| Mar 12 @ 12:01 AM |
Portable HD
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youbetcha
Posts: 5,959
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The best PC tool I have ever bought is a portable HD case with the same size HD I have in my desktop. That way, whenever my puters start acting up significantly I just back up my files on the portable drive and format the onboard drive and start fresh. That happens about once or twice a year at the most. It use to happen a whole lot more often with the kids when they were younger, so I've had plenty of practice and that portable HD has made it so much easier to maintain the puters we have. 
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| Mar 12 @ 6:40 AM |
Portable HD |
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Gman762
Posts: 3,291
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Folks that do not back up their critical data have made me a lot of extra spending jing 
Once a computer owner corrupts their data by whatever means, I have a forensic tower that can normally read the drive whereas most computer shops cannot. In the event that there is a catastrophic failure of the drive, it starts at a grand to have someone like Ontrack to rebuild it.
An external HD with firewire or USB communication is the best way to back up data right now, particularly if one has multiple computers. It's cheap insurance too. Just back up the data and store the external HD in the vault, safe, etc. Be advised that these external HD enclosures normally do NOT have a fan and heat is a killer of electronics. Do not keep the external HD attached to the computer for extended periods of time and you'll be OK.
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| Mar 12 @ 11:36 AM |
Portable HD
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youbetcha
Posts: 5,959
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Gman thanks for the advice. That got me to thinking. I do have a laptop HD that became unreadable and unbootable. I bought a portable HD case for my laptop to try and read it using some software off of the net to no avail. I don't know if it's a mechanical failure or not. Is is safe to take it apart as long as I'm careful to see if I can fix it? I just want it to spin long enough to get a few files off of it. Any do it yourself suggestions? Thanks 
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| Mar 12 @ 2:19 PM |
Portable HD |
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Gman762
Posts: 3,291
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The software available off the web is ineffective unless you want to drop several grand and then get the training to use it. If the drive is not spinning or the styluses not reading the platters at all, there is no software made that can read the drive regardless.
I personally do not mess with hard drives that have had an electronic or mechanical failure. I leave that to specialists that use clean rooms and have all of the parts available in their labs to repair the drive. The drive simply goes out the door to Kroll Ontrack.
Your best, first option is to find the nearest guy that does forensic examinations to see if he can read the drive. If he can see it through a write-protection blocker with a good forensic tool, he can "preview" your drive and recover any files on a bit-for-bit basis. Any file recovered would have a perfect MD5 checksum. It could cost a couple of hundred, but you are the one that must determine how valuable the data is.
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| Mar 12 @ 6:05 PM |
Portable HD
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sealacamp
Posts: 3,136
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I Iomega pro has a fan. It is about the diameter of a quarter.
S
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| Mar 13 @ 12:31 AM |
Portable HD |
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youbetcha
Posts: 5,959
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Gman thanks for the info. I don't know what's on the drive and until I have extra money or can't find what might be there and really need it, the drive will stay in the portable case 
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| Mar 13 @ 7:27 AM |
Portable HD
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nah12
Posts: 3,973
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i don't know what you've tried or if you confirmed it to be a hardware problem or not but here is a link for general recovery info ...
Diagnose and Repair an Unbootable XP or Vista PC
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| Mar 13 @ 6:19 PM |
Portable HD |
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sealacamp
Posts: 3,136
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Great info nah, as usual.
Thanks
S
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| Mar 13 @ 7:51 PM |
Portable HD
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youbetcha
Posts: 5,959
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sealacamp btw thanks for the info on the portable drive with a fan
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| Mar 13 @ 9:06 PM |
Portable HD |
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youbetcha
Posts: 5,959
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I reinstalled the failing drive in my laptop and booted with the windows xp CD using the repair option, then ran chkdsk /p and am at 7% checking or recovery so far  this could be a good thang I hope  
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| Mar 13 @ 11:11 PM |
Portable HD
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youbetcha
Posts: 5,959
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It's moving extremely slow but it's now at 10%
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| Mar 13 @ 11:16 PM |
Portable HD |
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nah12
Posts: 3,973
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you're welcome Seal and thank you
YouBetcha if it stops and comes up with errors be sure to write them down and let me know what they are...
i have had to run it the second time occasionally......
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| Mar 14 @ 1:11 AM |
Portable HD
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youbetcha
Posts: 5,959
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nah it's a 20 GB 2.5 HD. I don't know how long that should take, but I'll let it go over night. It sounds like it is spinning at least
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| Mar 14 @ 11:57 AM |
Portable HD |
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youbetcha
Posts: 5,959
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Well I let it run all night and once in awhile it did some pretty loud clanking. It went as far as 25% completion and then gave me this:
"The volume appears to contain one or more unrecoverable problems.
C:\>_"
I do believe there is a mechanical problem, especially after hearing the clanking that would go on for a few minutes here and there.
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| Mar 14 @ 3:14 PM |
Portable HD
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nah12
Posts: 3,973
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occasionally noise can be it just running to keep it from sitting in 1 place too long as well (something called STIR ( think it's called))
any way you could try DFT
if code 0x70/0x72 drive is toast if 0x00 it's software
or
TestDisk
use a bootable thumbdrive or etc
or try the old throw HD in the freezer and let it get real cool and see if it will boot and if so grab it quick and run...
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| Mar 14 @ 4:53 PM |
Portable HD |
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youbetcha
Posts: 5,959
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nah thank you. I am going to start with DFT. I'll keep you posted on the progress
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| Mar 14 @ 5:16 PM |
Portable HD
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youbetcha
Posts: 5,959
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0x72 
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| Mar 14 @ 5:36 PM |
Portable HD |
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nah12
Posts: 3,973
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0x72
Device S.M.A.R.T. Error.
The Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology (S.M.A.R.T.) has detected a drive problem.
The drive may fail soon and should be replaced as soon as possible. 
sorry forgot link to code errors ..page 29 Link
you might try running the other one and see what it says............
[Edited on 3/14/2008 5:45 PM]
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| Mar 14 @ 11:16 PM |
Portable HD
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youbetcha
Posts: 5,959
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That TestDisk is too big for a floppy and I can't get any of my other drives to work in Win XP DOS. I can access the drives and DIR them but I can't CD them or type an executable file name or a path to it and get it to work. It says "access denied" or "The command is not recognized..." The same is true for the files I put on a CD or the files I put on my portable HD. I've pressed F6 during Win XP setup and nothing changes.
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| Mar 16 @ 4:50 PM |
Portable HD |
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youbetcha
Posts: 5,959
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I finally put the bad laptop drive in the portable case, plugged it into the USB port of my Desk Top PC and ran TestDisk from there. I have run it through "Deep Search" several times and it gets up to no more that 6% and hangs with the Read error message at ***... I have also run boot repair and Windows now regongnizes the drive but cannot access any files. TestDisk can only find a few files and a folder through the "Quick Search" option. After reading some of the info on the net about file recovery things are beginning to look pretty bleak at this point.
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