Maxtor 200GB 8MB failed, data recovery? lost all my college essays, help!

[fumbduck]

I had no expectations that this drive would fail. I really need to see if I can recover some of the data, I lost like 40gigs of mp3s, 60gigs of dvd-ripped movies, and I do webdesign and 3d modeling, I lost all of my templates, renderings, and webpage files...

i heard somethin about a freezer trick, but I dunno.

Let me know.

edit: i lost all of my college essays and all of my webpages and everything, i have to tell my clients sorry. that sucks.
not to mention college essays have to be sent out wednesday.

 

[Spac3d]

What are the symptops? Doesnt power up? Is not recognized by the bios? Doesnt read/write from the drive?

Bad news if they are already failing

Spac3d

 

[SgtZulu]

The RIAA thanks you

 

[fumbduck]

RIAA?

I just woke up like an hour ago, and I couldnt do anything in windows XP(luckily the 200g was slave storate).
So i restart and at bootup it says

"PRIMARY SLAVE BOOT DISK FAILURE"

Press F1 to continue.
So i did, now I am in windows but I cant see D: drive or write to it or anything.

It is still recognized in bios.

 

[fumbduck]

help.

 

[Markfw]

First, open the case. Make sure the cable didn't come loose (power or data). Then try another cable if that wasn't the problem. Then try another IDE port. Let us know what happens.

 

[Spac3d]

Originally posted by: fumbduck
RIAA?

I just woke up like an hour ago, and I couldnt do anything in windows XP(luckily the 200g was slave storate).
So i restart and at bootup it says

"PRIMARY SLAVE BOOT DISK FAILURE"

Press F1 to continue.
So i did, now I am in windows but I cant see D: drive or write to it or anything.

It is still recognized in bios.

Interesting. You can see it in the BIOS fine, but it still says slave failure. Can you put this drive into another machine and see waht happens?

He meant the RIAA thanks you because you lost 40gb of mp3s.

Spac3d

 

[fumbduck]

haha, it was all lame encoded stuff that I either have on CD or some of my friends do, high quality, most of them are like 7-10megs when they should normally be 3-4.

checking stuff now...

 

[fumbduck]

First, open the case. Make sure the cable didn't come loose (power or data). Then try another cable if that wasn't the problem. Then try another IDE port. Let us know what happens.

no dice, still wont work.

this blow.s

 

[jose]

You may want to look into a possibility that the RIAA could have nuked your drive..

Seriously, check the news sites on covert ops. that the RIAA/MPAA have been up to..

I read an article that the RIAA was looking to flood file sharing sites w/ garbage encode mp3's etc...

After you recover your info and check the hard drive , if it's fine, I'd have to wonder if the RIAA had something to do
w/ your recent problem.

Trust no one....

Regards,
Jose

 

[fumbduck]

right.

 

[fumbduck]

ttt

 

[nick1985]

have you tried swearing at it? swearing fixed my monitor problem a few days ago.

 

[OulOat]

Originally posted by: nick1985
have you tried swearing at it? swearing fixed my monitor problem a few days ago.

Lol

 

[LbJustinTime]

The Classic Swearing trick fixes all. No seriously though, do a google search or something. If you have tried all the steps that peopel have listed so far, you may be out of luck. Then again have you workedd on your computer lately? Magnitezed maybe? Its rather odd that a HD was fine when you went to sleep and hwen you wake up it is dead..

 

[zephyrprime]

Get ActiveSMART and install it. Tell me what errors it tells you about. Also get the Maxtor diagnostic utility from the Maxtor website and tell me what it says.

 

[fumbduck]

effin harddrive, i started smokin again

 

[magomago]

gosh...40 gigs of mp3s! All my mp3s add up to live 90 megs total - and most are just rips off my cds for easy access


I don't think the RIAA could do that...wouldn't it be illegal?

 

[fumbduck]

i forgot to mention, i lost all of my college essays, 8 1 pagers, and i have to have them sent out by wednesday.

smoking relieves stress, i was smoke free for 2 months, good game maxtor.

 

[billandopus]

If it's really that bad ... you may have to go through a data recovery service although i'm sure that you would have to pay a pretty penny to do so. I've heard of companies adjusting their rate scale depending on the kind of sob story you have. One company (iirc) charged a student much, much less to recover data due to a real sob story. They would charge corporations much more.

If you contact a data recovery company and do some talking maybe you can score a "deal".

At the very least you can recover the papers and stuff. Forget the music as you can batch rip and encode again during the night while you are sleeping. That's no big deal really. It's just a hassle. This way you can probably decrease the cost of recovery as I think those companies charge by the byte (mega, giga ... whatever).

Good luck.

 

[prosaic]

I'll make the mandatory post asking why the devil you didn't have the data backed up in the first place. I'm not talking about the MP3s. I'm talking about the Web development work and your essays. Now you're hurting, and your clients may be hurting. Doesn't take much effort, time, or money to back up stuff like that. Learn the lesson for future application. I've said it before, and I'll say it again (and again) -- there are two types of data on your hard drive: data that is lost, and data that is going to be lost.

In the meantime, I didn't see you state specifically that you had tried a different data cable and a different IDE channel. You should at least try those before resorting to using a data recovery service.

- prosaic

Oh yeah, and save the money you are spending on smokes to buy some backup media.

 

[Technonut]

I would try SpinRite 5 on the drive.

 

[FishTankX]

Have you tried it on another computer?

As for the freezer trick.. put the drive in the freezer for about half an hour, then quickly attach it to the computer and boot it up.

Also, does the drive read in the upside down position?

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: magomago
gosh...40 gigs of mp3s! All my mp3s add up to live 90 megs total - and most are just rips off my cds for easy access


I don't think the RIAA could do that...wouldn't it be illegal?

Perhaps - there has been legislation introduced that would allow it - they could sabotage file-sharing networks, in hack suspect's PC's to delete files. I do not know what has become of it though.
I say it again - they should make it fully legal to do MP3 downloads in some fashion, and try to profit by it at least. The movie industry said that VCR's would be armageddon and they fought it. Now look how much money they're raking in because of VCR's.

Originally posted by: Technonut
I would try SpinRite 5 on the drive.

I think it only works on FAT32 filesystems; a big drive like this, I'd figure it to be NTFS.

Sorry if I can't offer any useful advice here; usually when a drive does this, it means serious data corruption or complete failure.
Did the SMART utility see the drive? What did it say?

 

[thorin]

Completely seriously put it in a ziplock bag and put it in the freezer for a few hours, take it out hook it up and quickly get yoru data off of it.

? Here's the URL: 200 Ways to Revive a Hard Drive
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Thorin