Q. Greetings,
The hdd I have is a 2TB seagate external desktop drive. I dropped it, it worked on and off for a day, then stopped working altogether.
The symptoms are:
- damage on the outer casing (plastic for the external enclosure)
- Internally it looks undamaged
- It does spin
- It makes a "reading" sound like it's trying to access the drive, then beeps, tries again, then beeps, tries a third time, beeps and then stops trying (stops spinning)
- No recognition from the computer.
Will a new PCB help or is there more than likely mechanical damage on the inside I can't see? Any help is appreciated. It's got 1.7TB of movies on it so I'd like to recover it if I can. Thanks!
The hdd I have is a 2TB seagate external desktop drive. I dropped it, it worked on and off for a day, then stopped working altogether.
The symptoms are:
- damage on the outer casing (plastic for the external enclosure)
- Internally it looks undamaged
- It does spin
- It makes a "reading" sound like it's trying to access the drive, then beeps, tries again, then beeps, tries a third time, beeps and then stops trying (stops spinning)
- No recognition from the computer.
Will a new PCB help or is there more than likely mechanical damage on the inside I can't see? Any help is appreciated. It's got 1.7TB of movies on it so I'd like to recover it if I can. Thanks!
A. Definitely bad heads! And opening the drive in a non clean room environment will not help it's chances of being recoverable. Seriously, this is a data recovery case you can't/shouldn't tackle on your own, and the pros will charge you minimum $900 and possibly closer to 2K. I've been in data recovery for 15 yrs.
When you dropped it, the heads bounced off the disks and this caused dents and even particles of the disk coating to be freed into the sealed bubble. Now you have a motor spinning at 7200 rpm and a bunch of "rocks" being tossed around and a set of fragile heads trying to glide across a super flat surface. It doesn't take long for all h&ll to break lose and before long the heads have been damaged which in turn damages the disks and so on and so on till there is nothing left. Stop running it now to preserve any chance of recovery later.
We have very specialized techniques, knowledge and tools and still a case like this would take us 2-8 weeks depending on the severity of the damage .. and we would likely go through 3-4 sets of heads in the process.
So with all due respect, don't waste your time, your money and your best chance of recovery by trying it yourself. If you can afford the pros and your in Canada, try us .. www.memofixdatarecovery.com otherwise find someone you can trust as the industry has lots of vultures!
When you dropped it, the heads bounced off the disks and this caused dents and even particles of the disk coating to be freed into the sealed bubble. Now you have a motor spinning at 7200 rpm and a bunch of "rocks" being tossed around and a set of fragile heads trying to glide across a super flat surface. It doesn't take long for all h&ll to break lose and before long the heads have been damaged which in turn damages the disks and so on and so on till there is nothing left. Stop running it now to preserve any chance of recovery later.
We have very specialized techniques, knowledge and tools and still a case like this would take us 2-8 weeks depending on the severity of the damage .. and we would likely go through 3-4 sets of heads in the process.
So with all due respect, don't waste your time, your money and your best chance of recovery by trying it yourself. If you can afford the pros and your in Canada, try us .. www.memofixdatarecovery.com otherwise find someone you can trust as the industry has lots of vultures!
How do I erase all traces of something I already deleted?
Q. I've already deleted it, but I want to know how to delete everything I have ever deleted so well that it is truly gone, and nobody can get to it because I heard about this guy who, after deleting something, still got caught for watching "it" (with children btw) Mine does not have children, but my GF is an IT and I want all traces gone!
A. From the Way you posed your question it would seem that you may or may not have had some data stored on your Hard drive from a previous relationship that you have ended and maybe you don't want your new GF, who maybe you don't know that well and you believe that she plans to go cybersnooping on your computer breaking reasonable professional it standards, not to mention your trust... but that's beside the point. the point being that you have sensitive files that need gone with no reasonable way to recover them. for this i will give you two answers, one long and one short. the short gives only instructions, the long gives a technical analysis of why and what it does.
The Short Version:
Get A Freeware Targeted File Erasure software such as:
Eraser v.6.0.6.1376 found at:
http://eraser.heidi.ie/download.php
by default this program will be set to the most powerful mode.
since you have already deleted the files from your computer (and recycling bin, i hope) you would simply:
right click within the eraser program, and select add task.
this will bring up a window with several options. to solve your current problem:
select the run immediately radio button on the top portion
click the 'add data' box on the bottom portion of the popup.
this will bring up a menu that has four radio button choices, this time select "unused disc space"
for most people this option will have only one choice "Local Disc C:" or something similar. if your computer has multiple items on the list, it will be covered later.
after the radio button for unused disc space is selected and it targets the specified drive, click ok
you will notice that in that box you will now see something like Unused disc space (C:/) (default)
click add data box again.
if your computer has multiple drives/partitions, select the unused disc space option and repeat last instruction set for all remaining drives/partitions in the list. if only one drive was on the list, select the last radio option that says 'recycle bin' and click ok.
when you have added all of the free space locations and the recycle bin to your list, click ok again.
if you are logged in as administrator, the files will be eradicated.
by all reasonable rights, there should be no recovering the file(s).
The Long Answer:
Unfortunately for us, there is nothing in Existence that can accurately claim 100% data deletion, short of some serious collateral damage to the hardware on top of a top notch software deletion. sadly, if you chose to go that route, you would have no hard disk, you would have completely destroyed it. and even then i would only say that the approximate level of data removal to be somewhere in the ballpark of 99.9 repeating percent deleted. that being said, we can assume by all traces gone you mean all traces deleted to a reasonable margin given current on-the-market data recovery tools. for this, you would use a piece of software defined as a Targeted Secure File Deletion Manager, sometimes referred to as things such as permanent eraser, incinerator, you get the general idea. an example of this software would be a freeware program called Eraser. the file is located at: http://eraser.heidi.ie/download.php and is a decent program to use for a targeted file deletion for this purpose because it utilizes multiple methods of deletion including the 35-pass Gutmann Wipe technique, and several countries Government deletion methods in various forms. i would warn that whilst these programs are good at what they do, there is no telling what a truly dedicated individual with unlimited time and resources cannot recover. one of the guiding lights that the computer industry should follow is that, while using technology is simple and reasonably secure, we should NEVER say that something can't be done, because the minute we do, someone then has to prove us wrong. it has been the downfall of Microsoft for years to proclaim that their new software is the best yet, the most secure yet, and then be shot down by people. Mac users are only better off in this field because of apple's lack of market penetration into the global computing world. that's why i stick by the simple rule: Never say never when talking about computers. now because you deleted the files from your computer already (as stated in the O.P.) you will want to open the program and assign it the task of deleting the "Unused" or "Free" sectors of your hard drive. also, it's a good idea to task it to do the same with your recycle bin. if desired, you can set it to comb the free sectors on a schedule. you can Look security minded to your IT Girlfriend, to not make the program stick out in your programs list, by doing some fairly easy acts such as: password protecting your system, utilizing a "standard user" account for everyday use, and an administrator account for sparing use to install a program or make system changes. having a minimum of five password-Protected user accounts (even if you never use them.)
The Short Version:
Get A Freeware Targeted File Erasure software such as:
Eraser v.6.0.6.1376 found at:
http://eraser.heidi.ie/download.php
by default this program will be set to the most powerful mode.
since you have already deleted the files from your computer (and recycling bin, i hope) you would simply:
right click within the eraser program, and select add task.
this will bring up a window with several options. to solve your current problem:
select the run immediately radio button on the top portion
click the 'add data' box on the bottom portion of the popup.
this will bring up a menu that has four radio button choices, this time select "unused disc space"
for most people this option will have only one choice "Local Disc C:" or something similar. if your computer has multiple items on the list, it will be covered later.
after the radio button for unused disc space is selected and it targets the specified drive, click ok
you will notice that in that box you will now see something like Unused disc space (C:/) (default)
click add data box again.
if your computer has multiple drives/partitions, select the unused disc space option and repeat last instruction set for all remaining drives/partitions in the list. if only one drive was on the list, select the last radio option that says 'recycle bin' and click ok.
when you have added all of the free space locations and the recycle bin to your list, click ok again.
if you are logged in as administrator, the files will be eradicated.
by all reasonable rights, there should be no recovering the file(s).
The Long Answer:
Unfortunately for us, there is nothing in Existence that can accurately claim 100% data deletion, short of some serious collateral damage to the hardware on top of a top notch software deletion. sadly, if you chose to go that route, you would have no hard disk, you would have completely destroyed it. and even then i would only say that the approximate level of data removal to be somewhere in the ballpark of 99.9 repeating percent deleted. that being said, we can assume by all traces gone you mean all traces deleted to a reasonable margin given current on-the-market data recovery tools. for this, you would use a piece of software defined as a Targeted Secure File Deletion Manager, sometimes referred to as things such as permanent eraser, incinerator, you get the general idea. an example of this software would be a freeware program called Eraser. the file is located at: http://eraser.heidi.ie/download.php and is a decent program to use for a targeted file deletion for this purpose because it utilizes multiple methods of deletion including the 35-pass Gutmann Wipe technique, and several countries Government deletion methods in various forms. i would warn that whilst these programs are good at what they do, there is no telling what a truly dedicated individual with unlimited time and resources cannot recover. one of the guiding lights that the computer industry should follow is that, while using technology is simple and reasonably secure, we should NEVER say that something can't be done, because the minute we do, someone then has to prove us wrong. it has been the downfall of Microsoft for years to proclaim that their new software is the best yet, the most secure yet, and then be shot down by people. Mac users are only better off in this field because of apple's lack of market penetration into the global computing world. that's why i stick by the simple rule: Never say never when talking about computers. now because you deleted the files from your computer already (as stated in the O.P.) you will want to open the program and assign it the task of deleting the "Unused" or "Free" sectors of your hard drive. also, it's a good idea to task it to do the same with your recycle bin. if desired, you can set it to comb the free sectors on a schedule. you can Look security minded to your IT Girlfriend, to not make the program stick out in your programs list, by doing some fairly easy acts such as: password protecting your system, utilizing a "standard user" account for everyday use, and an administrator account for sparing use to install a program or make system changes. having a minimum of five password-Protected user accounts (even if you never use them.)
How do I recover my document files?
Q. Hey guys,
I made a mistake by trowing away some documents, like photos and such :(
I tried system recovery, but it didn't work, it did not bring back the files.
Does anyone know another way to get them back? You would really help me out here
Thanks,
Jason
I made a mistake by trowing away some documents, like photos and such :(
I tried system recovery, but it didn't work, it did not bring back the files.
Does anyone know another way to get them back? You would really help me out here
Thanks,
Jason
A. If you have already emptied your Recycle Bin then you can use any of these FREE Data Recovery Softwares and try to recover your deleted files....
Recuva : http://www.piriform.com/recuva
Recuva recovers files deleted from your Windows computer, Recycle Bin, digital camera card, or MP3 player. And it's free! Undelete files on your computer, Recovery from damaged or formatted disks, deleted emails & iPod music, Restore unsaved Word documents. Also Securely delete files you want to erase forever.
TOKIWA DataRecovery : http://tokiwa.qee.jp/EN/dr.html
DataRecovery is freeware to undelete accidentally deleted files even from recycle bin. Undelete NTFS compressed files & EFS encrypted files, wipe out deleted files never to be recovered again, runnable from USB memory or floppy disk, search by partial string in the file name, undelete whole files in a directory, undelete multiple files by selecting them with Shift/Ctrl key, sort items displayed by clicking column headers, rename file to be recovered by right-click on the file in the list, neither installation nor DLLs is needed
Pandora Recovery : http://www.pandorarecovery.com/download/
Pandora Recovery allows you to find and recover recoverable deleted files from NTFS and FAT-formatted volumes, regardless of their type - you can recover pictures, songs, movies or documents. Pandora Recovery allows you to preview deleted files of certain type (images and text files) without performing recovery. This feature becomes really important if you are forced to recover deleted files to the same drive. Currently you can preview files having several image file types (BMP, GIF, JPG, PNG, ICO,TIF, TGA, PCX, WBMP, WMF, JP2, J2K, JBG, JPC, PGX, PNM, RAS, CUR) and several text file types (TXT, LOG, INI, BAT, RTF, XML, CSS). Quick Viewer allows you preview file contents as text if it cannot find appropriate viewer for it. To use quick viewer you can select deleted file and or click the Quick Viewer icon or right click on deleted file and select 'Quick View'. Quick View will then display a preview of deleted file.
TestDisk, Data Recovery (Windows/Mac/Linux) : http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Download
TestDisk is a powerful free data recovery software! It is designed to help recover lost partitions and/or make non-booting disks bootable again when these symptoms are caused by faulty software, certain types of viruses or human error (such as accidentally deleting a Partition Table). Partition table recovery using TestDisk is really easy.
Features : * Fix partition table, recover deleted partition * Recover FAT32 boot sector from its backup * Rebuild FAT12/FAT16/FAT32 boot sector * Fix FAT tables * Rebuild NTFS boot sector * Recover NTFS boot sector from its backup * Fix MFT using MFT mirror * Locate ext2/ext3 Backup SuperBlock * Undelete files from FAT, NTFS and ext2 filesystem * Copy files from deleted FAT, NTFS and ext2/ext3 partitions.
TestDisk has features for both novices and experts. For those who know little or nothing about data recovery techniques, TestDisk can be used to collect detailed information about a non-booting drive which can then be sent to a tech for further analysis. Those more familiar with such procedures should find TestDisk a handy tool in performing onsite recovery.
Recuva : http://www.piriform.com/recuva
Recuva recovers files deleted from your Windows computer, Recycle Bin, digital camera card, or MP3 player. And it's free! Undelete files on your computer, Recovery from damaged or formatted disks, deleted emails & iPod music, Restore unsaved Word documents. Also Securely delete files you want to erase forever.
TOKIWA DataRecovery : http://tokiwa.qee.jp/EN/dr.html
DataRecovery is freeware to undelete accidentally deleted files even from recycle bin. Undelete NTFS compressed files & EFS encrypted files, wipe out deleted files never to be recovered again, runnable from USB memory or floppy disk, search by partial string in the file name, undelete whole files in a directory, undelete multiple files by selecting them with Shift/Ctrl key, sort items displayed by clicking column headers, rename file to be recovered by right-click on the file in the list, neither installation nor DLLs is needed
Pandora Recovery : http://www.pandorarecovery.com/download/
Pandora Recovery allows you to find and recover recoverable deleted files from NTFS and FAT-formatted volumes, regardless of their type - you can recover pictures, songs, movies or documents. Pandora Recovery allows you to preview deleted files of certain type (images and text files) without performing recovery. This feature becomes really important if you are forced to recover deleted files to the same drive. Currently you can preview files having several image file types (BMP, GIF, JPG, PNG, ICO,TIF, TGA, PCX, WBMP, WMF, JP2, J2K, JBG, JPC, PGX, PNM, RAS, CUR) and several text file types (TXT, LOG, INI, BAT, RTF, XML, CSS). Quick Viewer allows you preview file contents as text if it cannot find appropriate viewer for it. To use quick viewer you can select deleted file and or click the Quick Viewer icon or right click on deleted file and select 'Quick View'. Quick View will then display a preview of deleted file.
TestDisk, Data Recovery (Windows/Mac/Linux) : http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Download
TestDisk is a powerful free data recovery software! It is designed to help recover lost partitions and/or make non-booting disks bootable again when these symptoms are caused by faulty software, certain types of viruses or human error (such as accidentally deleting a Partition Table). Partition table recovery using TestDisk is really easy.
Features : * Fix partition table, recover deleted partition * Recover FAT32 boot sector from its backup * Rebuild FAT12/FAT16/FAT32 boot sector * Fix FAT tables * Rebuild NTFS boot sector * Recover NTFS boot sector from its backup * Fix MFT using MFT mirror * Locate ext2/ext3 Backup SuperBlock * Undelete files from FAT, NTFS and ext2 filesystem * Copy files from deleted FAT, NTFS and ext2/ext3 partitions.
TestDisk has features for both novices and experts. For those who know little or nothing about data recovery techniques, TestDisk can be used to collect detailed information about a non-booting drive which can then be sent to a tech for further analysis. Those more familiar with such procedures should find TestDisk a handy tool in performing onsite recovery.
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