Recovery issues with failing hard drive

[David Murphy]

I wondered if anybody could help me.
I recently replaced a mates hard drive as he had dropped his laptop which caused mechanical failures on his hard drive as well as read error's.
I have been trying to recover some of his video's and pictures from the hard drive but when I use recuva it get's as far as '24 files found - 0% complete" and stays there for as long as it's left.
I wondered if anybody had any tips for other ways to recover data from the drive?
Some of the videos and pictures on there are him at his training / fights and some of his kids and there aren't any other copies of them any where.
The drive is a 1TB Hitachi (No idea what HP were thinking when they put cheap nasty Hitachi drives in their systems but hey ho)

Thanks

 

[fzabkar]

A drive that has been dropped will very likely have heads or media damage, especially if it was spinning when at impact.

 

[USAFRet]

dropped his laptop

recuva it get's as far as '24 files found - 0% complete"

Sounds like a broken drive to me.
This is when you retrieve the files from the backup.

 

[David Murphy]

Has anybody read my post?
I know the drive is broken. I said that.
I know it has mechanical issues. I said that.
I know I need to back - up. That's what I am trying to do.
Hence asking for idea's.

 

[David Murphy]

This is when you retrieve the files from the backup.

If you read my post, I did actually state that there aren't any other copies.

 

[USAFRet]

Yes, we read it.
If you've tried any of the common recovery tools, and it doesn't work.....you are probably out of luck.

Sometimes a broken drive is simply...broken.

 

[USAFRet]

Back ups are what happens before problems happen.

 

[David Murphy]

Yes, we read it.
If you've tried any of the common recovery tools, and it doesn't work.....you are probably out of luck.

Sometimes a broken drive is simply...broken.

You read it and had no useful input, yet you still added input?
Don't use my thread to add to your post count please.

I came here to seek further advice simply because the conventional tools don't work and I wanted to know if people had luck with any other form of recovery.

For example once upon a time you could take out the disks and put them into an identical hard drive. Sadly this no longer works.
I was asking if people had any similar solutions they could offer me.
Really wasn't looking for people to suggest doing what I already did.

 

[David Murphy]

Also, why have you given yourself 'best solution' and marked it as solved?
You offered me NO solution and it isn't solved. Can you please undo this.

 

[USAFRet]

Also, why have you given yourself 'best solution' and marked it as solved?
You offered me NO solution and it isn't solved. Can you please undo this.

*I* didn't. It was selected by you.
It is now undone.

 

[David Murphy]

Also, why have you given yourself 'best solution' and marked it as solved?
You offered me NO solution and it isn't solved. Can you please undo this.

*I* didn't. It was selected by you.
It is now undone.

I didn't select best answer at all.

 

[USAFRet]

Also, why have you given yourself 'best solution' and marked it as solved?
You offered me NO solution and it isn't solved. Can you please undo this.

*I* didn't. It was selected by you.
It is now undone.

I didn't select best answer at all.

Might have been by accident, but...

 

[USAFRet]

In any case...there is likely not much you can do with that drive.
If you've tried the common recovery tools, and they don't work, the next option would be to contact a data recovery company. Likely not cheap.

 

[David Murphy]

Just because you said it's likely the end of it, doesn't make it fact.
I'm gonna take an educated guess and assume that there are people on here more educated and experienced on the topic than yourself.
How ever, your replies got me into that much of a bad mood and that annoyed that people are probably reading my replies right now and just thinking "Wow, this guy is a dick. I'm not gonna help him"
Just because you had no useful answers but decided to give these useless answers anyway.
So yeah, thanks a bunch for that.

 

[ex_bubblehead]

@David Murphy, you've been around here long enough to know that the rules require that you maintain a civil tongue in the forums and your behavior here is very close to crossing the line. Consider this a warning.

Both of the members that answered your question are experts in the field and their answers are correct. If the tools available at the consumer level are not sufficient to recover data from a dropped drive then it is time to engage the services of a professional data recovery service. It's likely that recovery will require the drive to be opened in a clean room environment, which only they possess. Be prepared to pay handsomely for the service, and do not expect 100% recovery. I also suggest that you stop your own attempts at recovery as the more you mess with it the less likely anything useful can be recovered, even by the pros.

 

[fzabkar]

I'm no data recovery expert, but I watch professional forums such as HDD Guru.

AIUI, multi-platter swaps are only ever necessary when the spindle motor is seized. If a head is damaged, then a head swap would most likely be required. If both a head and a surface are damaged, then continued use of the drive will make things a lot worse because the head will gouge the platter.

See the Manuals, Animations and Video Guides at the bottom of the following page:

http://hddsurgery.com

If the head is "weak" but the surface is still OK, then the professionals will switch off the bad head and use a hardware imager (eg DeepSpar Disk Imager, Atola Insight, Data Compass) to make a sector by sector clone. These tools are able to disable retries and sector reallocation so as to minimise the stress on the heads. Afterwards the headstack is replaced and the remaining surface is cloned. Headswaps require special skill which only comes from substantial practice.

Assuming your mate is OK with your DIY attempts and accepts the very real risks involved, then the best way for you to proceed would be to clone your drive, sector by sector, using a tool that understands how to work around bad media (eg ddrescue) and then run data recovery software against the clone.

Ddrescue can perform multipass cloning. It clones the easy sectors on the first pass, and attempts the more difficult ones on subsequent passes. It can also clone your drive in reverse, thereby disabling lookahead caching. It keeps a log, allowing it to resume after an interruption.

http://www.gnu.org/software/ddrescue/ddrescue.html

Ubuntu Rescue Remix:
http://ubuntu-rescue-remix.org/

Install Ubuntu Rescue Remix to a Flash Drive:
http://www.pendrivelinux.com/install-ubuntu-rescue-remix-to-a-flash-drive/

Clone a failing Windows hard disk with ddrescue on Ubuntu Rescue Remix:
http://keystoneisit.blogspot.com/2011/08/clone-failing-windows-hard-disk-with.html

 

[David Murphy]

I don't know why I keep using this webshite. Nobody ever actually answer's my questions.
I didn't ask for confirmation that a drive is dead. I didn't ask you to point me toward somebody else who can do it.
I asked if anybody knew of any other way of doing it.
Despite this I am presented with two people who know about as much on the topic as my dog but still claim to be experts telling me stuff that I have said several times that I already tried.

Please, refrain from answering any more unless you have an actual solution that I can try.
Again, I don't want confirmation of a dead drive. I am certainly not paying an army of bellends to do it for me and I really really don't care how 'professionals' would carry out this task.
Again, please do not reply again unless you have a relatively useful idea on how I can do it.

Thank you.