924Board.org

[Smoothie]

I have a few old hard drives that've stopped working for me over the years (one more just last week) and I'm wondering what I can do to possibly recover some data from some of them..
So far from what I've read there are at least 2 types of format - low-level format that writes over the entire drive and high-level (aka- quick) format that does not write over everything.
The idea would be to do a high-level format, then if that gets the drive back to a state where it can be recognised and read, follow-up with some type of un-delete software to attempt to recover the data. So far I'm looking at something called "Active@ UNERASER 3.0" ("Hard Drive Data Recovery & UNDELETE UTILITY").

Anyone have any ideas, experience with that or some other recovery software and/or drive recovery in general?
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"..it's made in Germany. You know the Germans always make good stuff."


'82 924T, US version, dark green metallic, 5 speed Audi 016G gearbox

[Min]

You could give http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpinRite a try I've had success with it. But it all depends on why the harddrive has failed. In past I've had success recovering data by swapping controller boards on the harddrive (assuming the controller board was the problem) There are a variety of other methods I've used in past including spraying the harddrive with the fluid from the bottom of compressed air cans (it freezes what it hits). I've also had alot of luck in the past just loading up linux and file copying stuff off of corrupted ntfs partitions. Linux sometimes has no issues accessing a partition that a windows machine is unable to deal with.

Min
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Custom means it didn't come from a box.
1980 n/a with EDIS and Megasquirt II Injection. 7 different colors and counting.

[Rasta Monsta]

Unlikey you want to hear this at this point, but with hard drives as cheap as they are currently, and all the interesting options for enclosures, there is no reason to ever lose data.

My fave new enclosure is THIS ONE.
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Toofah King Bad

• WeiBe (1987 924S 2.5t) - 931 S3

[tj924]

Try putting one in a sealed bag in the freezer for a few hours, then immediately connect it to a PC. This can sometimes give you enough time to rescue the data before it dies again. There are also professional data recovery services available that can do som pretty amazing stuff if you're willing to pay them enough.

A format & recover is unlikely to succeed if the HDD is dead or dying.
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TJ
Silver '82 924 NA 5-Speed Manual

[ideola]

Are these boot devices? If so, don't boot from them, but just connect them as a secondary drive. Most of my hard drive problems have been from bad sectors (hardware issue) that might prevent recovery of whatever files may be stored on that sector, but most of the other content can typically be rescued.
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erstwhile owner of just about every 924 variant ever made

[Raceboy]

The best HDD recovery utility that I have dealt with is HDD Regenerator. It recovers all bad sectors in 60% of cases and it does NOT destroy your data. It costs some money though (50$ IIRC).
_________________
'83 924 2.6 16v Turbo, 470hp
'67 911 2.4S hotrod
'90 944 S2 Cabriolet
'78 924 Carrera GT replica
'84 928 S, sold
'91 944 S2, sold
'82 924S/931 "Gulf", sold
'84 924, turbocharged, sold.
http://www.facebook.com/vemsporsche

[Joes924Racer]

YeaIve had success doing what ideola did making one a master and the other a slave it boots
off the master then you can switch to the slave.
and maybe see everything that the drive has on it.
That should work
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1979 porsche 924 Na
1980 porsche Turbo 931GT Replica
Have u ever driven a turbo.

[marky522]

an even easier way is to download a program called BartPE, download it to a good pc with a cd burner, then tell it to scan for boot files on the good puter, once thats done tel it to burn a disk, take that disk and put it into the cd-rom of the broken computer, and boot to it (you may have to change your boot order to boot to cd before HDD) what this program does is puts an entire operating system on a CD, it allows you many useful features, if you put network drivers on the cd you can connect to a network and transfer your files that way, you can put drivers for a cd burner on there and burn files to a cd. Once you make a disk you can use it for any puter, I really like it you can run CHKDSK from it also to repair some HDD errors. Another option is to download the diagnostic tools from the HDD maker (ie. maxtor Seagate etc.) and run those they will sometimes repair the errors, remember to replace the drive even if you do regain access to a drive, get your info and get into a new drive.

Mark

[gohim]

The most common hard disk drives today are SATA and IDE interfaced type drives.

Both Low Level and High Level Formating are only done on older style MFM, High Density MFM (I don't remember what that was called), and some earlier SCSI drives.

Low Level Formatting is placing/writing the actual drive track placement/location information on the drive platters to enable the computer to High Level Format the drive to be able to write and recover information written on the hard drive platters. IBM-PS based computers with IDE drive controllers do not have access to IDE Low Level Formating.

High Level Formating, which is what you are doing with a normal PC with IDE or SATA hard drives is naming the tracks and sectors already marked during the Low Level Formatting process. IDE and SATA drives come from the manufacturer with the Track and Sector information already written on teh drive platters.

Low Level Formating destroys all the information on the affects platters, as it remarks and may relocate tracks and sectors. During a High Level format, information at the location being formatted can be recovered and relocated with some alternative formatting programs.

If you damage the Low Level Formating on an IDE or SATA hard drive, the only way that it can be repaired is to send the drive back to the manufactuer for service. Most manufactuers will not try to recover your data, they simply send you an exchange drive, and wipe the data (hopefully) on your drive when they service it. I don't know if they still do it, but for a while, Western Digital advertised that they had a data recovery service for WD drives that were sent in for repair. I don't know if WD still offers this service, and I have never heard of another drive company offering the same or similar service.