Michael REMY

hi !

while i was working (office activity so not very HD work/copy) on my computer, i have a strange freeze problem : my browser (where i worked) was frozen . It was the hard drive where the mozilla cache was.
After a short moment i quickly understood my whole hard drive will go failure !
and i heard strange noise : run and switch off motor/head/power.

now my HD does not run at windows boot... (i'm crying my heart of 750GB of personal data !!)

i got back the HD off the case and now i'm trying it with USB access using usb-sata cable connector.

When i switch on the HD, it's running a very short time (5s), but the OS (win7 x64) did not have enought time to rightly discover it (and all its partition) because the drive always switchs off on first USB drive detection !

then i unplug and replug the HD and the drive can very hardly (random i guess) been recognize by windows. Only one time i success to see again my partition/files list but not enought time to copy the files.

what should i do know ?

do you think if i access it with linux live CD, the HD may work better (enough time for a backup) ? Maybe linux will check/boot/discover the USB drive more quickly than windows does ? Maybe the HD mecanical system is less solicited under linux ?

thanks for help (sorry for my expression, i'm not born english)

my hard drive is :
brand : western digital
model : WD7500AAKS-00RBA0
DATE : 04 jul 2007 (so almost 4 years)
DCM : HBRNNA2ABB
SN : WCAPT0126312

kris23

welcome to HH!

to be honest, i dont think there is much more that you can do, short of actually sending the drive to someplace to have the data offloaded (which is probably extremely expensive)

you cant do much else... a mechanical failure just cannot respond to software very well.

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Michael REMY

once the drive is switch on, it can spin.
first disk access under windows make it power down.
once i unplug it, and replugit (to reload the windows usb detection) , then the disk can stay power on.
some little second i can click on partition letter and see the first root.
once i dbl clik into a folder, the disk goes in power donw ! (i tried 2 times) .

kris23

you can give the linux live CD a shot, but the odds of any success are slim.

but of course, since every case of drive failure is unique, we'll never know until you actually try!

give it a shot, but if it ends up not helping, you may want to look into hard drive recovery facilities in your area.

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Michael REMY

well,

guess what...i'm back with pretty good news :

1 - Four hours after my last post, i burnt a ISO live CD of linux (kubuntu 11.04 x86, KDE because very look like Win7 for no-gnome user !)
2 - i boot on the live CD (my fail drive is out and switch of, and no link USB yet)
3 - once linux is full CD-loaded into memory, i run the explorer (its pretty name is Dolphin, no more Konqueror like at my work on my old machine)
4 - i plug the HD on power (i remind you my HD is now a external usb because bring it out quickly of the case since the first failure)
5 - i wait the power look stable (like about 10s to be sure it will not suddenly auto-random switch off itself)
6 - then i connect the usb link to my case
7 - then...miracle...god is an opensource savior !
8 - linux autodetech my usb harddrive quickly (i'm pretty stomached because it did that at least x4 faster than Win7 usb detection and most wonderful of that : no more need to do the dish-mount thing in console with hand, last KDE release does that auto and quickly ! God must really be an opensource melting of strange things)
9 - now i can see the file structure, and begin to browse it, open subfolder (here i got a big fear because once i click on one file, linux try to read it instantly to make a preview thing, or catch details on the install. Why can't it just read the fXXXking mdr & fat to just display the file listing...well more fear that bad thing )
10 - then tadaaaaa, i can copy and paste elsewhere my folder (even ot the need to install ntfs writer, it runs/can wxrite on ntfs at start ! damn, my old-work must be very old....)
11 - i was able to copy/paste my precious data for about 20 minutes then.......the power supply was off again before my entire backup !!! damn it Opensource linux god is not a full savior, just an enticing people!)
12 - i decided to unplug and replug, redo the whole procedure, step by step .... but it won't run anymore ...not bad at all because i successed to backup around 70% of my very important work (most part of the rest was on a old bakcup of 1 month dated)

It could be the end of my story but....no !

13 - i came back under windows
14 - i redo the exact same procedure...
15 - and it ran again !!!!! Yeah !!!! god can be an opensoure thing at all ! it was just a question of time, hazard (principle of heretism, eclipse act...etc..)
16 - quickly i gone on my backup.............then about 5-10min later the hard drive switched off random again.... (i guess satan does exist in all case )
17 - i went to bed and told myself it must be tired like me !
It was really like something was heat, become hot (but no strange small at all, my nose is very good in that).
18 - now, during the morning (7 hours after last success windows boot), the hard drive rans again 20 minutes (same procedure), and i finished my backup.
and the drive shut down again, power supply is sleeping again....

Now, i'm waiting the opening of the IT-shop to quickly buy a new disk because i'm stressing of haveing my whole life on only on support.
Oh, by the way, the hard drive was not placed "à plat" (in french), guess i can translate by "not lay down", but it was stood up and the front connector panel was on the high (to the up).
Last time i checked the random power shutdown, i had notice it had better chances to run when the disk was in stand up position...strange behavior...strange failure for a not-mobile hard drive maybe it depends on the number of heads/platters (four in my case i think)

Thanks for all you message and help, and advice.
Even if God is not opensource, it still have improve linux since my last installation at my work ! Glory to Kubuntu (i know people hate KDE, not me..., Joke, kidding..)

Judas

i know that in those cases.. sometimes as a LAST resort...

you can stick the hardrive in the freezer overnight and then quickly pull it out and slap it in...

Alternatively i've done a rather terrible doner transplant from a failed head/platter hardrive of the same or similare model and took the circut board off it and stuck it on the other drive in order to attempt a recover... (it worked for awhile..)

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