Ask a Geeky Girl: When a Hard Drive Dies

Amanda writes:

So say, HYPOTHETICALLY speaking, your computer dies (as in, perpetual blue screen of death).  And NATURALLY you hadn’t backed it up.  (I know.  I know.)  And let’s say it had something important and irreplaceable on it (we’ll call it “baby pictures.”)  You take the hard drive out and hook it up to one of your working computers, hoping desperately that the computer died because of something else!  Something not hard-drive-related!  Then you get sad because your working computer cannot read the drive at all and it keeps making sad clicking and grinding noises.

I am aware that this makes us the poster children for the answer “back up your damn data!”  I know.  But in seriousness… what’s the next step?  Is there nothing about it that can be salvaged?  If one were to take it to a computer repair place might they be able to get something off it using their secret powers?  How expensive is that sort of thing?

If it were your baby’s pictures (and I know, it wouldn’t be… because your computer would be backed up) what would you do?

Recommendations of local computer repair places also accepted.

She goes on to ask about backup options (to prevent future hypothetical catastrophes). I’ll talk about those next week.

First of all, Amanda, don’t beat yourself up about this. Yes, we should all be backing up our data (especially the important hypothetical stuff). But we should also all be flossing regularly and eating lots of green, leafy vegetables. In other words, nobody’s perfect. I like to say that there are two types of people in this world (and, no, this is not a binary joke). There are people who have lost important data because a computer died. And then there are people who will lose important data because a computer died.

In other other words, this happens to a lot of people. And, unfortunately, the best way to make sure that it never happens is to deal with the fallout once and then become paranoid about your data.

With that out of the way, let’s talk about your options. A crying jag followed by a bout of heavy drinking is probably not an acceptable option, no matter how tempting. At this point, you really need to decide how much money you want to throw at your problem.

First of all: turn off whatever computer your hard drive is connected to. Leave your hard drive in a clean, dry area. Don’t even think about turning it on. Don’t jostle it too much. Don’t even look at it too long. Talk soothingly to it if you think that will help (it probably won’t, but it will make you feel better). Hard drive damage is often caused by something getting physically broken. This usually happens when something gets off kilter and the plates inside scratch against each other. Minimize further damage by protecting your hard drive from itself. Clicking and grinding noises are a dead giveaway that something is wrong with your hard drive.

I’ll let you in on a little secret. Unless you put your hard drive through a shredder, attack it with a heavy-duty magnet or run one of those crazy black-ops wiping programs on it, it’s pretty hard to lose all of the data. Most data can be recovered, it just depends on the level of effort undertaken to get it back. This is maybe not such great news for people worried about identity theft, but it’s good news for anyone who’s ever lost some precious files like our hypothetical baby pictures.

Your plan of attack is going to depend on wether or not your drive has some software issues or if it’s physically damaged. Clicking, grinding or thunking noises (like those made by Amanda’s hypothetical drive) are a dead giveaway that your drive is physically damaged. If this is the case, you want to tread carefully. Anything you do with a physically damaged drive can damage it further. If your drive isn’t making any horrible noises but it won’t load, there might just be a software issue with it. If that’s the case, skip down to my section on software options.

There are places that you can send a hard drive to where men and women in space suits will bring it into a clean room and meticulously and methodically coax the data off of it. These places aren’t guaranteed, but they do have a decent track record. They’re also incredibly expensive. We’re talking thousands of dollars. They don’t fuck around. A reputable company will accept your hard drive, run some tests on it to find out the extent of the damage and then give you an estimate. Be prepared to bend over and grab your wallet. If you decide not to have them restore your data (or they determine that they can’t salvage it), you will still have to pay an evaluation fee.

Not working for free? Damn their eyes.

If your data is that important to you, your drive is physically damaged and you know you’re willing to spend the money, I would recommend sending it off to one of these companies sooner than later. This minimizes the aforementioned physical damage. Also, anything software related that you might do with your drive can potentially make recovery a more difficult. Anything that you can do to make the professionals’ job easier is going to be reflected in how much money it costs to get your data back.

A good place to try would be Excalibur. Be prepared to take out a second mortgage on your house.

So what’s a girl to do if she doesn’t have the money to pay someone to recover her drive? And, let’s be honest here, most of us don’t have that kind of money. Well, your best option is probably to find a friend who has experience with this sort of thing and then pay them handsomely to help you.

(Geeky Girls don’t like to work for free.)

(You wouldn’t ask your friend the doctor to come over and give you a colonoscopy for free. Don’t take advantage of your friends with IT skills).

The definition of “handsomely” varies widely. I have a friend who will fix most computer problems for a bottle of scotch. Depending on how much I like you, I’d either like some cold, hard cash, trade for services (a friend once repainted our deck in exchange for salvaging his computer) or cookies. Immediate family gets helped for free as long as they don’t call me too much. Immediate family now calls Kristian directly because he’s a lot more helpful than I am.

(Hey, you get what you pay for.)

If you don’t have any friends that do this type of work (and remember, not all “computer people” have the same skill set), your next best bet is to bring your drive/computer to a Mom and Pop repair shop. I’ll be honest and say that I think that most of the services offered by the Geek Squad are a total rip-off. I’ve seen the price list at Best Buy and I was blown away by it. If I charged like they did, I’d really and truly hate myself. That’s not to say a Mom and Pop place won’t rip you off. Do some research, make sure you go somewhere with good reviews. Ask around to find out if anyone you know has a good place to recommend.

For frame of reference, I tend to charge about $50/hour for my services (and I like to keep my rates on the low end). I am in the metro-Boston area. Most places with overhead like “rent” and “payroll” and “health insurance” will probably charge you more.

As with sending your drive off, if you’re going to give it to a friend or bring it to a store, make sure you protect it from further damage. Keep it powered off and transport it gently. You don’t exactly have to treat it like a stick of old dynamite that could explode at any moment, but a little bit of caution would not be out of line.

What to do if you don’t have any geeky friends and don’t have the money to take it somewhere? Well, you could try hanging out during D&D night at the local game store, but most geeks don’t like to be taken advantage of like that. At this point, you’re probably on your own. But all hope is not lost!

If your drive is corrupted but not physically damaged, there are programs that can extract data off of it with a better success rate than if you just stuck it into another computer. You might have to pay for them, but it’s probably cheaper than the therapy bills that could result from your hypothetical progeny finding out that you lost their hypothetical baby pictures (their therapy or yours, you decide).

If you want to purchase some software yourself, Kristian recommends GetDataBack NTFS for PCs. And, let’s be honest, he already owns the software, so I usually just use his computer when I’m doing data recovery. You can use a trial version of GetDataBack, run it and if it finds anything, purchase it and enter the serial number right then and there. That way, if it isn’t going to work for you, you at least won’t be out any money.

And, if all else fails, you can always stick your hard drive in the freezer. “The freezer?!?” you say, “What makes rubbing elbows with my popsicles make it any more likely that I’ll get my data off?” There are a few theories about why this works, but the main idea is that it causes the internal components of your drive to shrink slightly which helps them to not bang into each other. The important thing to remember is that freezing your hard drive is a last ditch effort. It can cause more damage to the drive, so only do it if you know you’re never using the drive again (and why would you want to reuse a drive that you know has something wrong with it) and there are no other ways to get your data back. Freezing won’t help with a software issue, but it will help if your drive is making those horrible clicking, grinding, thunking noises.

There are some good instructions for freezing your drive here.

In short, the death of a hard drive doesn’t always have to be permanent. It depends on how much work you’re willing to do and how much money you’re willing to throw at the problem. Luck can be a big factor as well. Of course, if your drive runs long enough while it causes physical damage to yourself, you might find yourself with severely limited options, if any. Disconnect your hard drives as soon as they start clicking. And make sure that you are good about backing your data up.

To summarize:

• As soon as you realize that something is wrong with your drive, turn it off.
• Treat busted hard drives carefully and gently.
• Clicking, grinding or thunking noises indicate a hardware problem. Send your drive out for repair if you have a $1000+ to spend on it. If not, find a friend to help you. Or stick it in the freezer.
• For software problems, try a program like GetDataBack NTFS.
• If all else fails, pour yourself a glass of wine and have yourself a good cry.
• Treat this as a valuable life lesson on the importance of good, frequent backups.

Next week: backup options!