Warcraft II Forum
General => General Discussion => Topic started by: Swift on March 20, 2016, 11:09:27 PM
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I had a moment of intense frustration with my laptop being slow and slammed my fist into the keyboard. Needless to say, it was pretty stupid of me. A show of my bad luck though, apparently I hit the machine right where the harddrive resides and completely broke it. The laptop itself is of no importance to me, however, the data saved on memory in the harddrive is of great importance to me. A few marketing spreadsheets with thousands of entries that I would like to recover. Most of my data is backed up on a usb/email/external hard drive. But I am short a copy of 2-3 files that I would rather not to have to recompile and enter - such a long dreadful task.
Anyway, I'm guessing my only potential remedy is to ship it to a data recovery company, and just skip taking it around to local repair shops, as I bet they'll just unknowninly mess around with it until the disks inside destroy the data.
Anyone who has any experience with a situation like this I would greatly appreciate your insight / referrals to top tier data recovery companies, and I realize they are relatively expensive but just about any cost would be worth it to me. I'm currently in talks with Advanced Data Recovery out of Sacramento, CA and another company out of Seattle, WA but I just don't kno what route to go and I don't want to pick a b level data recover company who's going to mess something up in the process of attempting to get the data, then failing to get it and making it impossible for the next company to try.
Any help appreciated!
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If the data is that valuable to you, just send it to a reputable company, may cost more but probably better than having headaches later...
Sent from my Motorola DynaTAC 8000X using Tapatalk
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next time punch the wall 8)..always save to a usb.
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Try the cheap way first swift. Order a USB and sata adapter hook it up and plug in the HD if that worked good get your files or send it away.
You could also use a Live CD known a trinity and make that laptop a file server and try to transfer off the files through the network.
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This is why you use an online service like dropbox to insta back up files like those....
Try to get a quote first. Many companies do this online and the service does not come cheap.
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I had a moment of intense frustration with my laptop being slow and slammed my fist into the keyboard. Needless to say, it was pretty stupid of me. A show of my bad luck though, apparently I hit the machine right where the harddrive resides and completely broke it.
Lmao.
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I had a moment of intense frustration with my laptop being slow getting owned in War2 and slammed my fist into the keyboard.
You got owned by Yamon in War2 again?
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Try the cheap way first swift. Order a USB and sata adapter hook it up and plug in the HD if that worked good get your files or send it away.
In my experience this hardly ever works when the hdd is physically damaged, especially if it's making any kind of sound.
I called a local data recovery place once with the same problem and LB's right, it's hella expensive. I think the guy said there were two options, an "easy" way and a more complicated way if the easy way didn't work, and it was like $400 for one and at least $800 for the other? But he sounded confident that the data could be successfully recovered in almost any situation.
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Try the cheap way first swift. Order a USB and sata adapter hook it up and plug in the HD if that worked good get your files or send it away.
In my experience this hardly ever works when the hdd is physically damaged, especially if it's making any kind of sound.
I called a local data recovery place once with the same problem and LB's right, it's hella expensive. I think the guy said there were two options, an "easy" way and a more complicated way if the easy way didn't work, and it was like $400 for one and at least $800 for the other? But he sounded confident that the data could be successfully recovered in almost any situation.
Yes he can spend less then 20usd to see if the device need to be sent away for expensive recovery.
He can verify if it physically screwed HD or not with this step here.
1. Download Trinity.iso CPR software.
2. Use yumi to install to usb.
3. Plug Internet cable to router and pc.
4. Boot to USB and choose file server.
5. Login to it from different PC and see if it reads the files.
If works congrats and when done with this step practice cloning then HD and deploying that image. If not sorry about that bill man.
Edit swift: Does the laptop boot at all? Say operating not found? Or just doesn't start windows at all?
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Had this happen this morning .....os not found I'm like hdd is dead!!!! But my pc is like idk wierdest shit I ever seen gotta play with the ram if it foesnt boot...anyhow did that booted right up :/ bad mobo for me :( so kicked the shit out of it!!!!(I didn't) take hdd out put in a desktop see if it slaves cheapest route
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Had this happen this morning .....os not found I'm like hdd is dead!!!! But my pc is like idk wierdest shit I ever seen gotta play with the ram if it foesnt boot...anyhow did that booted right up :/ bad mobo for me :( so kicked the shit out of it!!!!(I didn't) take hdd out put in a desktop see if it slaves cheapest route
Model and Laptop type?
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Try the cheap way first swift. Order a USB and sata adapter hook it up and plug in the HD if that worked good get your files or send it away.
In my experience this hardly ever works when the hdd is physically damaged, especially if it's making any kind of sound.
I called a local data recovery place once with the same problem and LB's right, it's hella expensive. I think the guy said there were two options, an "easy" way and a more complicated way if the easy way didn't work, and it was like $400 for one and at least $800 for the other? But he sounded confident that the data could be successfully recovered in almost any situation.
The Data Recovery companies I've talked to this far have told me that the worst thing I can do is try to turn the hard drive on in anyway.
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Try the cheap way first swift. Order a USB and sata adapter hook it up and plug in the HD if that worked good get your files or send it away.
In my experience this hardly ever works when the hdd is physically damaged, especially if it's making any kind of sound.
I called a local data recovery place once with the same problem and LB's right, it's hella expensive. I think the guy said there were two options, an "easy" way and a more complicated way if the easy way didn't work, and it was like $400 for one and at least $800 for the other? But he sounded confident that the data could be successfully recovered in almost any situation.
Yes he can spend less then 20usd to see if the device need to be sent away for expensive recovery.
He can verify if it physically screwed HD or not with this step here.
1. Download Trinity.iso CPR software.
2. Use yumi to install to usb.
3. Plug Internet cable to router and pc.
4. Boot to USB and choose file server.
5. Login to it from different PC and see if it reads the files.
If works congrats and when done with this step practice cloning then HD and deploying that image. If not sorry about that bill man.
Edit swift: Does the laptop boot at all? Say operating not found? Or just doesn't start windows at all?
It turns on and goes to a black screen saying "No bootable devices"
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Cool if you want to pull the hard drive, and put it back in I would try that first. Listen for weird noises from the HD also. I once hit my laptop and windows 7 would keep blue screening on my win 7 until i reformatted.
But yea you need the data thats the important task. If you got 15 bucks to spare order an adaptor for you HD try that before you spend 400$ +.
Idk how technical you can be so if you want the free way to verify I can give you a very good written tutorial maybe walk you through the steps just let me know.
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compaq cq5700 desktop,simple mobo am3 stock stuff ...got it for the case drives anyhow but have added on to it,3 core going to max it to a 6 core when prices hit..pci adapter for the vidcard ...sounds like a bottle neck but has helped alot, its already overkill for all the games i play since im old school.
what i like about it this pc is 60-90 watt and quite. got a opeteron that is 200+watt :o.
total price 40$ so far lol im cheap ;D
and another thing if you drink at the pc and listen to music watch ya beer!! how my other lappy died :o party is over >:( >:( >:( >:( >:(
hope ya get your shit back man!! fuck anger always screws shit up :'(
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40w5coVTGJE (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40w5coVTGJE)
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what i reckomend*** for swift is business machine use something like fedora runs from a usb if usb 2.0 always use 2 drives keeps the bottle necks at bay gone drinking!!if you got some mental shit u got to learn to trick it. lol like anger may be your gene mine is depression i got to trick myself out of it.whats causing it u got to talk to your Gods*maybe to much testostrone u alpha's got also
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An article you might want to read swift...
Hard-drive crash! A tour of a data-recovery lab
Lincoln Spector
By Lincoln Spector on May 9, 2013 inBriefing Session
When a hard drive crashes and there’s no backup of critical data, what are your options? There’s really only one — and it could be costly.
You send the broken drive to a company that specializes in data recovery; here’s what happens when it gets there.
A video tour inside a data-recovery lab
It’s often said that nothing is certain but death and taxes. To that I would add hard-drive crashes. It’s especially maddening that mechanical hard drives always seem to fail at the most inopportune times. SSDs and flash drives aren’t immortal, either.
In a perfect world, a dead hard drive would be of no real concern. Our data would be backed up on other media or in the cloud. But in reality, we often fail to make timely backups, backups themselves fail, or the drive crashes just as we finish that vital report. In those cases, recovering critical data could well be difficult and expensive.
When simply kissing your work goodbye is not an option, companies such as Flashback Data (site) will attempt to recover files trapped on a broken drive — for a price ranging from hundreds to thousands of dollars. Recently, Flashback Data vice president/co-founder Russell Chozick gave me a video tour, via Skype, of the company’s Texas-based facilities. He showed me the equipment — including a cleanroom and special workstations — used to pull data off dead drives, smartphones, and other devices. (Please excuse the images — they were captures from my Skype-based tour.)
And, of course, we discussed the many issues involved with recovering lost data.
In addition to recovering digital data, Flashback Data works with law-enforcement agencies on data forensics.
Note: This story is not a review or endorsement of Flashback Data. There are many companies in the data-recovery business; two of the best-known are Kroll Ontrack (site) and DriveSavers (site). Also, objectively comparing the quality of these companies’ services is exceptionally difficult — unless, possibly, you can throw many thousands of dollars at the project. The Pentagon might have the budget for that sort of testing. I don’t.
You should never need data-recovery services
Companies such as Flashback Data exist because of that previously mentioned, all-too-common flaw in our digital life: that a great many of us have poor habits when it comes to protecting our data.
“We try to educate people” about backup, Chozick stated. But there’s a huge number of too-casual or misinformed computer users. Chozick noted instances where users bought external drives for backup purposes, then moved — not copied, but moved — their files to the “backup” drive. That’s a new one to me, and I’ve covered digital technology for many years.
No one will hold a club over your head to make you change bad backup habits (not literally, anyway), but the cost of recovering critical documents might. What’s the personal price for losing treasured family photos? Or the professional cost of losing something your boss wants next Monday?
Backing up your data is dirt-cheap insurance when compared to the alternatives. According to Chozick, pulling files off a hard drive typically runs from about U.S. $300 to $1,900 — if the damage is something relatively simple, such as a faulty hard-drive logic board. That might not seem like much, but there’s no assurance that usable data can be recovered for any cost.
Pulling information from a dead hard drive
When a faulty drive arrives at Flashback Data’s lab, it’s assigned a project number and labeled. Then the diagnostics begin. (This procedure and the ones that follow are undoubtedly common to most data-recovery companies.)
Engineers start with the described symptoms. If the user complained of a clicking noise, the drive goes to the cleanroom for inspection. Otherwise, they simply attach it to a computer and see what it needs.
Flashback has a class 100 cleanroom (Wikipedia info), but it’s not what you probably imagine. It’s not a room that’s kept completely free of dust; you don’t need to suit up and walk through an airlock to get in. Rather, the room is equipped with several laminar flow benches (Wikipedia info), shown in Figure 1, that provide a clean environment around the drive and the gloved hands working with them.
AirClean 4000
Figure 1. Rather than a completely dust-free cleanroom, Flashback Data uses special workstations to examine drives.
After diagnosis, Flashback Data sends the customer an exact quote. If the drive must be opened (see Figure 2) in the cleanroom, the price goes up considerably.
Open hard drive
Figure 2. If a drive's external circuitry is working, the next step in diagnosing a broken drive is exposing the platters.
In most cases, recovering data means fixing the drive — temporarily. Flashback Data keeps racks and bins of old hard drives and tape drives around for spare parts. (It only recently dumped its Intel 8086–era, 20MB hard drives.) Once patched together with working parts, the drive is connected to a computer and the accessible files removed.
Flashback Data sends recovered files back on external media — usually USB hard drives or flash drives. Customers can provide their own return media.
Not every data recovery has a happy ending
There’s no guarantee that usable data will be recovered. If a drive is too damaged, the data is effectively gone. Also, if a drive was encrypted and the customer doesn’t have the encryption key, recovery becomes extremely unlikely. Many hard-drive manufacturers sell self-encrypting drives, with the decryption key on the drive’s circuit board. In those cases, data-recovery requires the original, working circuit board.
Not all forms of password protection prevent data recovery. “We can crack the [four-digit] passwords on iPhones pretty quickly,” Chozick stated.
Physical damage can leave a drive permanently unreadable. Dropping the drive can shatter glass platters, and no one is going to get magnetic bits off glass shards. If the read/write heads have scraped the magnetic coating off the platter, there’s nothing to recover.
Overwriting files — intentionally or otherwise — renders the erased bits unreadable. Chozick (who, you’ll recall, does data forensics for law-enforcement agencies) claims that overwriting a sector once is just as secure as the fabled Gutmann method, which rewrites sectors 35 times. That wasn’t always the case; however, today’s drives pack data so tightly there’s no room for ghosts of previous bits. (That was the biggest surprise of the interview.)
Growing market: recovering data from flash media
Old-fashioned, mechanical hard drives are becoming a smaller and smaller part of Flashback Data’s business, according to Chozick. With the rapid adoption of flash drives, SSDs, and smartphones, people are finding new ways to lose their data.
Recovering files from iPhones can present a challenge because of their combined software/hardware encryption. “We can’t take flash memory straight off an iPhone.” They have to effectively repair the phone to access its information.
That’s not the case with all phones, however. Chozick showed me the flash-memory chip removed from a damaged Android phone (Figure 3). The chip was connected to a makeshift circuit board via a mass of hand wiring (Figure 4).
Disected Android
Figure 3. Recovering data from broken smartphones, such as this Android, is a growing business.
Hand-wired memory-chip adapter
Figure 4. Flashback Data's custom circuit board, used for reading a smartphone memory chip.
SSDs can be difficult because the data is intentionally scattered throughout the drive’s memory cells. The drive’s controller uses wear-leveling algorithms to keep one part of the memory from wearing out prematurely.
“We don’t see a lot of worn-out [flash] drives,” Chozick told me. “But when it wears out, it wears out. Error correct can’t handle it anymore.” Fortunately, most problems with flash storage are the result of damaged supporting electronics — not the memory cells.
Whether you trust your files to a magnetic platter, flash memory, or both, your data is never really safe. Back it up regularly, and you will never have to ask a company such as Flashback Data whether the cost of getting some or all of your data back will be in the hundreds or the thousands.