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Fridge thing??? LOL! Hm... Ok, so - here's my suggestion:
Since it's an external Hard Drive, take it out of the hard drive enclosure and install it directly into your PC - who knows, your USB port could be shot. If that's the case, you'll be able to use the drive internally. If it's not a problem with USB but drive itself, there's a program created by WinInternals that I had to use before to extract data from my crashed drive but it assumes your drive mechanism is still operational. If the drive motor is f*cked, obivously the only thing refrigeration would do is make it a really COOL dead drive. In that case you could use it to... keep your beer cold just a little longer.
Also, and this is absolute last effort - not recommended or guaraneed by any means. What I had done before as a last resort - I took the drive apart. Initialy, the logic behind it was this: well, if it won't work - at least I'll see how it looks inside. After taking it apart and plugging it back in - it worked!!! I put it back together and it has served me for 3 more years. I guess it just needed some fresh air.
back to my initial suggestion. When you do take your external drive enclosure apart, you'll find standard drive inside (unless it's one of those small laptop drives.) If it's a laptop sized drive (2.5in) you'll need an adapter to make standard IDE cable fit your 2.5IDE interface. Those run about 5 bucks and sold in most computer specialty stores or online. when you plug your drive in, I'd recommend keeping your "bad" drive and "good" drive on separate IDE interfaces. You may have to temporarily disconnect some of your other IDE devices, depending how many you have inside, etc.
Once you have your drive connected, go int your system bios and see if the drive is even recognized by your bios. If your BIOS see the drive, consider yourself partially lucky - as you may still be able to pull shit out of it. If not, well... rest is a murky and risky territory that I wouldn't recommend to anyone but myself.
So, when that drive is inside, assuming your BIOS see it - bring it up your OS (again, I'm assuming you're running WIN variant of sorts). Linux steps are not covered and you'd want to recover it in Win-based system anyway.
So, if OS sees it - well, problem is almost solved. You might see it right away or you might have to tinker around to get your OS to recognize it.
One thing you have to watch out for - when your system is just booting up, I'd recommend listening for any kind of mechanical noise comming from the drive itself. Any clanking or unusual sounds and loud(er) noises like "tick tick tick tick tick" may be indication of mechanism issues. If it does not make any noise, place your fingers on the drive and if you feel it spinning up or moving - you have a chance that drive can be recovered from. If it does not make any noise nor do you hear or feel any vibration from drive spinning/up down or mecanism movement - electronics on that drive are shot. You can sometimes transplant electronics from another drive but it is highly complicated and risky procedure. I've done transplants of platters from one drive (dead) to another (alive) and was able to get it to work. but this is not recommended and highly risky. I take no responsibility for any problems arising from this desparate move.
good news is that drives don't usually just drop dead. If that's the case - usually it's drive electronics that are f*cked. In those rare cases you may still be able to recover, but again - advanced fu*cking around is involved. If you do manage to get your drive to work in windows, get your crap as fast as you can using something like symantec ghost or another copy utility. Ideally, though, you should use WinInternals ERD Commander. Keep in mind that bad drive recovery can sometimes take DAYS to get data off. So, be patient, if needed. I'd recommend disabling any utilities that may access your dead drive directly. As a matter of fact, WinInternals ERD commander disk is ideal, because it boots your system into WindowsPE environment, which is basically OS running from CD - this way nothing extra is loaded and you don't risk your drive being stressed any more than it has to be by programs like antivirus, defrag utilities, or FBI programs that are most certainly spying on you. (what, you thought that Bush only limited his illegal spying activities to wiretapping only? HA! HA! HA!)
Oh, and if you do end up recovering using my method, my usual fee applies - 100% of your pr0n made available for download.
Thank you for using emc^2 support hotline, where our moto is "We're not too proud to work for pr0n". 
Cheers
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| quote: | | No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true. |
--Steve Jobs (1955 - 2011)
Last edited by emc^2 on Apr-03-2006 at 20:43
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some crappy dvd rips are somewhere on the drive but it all sucks... damn, I need to start exploiting the net again. haven't done so since audiogalaxy days...
