Everyone's a computer expert until.............................

George_10

drive in another computer. If that doesn't work, you will need to give it to a hard drive retrieval company. All they do is take the platters out of the bad drive and put them into a similar hard drive, read and copy the contents. I was quoted about $500 when I was looking into it. The reason for the expense, is that it has to be done inside of a clean room and everyone does not have one of those. A google search will surely find someone in your neck of the woods.

Also you have learned the hard lesson of backup. I went 15 years before it happened to me, and now I back up weekly.

Computers are wonderful, but the little people who reside in them can play havoc with your computer world. I keep a gold coin on top of mine so that they leave me alone.

Good luck,

George

Mad Dog

your computer crashes................................

Does anyone know of a person who can retrieve files off of a hard drive. I need a person who specializes in this. Alot of well-meaning "experts" have looked at it, and give up. I've got a guy looking at it now who's dragging his feet. Dan's knows a lady who said she could look at it, I'm keeping her in mind when I get it back. I've been told by many that it can be done, does anyone know of someone who specializes in retrieval. Mad Dog

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Ex Maine Doug

Just did a Google on

> Does anyone know of a person who can retrieve

> files off of a hard drive. I need a person who

> specializes in this. Alot of well-meaning

> "experts" have looked at it, and give up. I've

> got a guy looking at it now who's dragging his

> feet. Dan's knows a lady who said she could look

> at it, I'm keeping her in mind when I get it

> back. I've been told by many that it can be

> done, does anyone know of someone who specializes

> in retrieval. Mad Dog

>

> _A

> HREF="http://www.heatinghelp.com/getListed.cfm?id=

> 299&Step=30"_To Learn More About This

> Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in

> "Find A Contractor"_/A_



Hard Diak Recovery and it came up with many pages.

Tim Gardner

I'm a computer programmer. The answer is that it depends on the situation. It may be as easy as using the right utility, or as easy as popping the drive in another computer and reading off of it, or as hard as having to send it away to a lab and pay big bucks to get it back. And in some cases, it is not recoverable. Any more details?

Dave DeFord

Mad Dog...

I had this done a little over a year ago it cost $ 3000 but was done within 48 hours. The company's name is Data Recovery Specialists and their phone number is 888-421-2464. I belive that this is their Southfield (Detroit) Michigan office but they can probably direct you to an office in NY. You might also look in the yellow pages under data recovery or search the Internet.

Bill_14

You might try these guys $$$

http://www.drivesavers.com/

Dell Computer recommends a couple of companies for this work, but I have lost their names.

heretic

Hard Drive

Are you sure it is the hard drive? Other components can fail that will make your computer unable to boot.

If it's an operating system or data corruption issue that is making it unbootable, your chances of resolving it are fairly good.

If the drive has physically gone bad, there are a gazillion outfits that specialize in data recovery, but it is not cheap.

Mad Dog

Thanks for the rapid response

as I said, the "experts" who have looked at it have said: Hard drive is shot, the cold weather had nothing to do it with it (The computer was subject to single digit weather when someone switched the boiler off overnight). Another expert said the cold definitely had something to do with it, and that it was hopeful to retrieve data, but that he can't do anything without the "administrative password". My whole computer was set up a few years ago by a friend and I have no idea what the password is. Its all automatic when I sign on. I know! I'm a computer illiterate and i am learing the hard way that I will need some training going foward. The guy that has it now is a nice guy but is taking forever to return calls and sees no urgency in getting this fixed. Mad Dog

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Mad Dog

Thanks George...as usual...

I'm gettin' me a reeeeeel good edumacaton here at the Wall. Mad Dog

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scrook_2

try...

www.ontrack.com though it may cost you more than a very nice new computer depending what it takes to salvage the data from the drive, plus the data may not be complete, depending on the failure mode. If it's only an issue of hacking/finding the admin. password or bybassing the operating system completely and just grabbing the data files it may not be too bad though.

George_10

A good retrieval company will not have any trouble with your

pass word protected machine. They can hack anything.

Again keep a little notebook of pass words and user names. It is very easy to forget. Backups and a notebook are a very important part of good computer management.

Mike T., Swampeast MO

First, I'd install it in another working computer. You may have to set jumpers on the drive to tell the computer that it is a secondary or slave drive. Some computers automatically determine drive status by their relative position on cables or other means so check the computer literature. You may well find that it seems to work fine but can't boot a machine. If so, I'd copy the data to another drive.

If this won't retrieve the data Norton (and I'm sure others) make some pretty hardcore utilities to "repair" drives--or at least get most of the data back--often with files intact and properly named.

In the old days of DOS you could access a BIOS routine that would frequently resurrect a drive that appeared a total loss, but with today's large drives and new file systems I don't believe this works in most cases.

Good luck and MAKE BACKUPS REGULARLY!!!!

Dave DeFord

Does your computer boot up?

If it does you don't need to have the data recovered - it's a much less serious problem. I was under the impression that your hard drive had crashed. If you need to, call me at 888-986-6546 x 301 and I'll see what my tech guys can come up with.

Mad Dog

Thanks....as of now,

I'm getting it back tonight. The guy that had it, said it is loaded with viruses, but should be retrievable, but that he can't get to it till the weekend. Now, my brother says he's got a guy who can do it...we'll see...I'll keep ya posted fellas. Thanks Matt

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Ric Murray

passwords

Hey Mad Dog, going to Anaheim? If you never had to enter a password that means the admin password was most likely left blank (no password entered) they can start out logging in as "admin" and leaving the password box empty, it will probably work, but I would try plugging the drive into another computer along side the existing drive in that other machine and see if you can get the data off it. When you set up your next machine order a 2nd hard drive, same size as the c: drive and set windows to back up to the other drive evey night. Hard drives are so cheap now that it's criminal not to back up everything.

Murph'_4

sorta like

the guy who had his buddy come in to look at his steamer!!

hit the water bypass and it crumbled in front of him......



Murph'

Uni R

Mad Dog

For the future, if you want to protect yourself against major problems than can cost $3K do the following.

1. Do not use IBM Deskstar (deathstar) hard drives, they WILL fail.
2. Install a second harddrive.
3. Have both harddrives partitioned so that they each look like two drives (2 logical drives on each physical drive).
4. Buy a copy of PowerQuest Drive Image 7 ($70 or less).
5. Keep your system files and application files on the first partition of the first drive and keep your data files on the first partition of the second drive.
6. Have somebody set up Drive Image so that it occasionally copies the system files to the second partition of the second drive and FREQUENTLY copies the data files to the second partition of the first drive.

This way if either hard drive should fail, the other harddrive has a good copy of it that can be used to quickly set up a new hard drive. Big time saver and time is money.

Now if somebody steals your PC or it burns you're pooched but you can protect yourself against this but using Drive Image by regularly storing the data partition onto something removable as well and then storing that offsite where it can be secured.

It's amazing how PCs require just as much planning as mainframes do once they became an integral part of the business. I think safety nets were invented right after the first big trapeze splat.

Mad Dog

WOW! Thanks man, as usual a wealth of info here @ the wall

Mad Dog

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Mad Dog

Thanks Ric,,,no Anaheim this year

mad dog

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anthony_7

I know it sounds funny but did you try this!


I have been in the computer field for over 10 years, mostly networking etc. A trick someone showed me on failed drives or not starting up is to....ready. Put it in the freezer for about 5-8 minutes. What happens is the platters on the drives get stuck and by putting them in the freezer it contracts them thus letting them to spin up. Its worth a shot.

Otherwise if you want to try one of the recovery company they even can not guarantee your recovery a data and you do spend with them.

If you decide what you lost is worth the $$ spending than fine. If not suck it buy another drive (western digital 7200rpm) and get a cdr and BACKUP your files!!

Good luck!

Mad Dog

huh?????? whachoo talkin bout willis???

splain Mad Dog

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Uni R

Anthony

I always thought the freezer trick was for failed motors. Head crashes cause just enough corruption that the PC won't boot. Often you can boot with a different drive and then look over at it unless the FAT or NTFS equivalent has been toasted. I'd estimate 99% of drives now fail due to head crashes...

Mad Dog

Thanks Antny

Mad Dog

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Mike T., Swampeast MO

Another bad problem with IBMs (and MANY others)

They used some REALLY cheap Chinese electrolytic capacitors on their motherboards. Unlike the Deskstar "problems" IBM actually admits that this one exists.

These are the capacitors that look like little beer cans generally clustered around the CPU. They swell and/or leak and/or give off a burned odor. Problem often starts with application program freezes during intense graphics and progresses to operation system instability and boot failures.

These were the exact symptoms on my computer and had progressed over nearly eight months--slow, creeping and insidious--just the kind of problems that I've long associated with Windows "accumulating" over time.

Fortunately my computer was under warranty and IBM was very helpful and shipped a new motherboard immediately.

It seems this problem is going to affect LOTS of computers made in recent years and from MANY manufacturers.

If your computer has been a bit erratic and you've been blaming Microsoft and cussing about having to do a reload I'd suggest you examine the electrolytic capacitors on your motherboard. They should be PERFECTLY flat on top with ZERO evidence of ANY leakage or discoloration.

Some say the problem is coming from poor quality of Chinese materials and quality control. Others say they utilize yet another stolen forumla/patent that the Chinese didn't get quite right...

jim_14

try to network 1 or more

computers together and regularly backup info from computer "A" to computer "B". That way you have most of your info on a seperate hard drive.

Unknown

Matt , is it

a desktop or laptop computer ? I had a bad crash once , with a desktop Compaq . I took the hard drive out and installed it into another Compaq and retrived all the info I needed . It took the better part of a day to do it , I wasn't too computer literate then ( and not too much better now ) .

I have a laptop now , and I recently bought an external hard drive . It can be setup to automatically copy any critical files you store on the computer . Good luck with the retrieval Matt .

Dan Peel

Hey Murph

That's the way I've been reading this thread too. Sorry to hear about your computer - lost data is no joy. This thread does have the same tone and ring as many of the "my boiler's broke and none of the people I called can fix it" threads that show up on the wall. Good luck with that drive, next time you'll be lookin' for a stainless steel, condensing, weather tollerant drive.....Dan

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Jim Bennett

Computer repair

I have a second computer in the basement so I can check email and read the Wall when the kids are playing games on the upstairs one.


About once a month it fails to boot and gives me a "No drive installed" error, at which time I give it a "Dope Slap".

It Works!

Mad Dog

Thanks Jim god idea.

Ok I got the computer back tonight. Guy said worst virus attacks he's ever seen, but that he thinks it can be salvaGED tomorrow it goes to another so called expert. I'll keep ya posted. MD

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Mad Dog

Thanks Jr....it is a desk top

I just got it back from a guy who said it had many many viruses, but that stuff should be retrievable. Got another "expert" looking at it tomorrow - As I said, everyone "knows" a computer "expert" until you have real problem like this, then they're all like...we'll, I never dun seen one this bad. Anyway, i hope this is the last guy to look at it - he'll be the 4th in 10 days. Its harder to find than a steam expert......The thing I want most is the almost 2000 digital pics I've ammassed. Thanks Ron

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Warmfoot

RAID!!

My computer guy recently installed a second hard drive in my computer and installed a system called "Raid". So whenever you save anything, it automatically writes it to both drives. If one of the drives ever fail, you have a complete backup on the other. If your interested in knowing more about it, let me know and I will give you his number.

Ernie Bogue

Master Hydronics LLC

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Barry_2

If you need one more "expert" to look at your hard drive, my brother-in-law is a computer "wiz" who specializes in that sort of thing and he's located on the island. If you remember, we were sitting next to each other at Dan's December seminar in Plainview. Drop me an e-mail if you're interested and I can give you his contact info.

superMARKet

Thoughts from an ex-computer guy

This is long. You've been warned.

The answer is "sometimes."

It also depends on what you want to do with it. Sometimes you can recover files fairly easily but running programs from the disk might be more trouble than it's worth without wiping it clean and starting fresh.

If the disk had a physical problem, your chances of recovery are slimmer, but you can always try one of those multithousand dollar recovery experts. Some physical problems are intermittent (or temperature-dependent). I've had success in the past with getting things off a finicky disk in 5-minute increments, then pausing to turn it off, give it a breather, and sip some coffee.

If you can't use your computer because critical components were deleted or "messed up" (I'm being purposely vague because a lot of things could be at fault - viruses, bugs, and all kinds of other things, nasty and innocent) then you have a shot at getting your documents back at the very least.

Pick your computer guys carefully, because they specialize. There are some pretty good jacks of all trades out there, but there are also a handful of **** of all trades. You wouldn't want to ask a web designer to do a system administrator's job just like you wouldn't want to have a gas guy service the oil burner. A lot of the time, it's easier for computer guys to just tell you that they're computer guys without telling you exactly what they do - when I was in that field, I'd usually just brush it off by telling people I ran the Internet and left it at that unless they wanted to know more.

A broken computer is like a mystery, and two broken computers are rarely broken in exactly the same way. I (or anyone else) could rattle off war stories all day hoping to give you tips, but without seeing it or knowing more, they're really just wide-**** guesses. (Sound familiar?)

One more thing, and this goes for y'all: if you have any amount of important information on the computer, and I assume that many of you do between customer accounts, bills, quotes, the all-important photos, and maybe even ordering, you owe it to yourself, your business, and all who rely on it to protect your data. The next time you buy a computer, ask for someting called "RAID," which is the best insurance you can buy against the physical (read "difficult to recover") type of failure. Instead of one disk, you have several (as few as two) backing each other up automatically so that if one of them conks out, you're still good to go.

How does it do that? Magic!

RAID is not a product that anyone's pushing, it's a technology, and it comes in all shapes and sizes and for all kinds of computers - just don't get "RAID-0" or "RAID-zero" because that's really something else that actually diminishes data integrity.

Shouldn't you still make backups? Sure. But, let's face it. Despite the great advice to make backups that everyone's heard and everyone dispenses, we all know the cold out-on-cad-cell truth: nobody does it, and most of those that do don't do it often enough. Hell, even the people who tell you to make backups are thinking "do as I say, not as I do" most of the time. RAID doesn't keep you safe from viruses and it won't tuck your kids in at night, but it's not expensive compared to the computer you're already sinking cash into, and it makes for good peace of mind.

(Of course, you should still make backups. Do as I say, not as I do.)

I'm in New York if you've got questions.

Mark

Murph'_4

hey Matt

> Ok I got the computer back tonight. Guy said

> worst virus attacks he's ever seen, but that he

> thinks it can be salvaGED tomorrow it goes to

> another so called expert. I'll keep ya posted.

> MD

>

> _A

> HREF="http://www.heatinghelp.com/getListed.cfm?id=

> 299&Step=30"_To Learn More About This

> Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in

> "Find A Contractor"_/A_

Murph'_4

hey Matt

with the technology changing so fast, why not just build a new oneget someone to retrieve your files and reload a new program, I would say xp-pro for windoze based OS, should get this done for under 10 bannanas, well under unless you wanna shoot the budget and get new periphials, you can still reload all your programs and update everything (like you outlook hint,hint). wonder where all the puter gurus are on this post (other than anthony)??



Murph' (WOOF!!!)

Uni R

Dope Slap

Jim, you might want to open the case and make sure that the harddrive cable(s) are all seated nicely (flat ribbon looking cables). Also, if they connect to a separate drive controller, make sure that it is seated nicely in its slot.

Dan_8

RAID is the thing

This is a pretty big thread but I'll toss in my two cents...

RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks) is definitely the thing to have. These days it's also quite cheap. Just the cost of a second drive and a controller (maybe ~$200-300) plus some sort of labor if you aren't wise in the ways of computers.

A good or even decent RAID-1 (mirroring) solution allows one drive out of a two drive set to fail and the only reason you know about it is that the machine says "Hey, a drive failed, will you get another one please" or something equally helpful like a wailing beep that drives you nuts. You shouldn't even have to stop what you're doing let alone go into disaster recovery mode.

Dell (and most everybody really) now offers RAID as an option on some of their consumer level desktops and I've been strongly suggesting it to all of my clients when I build any computer for them. I don't even give them a choice when I build important ones. It's just so simple, cheap and safe for their data that there's no reason that they shouldn't have it.

One thing to remember about RAID though is that it isn't a replacement for backing up your files and getting them off site somewhere. It won't protect your data from a fire or a baseball bat or an inadvertent 'Oops'. If you're really serious about protecting your data add a CD-R drive (or DVD-R if you have too much to fit on a CD) and take that data off site somewhere. Also, if you do that, don't use the same rewritable media every week. Bite the bullet and use write once media and use a fresh one every time you take the data off site and leave it there. Media is cheap (effectively free in the case of CD-Rs) and you're better off hedging your bets with many copies than with one that keeps getting re-written.

Mark J Strawcutter

what he said, plus

The term "disk crash" has come to be pretty generic and is used to describe lots of things. The read/write heads on disk drive "float" above the magnetic surface on a cushion of air. The distance between the head and media can be smaller than a particle of smoke.

When something goes wrong and the head touches the media it is said to "crash" and usually chews off a section of the media around the platter.

But disk failures can also be caused by lots of other things. Electronics failure on the drive, controller failure (usually on the motherboard), or even just corrupted files that keep your system from booting but this really isn't a disk failure per se. Others have done a very good job of suggestions on how to overcome each of the types of failures.

Mark

Terry H.

Mad Dog

I used to be a computer tech, and when I had a customer loose a dirve due to motor or head problems I'd always send them to a company called ontrack. You can reach them at www.ontrack.com these guys can do wonders. I even had the opportunity to use them myself when we lost a server with no backup. They got everything back 100%

Let this be a lesson to everyone back-up your computer frequently. If it's to much of a hassel get a tape drive and it will do all of the work.

Hope this helps

Terry H.

Wayne_12

I second OnTrack for data recovery. I had a hard drive failure caused myself. Had several locals look at it with no luck. Luckly the last one suggested I contact OnTrack.

Hand delivered the hard drive to the facility in Minnesota.

Still had to wait a long time, since my hard drive crash occurred just prior to a thanksgiving day falling on a Wednesday.

I can relate to the pain. Back up often was the lesson learned. I purchased a disk backup program from the computer guy that suggested OnTrack. Expensive lesson.

Good Luck WD

jerry scharf

how you gat here is as much part of this as where you are (long)

Mad Dog,

I know your pain. 25+ years in the computer world, and I have sooo many things like this. Some were manufacturer problems, some were abuse problems, some were random failures...

Tip 1: Don't let 75 people try something with your drive. Depending on the amount of damage, each time someone tries to help, they could be doing more damage. When you're stuck, get one person once (or maybe twice if you're brave) and then it off to the pros. They're amazing in what they can recover.

Tip 2: Weekly backups. There are any number of ways to do backups. My current best recommendation is getting a DVD writer and have someone assigned to do this every week. If you have a safe in your office, store it there. Feeling really paranoid, do the backup twice and store the second one off site. Nothing can replace weekly backups. If you want, I can send some more specific recommendations of things I do. You might even find a deal for using a DSL line and backing them up on-line.

Tip 3: RAID is nice, but limited. RAID is cool and raid is cheap, but it doesn't help for a bunch of things. The office fire is the disaster case, but the 98% case for needing to restore files from backup is the delete, try something, what's going on, awe sh#@ cycle. Don't want to count the times I've done this. Freeing up diskspace is a favorite time for this to happen.

Tip 4: Run a virus checker on your system all the time. They don't catch everything, but they're still very useful. If you have a high speed network conneciton, run some king of firewall. You may want to run a local firewall (built into XP, 3rd party for older systems) on a dial up connection. I little bit of annoyance now and then is a whole lot better than resolving the damage of a virus.

I am happy to try to provide other suggestions, but the wall is probably not the right place.



larger comment

Mad Dog, you're dealing with something that you really don't understand well. It's broken and you want it fixed, but you really don't want to take the 25 years I have put in to understand the details of what's going on. You just want it fixed.

You go and seek expertise to help you, but you're completely stumped on how to find competent expertise. So you talk to a couple people and they point you at someone who knows more about this than you. How could you tell a pro from a fast talker from a flake? How much do you have to pay to get this fixed? How do you assign the value to the things you want (you actually started this, which is commendable.) Would you pay Hot Rod's $2 per minute charge for this?

The parallels to the prior discussion on how much should a HO pay to get his boiler replaced is striking to me. I would have to say that the computer world is far worse off in this respect than plumbing/heating, at least there are some codes that you need to meet.

People who service computers (no one build them anymore) run into the exact same things you guys do. I don't do that, but I've been no-payed by the second largest bank in Europe. I've flown across the country on an agreement only to have the person change the rate and say take it or leave it. I left it. I've followed "experts" who took tens of thousands of dollars from companies and lest them with a sales job for some box they probably would get a kickback on. I've made a decent living through all this, but there were weeks where about all I could do was spit. Probably most anyone who doesn't work for a paycheck have gotten this from time to time.

I'm with Dan on this, the key is finding ways to give people your perspective and help them come to a reasonable decision on what they value. It's certainly more work, but I think it is what sets people apart from the crowd. Once you're clearly different, people will be much more likely to pay you more, you've earned it by helping them make a clear decision.

jerry