NTFS file systems;
Linux with EXT2fs, EXT3, XFS, file sytems on standalone & RAID
volumes; Data recovery from from faulty or corrupt partitions, even if the boot sector or FAT has been erased or
damaged; Data recovery from all Win 95, Win 98, Win ME, NT 4.0, Windows™ XP and
Windows™ 2000 systems;
Data Recovery Lab technicians are able to recover / retrieve files in the following situations
- UNC Uncorrectable Data Error - especially Maxtor SATA;
- Damaged Hard Drive As A Result of Power Surge;
- Hard drives damaged as a result of reversed power polarity and/or voltage from incorrectly plugging in power leads or
cable;
- Data corruption in FAT/FAT32/NTFS File Systems
- Recycle Bin emptied or files were deleted without Recycle Bin;
- Data Loss As A Result Of Hardware or Software failures;
- Data loss As a Result of Power failure and power outages;
- Data Loss as a result of virus attack or virus infection;
- Data recovery from formatted or repartitioned hard drives;
- Data loss due to improper system shutdown;
- Data loss due to partitioning or boot sector problems
- Data loss due to hard drive PCB or logic board failure
- Data loss as a result forgotten or lost ATA password or decryption key;
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