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hard drive dying... utilities to recover data?

Aug 31, 2006
347
0
It's more of a crunching kinda sound.

Also, I put a new drive in my wife's laptop, reinstalled OS, and now can't find my wireless network. I do see many other wireless nets, but not mine, even tho I'm sitting with the notebook two feet from my router.

God I'm stupid.
 

H8R

Cranky Pants
Nov 10, 2004
13,959
35
It's more of a crunching kinda sound.

Also, I put a new drive in my wife's laptop, reinstalled OS, and now can't find my wireless network. I do see many other wireless nets, but not mine, even tho I'm sitting with the notebook two feet from my router.

God I'm stupid.
Ok, let's tackle the router first. The HD may be fubar.

What router is it? Do you have a cable to plug into it to set it up?
 

H8R

Cranky Pants
Nov 10, 2004
13,959
35
BTW - put the hard drive in a ziplock bag, squeeze out as much air as possible and seal it, then put in the freezer for one hour.

Re-install it and see if it mounts up.

If not, do the freezer thing again, but before re-installing it, tap it once gently on a table.

This tricked allowed me to recover everything on a secondary drive that I had given up on.
 
Aug 31, 2006
347
0
thanks bro! Drive's in the freezer.

As for the wireless router... stupid me forgot that I disabled SSID broadcasting some months back. I enabled, connected, disabled and it's good now.


I'll try the frozen drive shortly. Should I let it warm up a bit first?
 

syadasti

i heart mac
Apr 15, 2002
12,690
290
VT
thanks bro! Drive's in the freezer.

As for the wireless router... stupid me forgot that I disabled SSID broadcasting some months back. I enabled, connected, disabled and it's good now.


I'll try the frozen drive shortly. Should I let it warm up a bit first?
No you might have to do it multiple times if you have a lot of data and it warms up. Make sure its WELL sealed - maybe even use multiple bags when freezing it. You could also use it in the bag w/ice packs around it after its out of the freezer if you are careful.
 

syadasti

i heart mac
Apr 15, 2002
12,690
290
VT
How are you connecting it? Do you have it configured properly as a master or a slave? Does your BIOS detect it on bootup?
 

syadasti

i heart mac
Apr 15, 2002
12,690
290
VT
connecting via USB to an external hd case. Do I need to set it as a master or slave?
Well if its originally from the external case you shouldn't have to change the jumper settings. I haven't put too many external HDD together, so I don't recall what the normal jumper setting is. I would just attach it to the computer's IDE chain as a slave with the case open if I was doing it.
 
Aug 31, 2006
347
0
it was an internal drive on my lady's laptop, so I pulled it, put it in an external case and attached it to my desktop.
 

syadasti

i heart mac
Apr 15, 2002
12,690
290
VT
it was an internal drive on my lady's laptop, so I pulled it, put it in an external case and attached it to my desktop.
Check the instructions that came with it, I don't know offhand. Did you ever get it working in the enclosure or is this the first time you are setting it up?
 
Aug 31, 2006
347
0
Drive worked for a year in her laptop, went downhill fast. Bought an external drive today, pulled new drive from case, inserted into laptop, everything's running fine now, put old drive in case, put it in freezer, put it on top of an ice pack, crossing fingers.
 

Trigger

Chimp
Jul 15, 2004
99
0
Oslo - Norway
a drive that makes that sound is fubar for sure.
i diskcrash is just what it sounds like, the read/write head has crashed into the disk - usually because of impact while operating, and has knocked out a microscopic fragment of the disk.

Now this in itself is not the disc crash, but it's when that fragment either gets caught under the read/write head again - and start to rip into the disc, or if the read/write head picks up more of the disc where it's already damaged that you got a problem.

How a freezer can help, i don't know...and the chances of creating condensation on the external controllercards of the harddrive sounds quite big.....