Question Failed hard drive, need help

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twister86

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Jan 3, 2014
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My pc (case) started making a weird noise, I immedietly powered it off, so nothing bad was going to happen and the noise stopped.
When I powered it off, the screen "froze" like a mixed colored lines on the screen purple-ish and bunch of others, and then it shut down.

After waiting 10 minute, I started the PC again, and it can't find my hard drive (HDD)

I have 2 drives in the pc, 1 is installed on windows (C:), that means it were able to boot up, but my other (internal) drive (E:), that I use for data storage (it is higher capacity, seagate model) can't be found in "my computer" anymore.

After opening up disk management (diskmgmt.msc) it found an "unknown" drive, that i assume is the one that failed.

it shows a disk icon with a red arrow pointing down, and called Disk 1 in bold letter
under that, it says unknown, 128,00 GB, not initialized
and next to it with a black stripe it says under unallocated

after that a screen prompted, to initialize disk using either MBR or GPT. i clicked down this window right away, i didn't wanna do something that i didn't know of.

after that, i googled my problem, i found various "causes" for this, and various "answers" and "fixes", which didn't give me any answer at all on what to do about this problem.

and most importantly, none of my searches found my exact problem, because i am 100% sure that this drive and that my drive that went missing, is larger then 128 gb, i don't know the exact space on it right now, but i used it as storage, so im assuming it was either a 1 tb or 2 tb drive. and I am even 99,8% sure that before this occured, i had precisely 128 gb free space on it. (which im assuming is the unknown allocated space) which was free before.

however before doing anything further that may worse the situation, i ask here and hope some (hard drive) expert can help me out.

cause yes, i had very important data and files on the disk i would like to recover,, or atleast parts or bits of it. (even if the files are corrupted, but atleast be able to view them)
if i can't fully recover the data, i want to see atleast the folders and files that were on it.
but i am hoping to do a full data recovery ofcourse, if thats possible. i can go to a store and get a new HDD and try copy/save whatever that im able to aswell.

so what should i do ? i dont want "wipe" it out by make a new format full wipe, and why is it showing 128.00 GB when the drive is obviously a lot bigger?
 
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twister86 said:
My pc (case) started making a weird noise, I immedietly powered it off, so nothing bad was going to happen and the noise stopped.
When I powered it off, the screen "froze" like a mixed colored lines on the screen purple-ish and bunch of others, and then it shut down.

After waiting 10 minute, I started the PC again, and it can't find my hard drive (HDD)

I have 2 drives in the pc, 1 is installed on windows (C:), that means it were able to boot up, but my other (internal) drive (E:), that I use for data storage (it is higher capacity, seagate model) can't be found in "my computer" anymore.

After opening up disk management (diskmgmt.msc) it found an "unknown" drive, that i assume is the one that failed.

it shows a disk icon with a red arrow pointing down, and called Disk 1 in bold letter
under that, it says unknown, 128,00 GB, not initialized
and next to it with a black stripe it says under unallocated

after that a screen prompted, to initialize disk using either MBR or GPT. i clicked down this window right away, i didn't wanna do something that i didn't know of.

after that, i googled my problem, i found various "causes" for this, and various "answers" and "fixes", which didn't give me any answer at all on what to do about this problem.

and most importantly, none of my searches found my exact problem, because i am 100% sure that this drive and that my drive that went missing, is larger then 128 gb, i don't know the exact space on it right now, but i used it as storage, so im assuming it was either a 1 tb or 2 tb drive. and I am even 99,8% sure that before this occured, i had precisely 128 gb free space on it. (which im assuming is the unknown allocated space) which was free before.

however before doing anything further that may worse the situation, i ask here and hope some (hard drive) expert can help me out.

cause yes, i had very important data and files on the disk i would like to recover,, or atleast parts or bits of it. (even if the files are corrupted, but atleast be able to view them)
if i can't fully recover the data, i want to see atleast the folders and files that were on it.
but i am hoping to do a full data recovery ofcourse, if thats possible. i can go to a store and get a new HDD and try copy/save whatever that im able to aswell.

so what should i do ? i dont want "wipe" it out by make a new format full wipe, and why is it showing 128.00 GB when the drive is obviously a lot bigger?
Click to expand...
Does it show in Device Manager and if it does click on Populate.
If you want to salvage some data don't let anything write to it.There are plenty of data recovery programs
https://www.majorgeeks.com/mg/sortdate/data_recovery_233b.html
But disk has to be mechanically and electronically sound and working.
 
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That's a lot of software. Which is better or recommended?

What do you mean sound and working?

How can I avoid write to it?

Do you know anything about the clicking noises it made and why it only shows as 128.00 GB in the disk management?
 
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twister86 said:
That's a lot of software. Which is better or recommended?

What do you mean sound and working?

How can I avoid write to it?

Do you know anything about the clicking noises it made and why it only shows as 128.00 GB in the disk management?
Click to expand...
First have to know results of Device manager > Disks drives > Volumes > Populate query and if that matches what HDD should be.
Clicking sounds (Click of death) could be a result or a cause depending on head or positioning coil failure or as a result of damaged file system or platters. Suggest you look up how HDDs work.
Best i SW is probably Recuva although some other frre ones may work too.
 
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I pulled out the harddrive from the case, and it says its a Seagate barracuda 3000 GB 7200 RPM one.

But it shows as 128.00 GB unallocated space in disk management.

Thoughts?

Does it mean that only 128.00 GB of the sectors in the drive is working, and the rest is lost because of bad sectors?

I'll plug it back in and check device manager > disk drives > volumes > populate query like you said.

Just want to know why it is showing 128.00 GB on a 3TB drive.

what does SW mean?
 
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twister86 said:
I pulled out the harddrive from the case, and it says its a Seagate barracuda 3000 GB 7200 RPM one.

But it shows as 128.00 GB unallocated space in disk management.

Thoughts?

Does it mean that only 128.00 GB of the sectors in the drive is working, and the rest is lost because of bad sectors?

I'll plug it back in and check device manager > disk drives > volumes > populate query like you said.

Just want to know why it is showing 128.00 GB on a 3TB drive.

what does SW mean?
Click to expand...
It may be showing just one of partitions, one that is in working order or just head stuck that far.
SW = SoftWare.
 
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But i only had one partition on it before, but i dont know if it was 2 tb or 3 tb (if it was mbr or gpt) ..

Googled some of this and found nothing really... seems i need to pay big bucks for a recovery company?

could recuva or any other software damage it even more if its already damaged?
 
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I did the populate query.. the drive is found in device manager.. however after populate it just shows the exact same stuff that the disk management show.

Also i swapped the drive to my other pc, and for some reason my C drive made an extra E drive, and the broken drive is now displayed as 3,86 GB unallocated size instead of 128.

i started run my programs also on this pc on it, macrium reflect couldn't even find the drive, aomei partition assistant woudln't even open up, and only minitool partition wizard was able to open up the program and found the drive. it is displayed as 3.86 GB (3.9 GB) black lined, MBR, Disk 1, says bad disk, and says logical (type).
 
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Yes I come to the conclusion that this problem can't be solved with online help here.

I will contact a professional data recovery service.

Worst come now after, because, when it just happened I just thought about getting it fixed and finding help online when I couldn't do it myself.
Then after that, I started think more and more about what I actually had on the drive. And it's too important that can't be lost.
So I need and will try contact a data recovery service.

So on about that,
have anyone had experience with that before? Anyone who done that?

Like, what is the price range?
I heard people around me told anywhere from $200 to $10,000-20,000. Would it really cost $20.000 to fix it?

Also, does anyone know the chances of a data recovery service to be able fix it?

I heard from 50% to visiting various data recovery websites saying they have 98-99% fix rate. (?)

Im also worried ive done more damage to it now for all the attempts to try fix it myself, it changed from 128 gb to 3.68 gb, and I also attempted to populate it in device management, and tried search to recover it on macrium, aomei, and minitool, aswell, did both a data recovery procedure and partition recovery procedure (both) on minitool wizard on it.

It still displays same, however though, as in 3.68 gb unallocated drive. (I didn't format it or allocated it).


...
A bit confused about the read/write stuff, says it's not recommended to write stuff to it if its damaged, does it "write" stuff to it if im doing data recovery procedure or partition recovery? Or is it just reading it? Reading it is no harm right? I only scanned it on minitool, i didn't proceed to change or do anything, because the scan also found 0 results (0 files) on the drive. RAW files (0).
 
Last edited:
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twister86 said:
Then after that, I started think more and more about what I actually had on the drive. And it's too important that can't be lost.
Click to expand...
This won't help with your current situation, but for future reference:

What is your backup situation at home?

What is your backup situation at home? And if you don't do that, why not? Every single day, I read multiple threads here of "How do I get my stuff back?" or "That drive had 5 years of photos of my kids!!" Be it a dead drive, dropped phone, virus, accidental deletion, formatting the wrong...
forums.tomshardware.com forums.tomshardware.com
 
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USAFRet said:
This won't help with your current situation, but for future reference:

What is your backup situation at home?

What is your backup situation at home? And if you don't do that, why not? Every single day, I read multiple threads here of "How do I get my stuff back?" or "That drive had 5 years of photos of my kids!!" Be it a dead drive, dropped phone, virus, accidental deletion, formatting the wrong...
forums.tomshardware.com forums.tomshardware.com
Click to expand...

I know it, it just make me depressed and motivate me more to try get it fixed.

I coudln't imagine of not having it fixed, even after reading and understand everyone says its a big possibiliity.
 
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Some years ago, I saw a tv show program about drives that have been restored from fire, burns, total smash, into pieces, etc.. I tried to search for this again, but to no avail.

I found this website that claims to have restored data from similar cases, involving fire damage, smash, shatted.
https://www.filesaversdatarecovery.com/desktop-computer-hard-drive-data-recovery.html

Is it true that all data drives are just 50% chance to be restored, or is there such an case as no " impossible" way to restore a drive?

My data center recovery here said they weren't able to restore it, and charged me a big fee instead.

I'm considering options to go abroad aswell if it is the case that truly nothing is impossible to restore.
Countries such as USA, china, Japan might be world leading at recovering data, thoughts?
 
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twister86 said:
Some years ago, I saw a tv show program about drives that have been restored from fire, burns, total smash, into pieces, etc.. I tried to search for this again, but to no avail.

I found this website that claims to have restored data from similar cases, involving fire damage, smash, shatted.
https://www.filesaversdatarecovery.com/desktop-computer-hard-drive-data-recovery.html

Is it true that all data drives are just 50% chance to be restored, or is there such an case as no " impossible" way to restore a drive?

My data center recovery here said they weren't able to restore it, and charged me a big fee instead.

I'm considering options to go abroad aswell if it is the case that truly nothing is impossible to restore.
Countries such as USA, china, Japan might be world leading at recovering data, thoughts?
Click to expand...

There are, of course, impossible cases. But it's hard to tell if yours is one of them or not or how competent the company you tried was. Some are more reputable than others.
 
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twister86 said:
Some years ago, I saw a tv show program about drives that have been restored from fire, burns, total smash, into pieces, etc.. I tried to search for this again, but to no avail.

I found this website that claims to have restored data from similar cases, involving fire damage, smash, shatted.
https://www.filesaversdatarecovery.com/desktop-computer-hard-drive-data-recovery.html

Is it true that all data drives are just 50% chance to be restored, or is there such an case as no " impossible" way to restore a drive?

My data center recovery here said they weren't able to restore it, and charged me a big fee instead.

I'm considering options to go abroad aswell if it is the case that truly nothing is impossible to restore.
Countries such as USA, china, Japan might be world leading at recovering data, thoughts?
Click to expand...
How much is this data worth to you?
$300
$3,000
$30,000

There absolutely are cases where it cannot be recovered.
 
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USAFRet said:
How much is this data worth to you?
$300
$3,000
$30,000

There absolutely are cases where it cannot be recovered.
Click to expand...

For me the value is priceless.

But how much I am willing to pay on my status, (of course if I was Elon Musk, I would pay $3,000,000-5,000,000 for it), my current status I am willing to pay up to $10,000.
 
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Yup, let's say lesson learned.

I have since the crash already ordered 4 external HDD and made 4 backups of my current files. (if the backup crash I have another backup)

The data recovery center said that the reader arm was bent, and that there were dust and scratches on the disc platters.

I don't know the likelyhood of recovery from that, and if that is just "only" a small damage or a quite significant damage.

The control board unit was whole and working though.

Just curious,
would this software http://www.runtime.org/data-recovery-software.htm be able to read the control board unit or get acces to it and able to lay map out a structure of the hard drive files without being able to touch them?

It say's it's not attempting to fix or "write" to the drive, just read only, but is the structure listed in the control board unit, or does the drive actually have to have a working reader arm to read it? The data recovery guy although he haven't tested, that there is a chance that a new reader arm will also bend if it try to read it due to the scratches and dust.
 
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twister86 said:
The data recovery center said that the reader arm was bent, and that there were dust and scratches on the disc platters.

I don't know the likelyhood of recovery from that, and if that is just "only" a small damage or a quite significant damag
Click to expand...
That is HUGE damage.
Arms don't just bend, dust doesn't just appear.
Recovery from that is as close to zero as you can get.

In use, there is about a 3 nanometer clearance between the head and the platter. Dust and a scratch that is eyeball visible == dead platter and dead data.

Unless this drive is the only copy of a known working cold fusion reactor....its gone.
 
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twister86 said:
Just curious,
would this software http://www.runtime.org/data-recovery-software.htm be able to read the control board unit or get acces to it and able to lay map out a structure of the hard drive files without being able to touch them?

It say's it's not attempting to fix or "write" to the drive, just read only, but is the structure listed in the control board unit, or does the drive actually have to have a working reader arm to read it? The data recovery guy although he haven't tested, that there is a chance that a new reader arm will also bend if it try to read it due to the scratches and dust.
Click to expand...
This won't work.
The data structure and file map lives on the platters.
 
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USAFRet said:
That is HUGE damage.
Arms don't just bend, dust doesn't just appear.
Recovery from that is as close to zero as you can get.

In use, there is about a 3 nanometer clearance between the head and the platter. Dust and a scratch that is eyeball visible == dead platter and dead data.

Unless this drive is the only copy of a known working cold fusion reactor....its gone.
Click to expand...

So replacing the arm reader won't fix it either?

He said the 128 gb and 4 gb partition that the disk management found in windows was from the control unit circuit board. But trying make a new partition wouldn't work he said.
 
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