External hard drive data recovery needed

[mdklassen]

> I took this drive to the Geek Squad and they checked it, actually, disassembled it

Inside most "external" disk-drives is a standard "internal" disk-drive.

An "internal" disk-drive has two major components -- the electronics & I/O adapter, and the "spinning" part.

The electronic components can easily be separated and replaced.

But, the difficulty is in finding an identical (or nearly so) component from the same manufacturer, to replace any "fried" electronics.

The "spinning" part was sealed in a "clean-room", to preserve the recording surfaces and the electric motor that spins the recording surfaces.

So, if they disassembled it, and connected the disk-drive as an "internal" disk-drive,

and their computer could not detect the disk-drive, then the electronics have been damaged.

If the electronics is OK, maybe it's the motor that spins the disk-drive that has failed.

> told me that the only way to recover the information within the disk is to send it to a special room (pure air room)

> and extract the disk and assemble it on another drive case. 

They probably are correct -- in a "clean-room" the recording-surfaces can be extracted from within the "sealed" container, and mounted into another container, just surviving long enough to copy all your data files onto a brand-new disk-drive.

A commercial "data-recovery-surface" can do the two "levels":

* replacing the electronics plate -- probably not too expensive, if it solves the problem;

* complete "clean-room" processing -- definitely expensive.

Good luck.

[Big_Dave]

@mdklassen

It's never recommended to disassemble a hard drive. Having worked in hard disk engineering this is a practice that should only be done at the factory.

If data recovery is needed then the hard drive should be sent back to the manufacturer of the hard drive.

[mdklassen]

@Big_Dave wrote:

> It's never recommended to disassemble a hard drive. 

Of course, there is a large difference between removing the "shell" of an external hard-drive, to expose the "internal" hard-drive that is mounted inside, as compared to taking an "internal" hard-drive, and separating the electronics "motherboard" from the "spinning" component that was sealed in a "clean-room".

Those "geeks" at Best Buy probably did the former, and then tested the "internal" hard-drive, and found that it was not the "internal-SATA-to-external-USB" circuitry inside the "shell" that was the cause of the problem, i.e., that the problem is limited to the "internal" hard-drive.

Definitely, assign it to "professionals" to separate the "motherboard" from the "spinning" assembly, if you ever hope to recover any of the stored data.

[Big_Dave]

@mdklassen

Professionals in this case would not be the Geek Squad.

Did you know that when the hard drive is powered off that the r/w heads actually rest on the platters?

[mdklassen]

> Did you know that when the hard drive is powered off that the r/w heads actually rest on the platters?

Yes, some disk-drives have a "landing zone" (with no "data" underneath the R/W heads) that is the "parked" location.

One of the first IBM PS/2 computers that I owned had a utility that _must_ be executed to 'park' the hard-drive's heads, before powering-off the computer.  It was a 20 MB (not 20 GB, not 2 TB) hard-drive!

Most disk-drives have strong magnets to instantly pull the R/W heads away from "flying" above the data, to protect the data after an unexpected loss of electrical power.

[Oliver-Powell]

Hi Mdklassen,

I am sorry to hear about your issue.

Also, I agree with the words of Mr. Big_Dave, that ‘it's never recommended to disassemble a hard drive’.

But, if your hard drive is not detected by the system, then I advise you to visit http://www.stellarinfo.com/blog/external-hard-drive-not-showing-up-recover-files/ once.

Good Luck!!!

[mdklassen · Accepted solution]

>>> I am sorry to hear about your issue.

Fortunately, this is not "my" issue.

I was replying to a thread started by some OTHER person. But, that person's original post seems to have vanished.

I wonder if one of the "moderators" has intervened:

>>  ‎11-22-2016 08:46 AM - last edited on ‎11-22-2016 08:52 AM by Duane_D                    

to make it appear that I was the originator of the thread.

Weird ?!

>> Also, I agree with the words of Mr. Big_Dave, that it's never recommended to disassemble a hard drive.

To repeat what I wrote, there's a great difference between:

• opening the "shell" of an external disk-drive, to extract the internal disk-drive, to temporarily connect that disk-drive to another computer for diagnostics, i.e., bypassing the SATA-to-USB-or-eSATA electronics inside the "shell",
• physically separating the disk-drive's circuit board from the "spinning" part (motor and recording surfaces).

I stand by those words.

[Big_Dave]

@mdklassen

I hope that you don't mean to open up the HD case and expose the platters to the environment. That would be totally wrong if the HD is not in a clean room. A dust particle or a flake off the scalp would be detrimental to data recovery. Having working is disk engineering I am advising everyone that this would be a "no no" practice.

[mdklassen]

@Big_Dave wrote:

> I hope that you don't mean to open up the HD case and expose the platters to the environment.

> That would be totally wrong if the HD is not in a clean room. 

1. As I wrote above, I did *NOT* open this thread.   Somehow, the original posting has vanished, leaving my REPLY as the first posting.

2. As I wrote above, more than once, there is a great difference between extracting an "internal" disk-drive from inside an "external" disk-drive, and what you are suggesting, namely to separate the circuit-board from the "spinning" components, and then further exposing the recording-surfaces to any air-pollution, such as cigarette smoke. 

> A dust particle or a flake off the scalp would be detrimental to data recovery.

Did you know that a typical particle of cigarette smoke -- much much much smaller than a dust particle -- is over TWENTY times the height of the R/W heads when they are "flying" above the recording surface?

3. An "answer" to this question has already been accepted.  Therefore, there is no need for any further comments.

[Big_Dave]

@mdklassen

Comments need to be made to clarify information that could be construed as being OK to do. In this case, opening up a HD to a non-clean room environment is totally the wrong thing to do.

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