HDD freezes up laptop

[Guest]

HDD freezes up laptop

Problem: My laptop will boot from its internal HDD but after reaching desktop, it barely reacts to anything.

Target: Getting my important! data from the hard drive because I didn't backup recently.

What I did:
- Bootet from Ubuntu-disk and tried to get the data. It was able to grab some files until it froze. Had to force quit the window. Tried again, got stuck at the same file again. Also: there are more than one file that makes it freeze.

- Made desktop PC boot from broken laptop HDD. Same reaction as my laptop. Windows starts but then barely moves on and freezes.

- Connected HDD to desktop and booted from standard drive. Tried to open broken HDD with explorer -> worked. When opening a few folders, the whole computer froze. Couldn't even move the cursor or anything.

- tried chkdsk with desktop on broken HDD. Whole computer froze in step 1 at file 11235. Hard Reset

- tried Recuva on broken HDD. Whole computer froze in step 1 at file 11235. Hard Reset.

What can I do to save my files?

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Hey there, aero92. Welcome to the community and happy new year!!!

I really hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you've tried all of the viable options there are in your case. It really sounds like the drive is having issues with particular files, which probably means that there are bad sectors, corrupting the data written on them and thus causing your HDD to freeze up your whole system when you try to access or copy any of them. You did pretty well by trying the drive with Ubuntu and a different computer as those are always my first suggestions. Unfortunately it seems like data recovery software won't work either. So in my opinion all you're left with, is a data recovery company, so you might as well go ahead and try that.

Hope that helps. Please let me know how it goes.
Boogieman_WD

 

[Guest]

Thank you for your answer!
Sad to read this. The broken files may be lost.

Another question on this:
I want to save what can be saved! ...but

How can I copy the non-broken quickly? Is there any program, which can skip broken files automatically or anything like that?

Using Ubuntu/Linux, I can copy the "good" files but whenever the process reaches a broken file, it will stop for 1-2 minutes, then pop up an error message. I would then click "skip this file" and it would try to go on. But there are just too many broken files, this just takes too long. It also makes linux very unstable when that error occurs.
Even if I just open a folder with a broken file in it, the linux explorer freezes and I have to force-quit the window.

Maybe you guys have a good solution to that.

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Unfortunately it sounds like you'd have to try recovering your data by going for small chunks so that you try to figure out which is the damaged portion of the files. On the other hand this is a bit risky as if the drive is damaged, the more you use it, the greater is the risk for you to damage it further, so a data recovery company would be the best option.
Basically it's up to you if you want to try and keep using the drive with data recovery software and Ubuntu or if you decide to go for professional help.
It's a tough choice. 🙁

Please keep me posted.

 

[Guest]

Isn't it possible that it's just a virus?

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Doesn't seem very likely having in mind everything you've already tried, but then again I've seen a lot of weird stuff so anything's possible. Note that in my opinion this is not the case. I'm afraid that a scan with your antivirus program might make things worse if it turns out to be physically damaged.

 

[Guest]

Doesn't seem very likely having in mind everything you've already tried, but then again I've seen a lot of weird stuff so anything's possible. Note that in my opinion this is not the case. I'm afraid that a scan with your antivirus program might make things worse if it turns out to be physically damaged.

I actually scanned it with kaspersky. Guess what happened after ~10% progress...

Yep, got frozen.

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Yep, the drive is definitely in a pretty bad shape, so probably any other scanning tool (data recovery or diagnostics) you try, will end up freezing the it. Basically you're left with trying to copy your data in small parts, at least the files you can actually transfer, or go for a data recovery company. Sorry there's no easier way out of this situation. 🙁

I hope you're able to recover your files.

 

[Guest]

I tried it again yesterday. Was able to recover ~2GB and skipped a few of those damaged files. After skipping around 10 or so, the Linux window froze and nothing happened for minutes. I then restarted the system, but from then on it was unable to connect the hard drive. Now, I can't copy anything anymore. Will go to a data recovery service now.

It's about all of my pictures from 2013 to 2015... I was gathering all pictures on christmas together, trying to get order in it and when I was done thought "oooh I'm gonna copy it to my external HD the other day..." Shit sucks balls, mate

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Yeah, I know how you feel. I've been in a similar situation myself and unfortunately I've heard a lot of other stories like this. Please do think of a backup solution for the rest of you files. Cloud service, another external drive (for a copy of the data you need backed up, not just for storing data), a copy of the files on a different computer - those are all viable backup options.

Hopefully the guys at the data recovery center are able to help you with that and you get all of your pictures back. Fingers crossed!

Please let me know how it goes. I'm rooting for you mate!

 

[Guest]

Alrighty, things have settled.
May you all learn from my shameful experience!

I had to give my hard drive to a professional. They charge me 916,- € in total.
+ buying my new SSD brings me to roughly a thousand bucks for this adventure. Not even counting all the stressful days I had, which haven't been fun at all. The dozens of hours I wasted searching for a solution.
That money could have also bought a shiny new laptop, a flight to Australia and back or a relaxing 2-week holiday somewhere.

If I just simply had made a copy of my files, none of this would have been necessary. I could punch myself into the face so hard right now. Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V, that's all it would have been.

Coming back to terms:
They guarantee I will get at least 90% of my data back. I will post here what that's gonna be in the end.

But right now, I have to kill myself first.

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Yeah, it's truly unfortunate, but at least you'd be able to get your data back, hopefully. I know it's hard to look on the bright side right now, but some people are not that lucky.