The Still New What Did You Last Do Thread

[Enjay]

My main data HD has suddenly quit. When I can get the system to realize there's a disk there at all, it just hangs trying to actually do anything with it. So getting it to work for just a few hours to pull everything important/irreplaceable off there isn't even an option.

It's not a Hitachi Deskstar (AKA Deathstar) is it? I had 1TB one of them. It ran for a couple of years and then just failed in the way that (unknown to me) a particular range of serial numbers commonly did. The symptoms I experienced seemed pretty much how you described. It is apparently possible to get an adapted USB wire for a 'phone and use some codes to get the drive working again. I bought the wire (only a few pennies) and went through the procedure but it didn't give me access to my drive. I also tried a whole bunch of other "fixes" including putting it in a freezer for a while. No dice.

[NeuralStunner]

Seagate Barracuda. I'd always been a fan of these drives because they've been really dependable in the past. One I'd had across several different systems that one of my folks is currently using.

They have a direct recovery program for around $600 USD (~$50 is the non-refundable "so you're not wasting our time" fee). Unfortunately I've seen no service referrals which could drop the price at all. (Only "service plans" for new drives, hell if someone is showing that degree of forethought, they'd have backups anyway.)

If I can get through this hell I'll eventually be changing brands and replacing all of my drives.

In summary, FML

[zrrion the insect]

have you tried the put it in the freezer trick?

[Kostov]

No.

Don't put it in the freezer until you're sure you have no other free or cheap method to recover your stuff, or if you're willing to take a risk.

Carey Holzman had a video talking about data recovery and he discussed the freezer method, advising against it. It seems to be gone now, so I can't argue against why you would do that - what a shame.

[DoomRater]

SpinRite before you give up on it entirely.

That might be helpful if (as already stated) I could access the drive in any way. It simply won't respond properly (as evidenced by any bootable PE that offers a "Verbose" option).

But spinrite is LOW level access. AS in it sends the commands directly to the drive instead of going through the OS.

[NeuralStunner]

But spinrite is LOW level access. AS in it sends the commands directly to the drive instead of going through the OS.

Good for them? If other bootable systems aren't working, why should I throw $90 at a program that is most likely not going to work either? Seeing as all their reasons for not having a free "demo" version fail to mention "making sure the program can even find anything". Sorry, but they're full of shit.

[TheBadHustlex]

I'm finished. (NotSafeForAnything)

[Kostov]

Code: Select all

23:47 - undead003: hey blox can you shade my weiner?
23:48 - Bloax: sorry i can't do extremely low resolution art
23:48 - Bloax: you'll have to find a proper low-res artist for that
23:48 - undead003: good one

[Blox]

hehehehe

[Scripten]

That bowstring doesn't look very efficient.

[BouncyTEM]

Built a new computer.

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Code: Select all

Cooler Master Storm Stryker Gaming Full Tower Computer Case with Carrying Handle - White

Cooler Master Nepton 240M Liquid CPU Water Cooling System

Arctic Silver 5 High-Density Polysynthetic Silver Thermal Compound 3.5g

EVGA SuperNova 1000 Watt Modular ATX Power Supply

Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 64-bit English - OEM

WD Black 4TB 7,200 RPM SATA III 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive - WD4003FZEX

ASRock X99M Killer LGA 2011-3 ATX Intel Motherboard

Intel Core i7-5820k 3.3 GHz LGA 2011 V3 Tray Processor

Crucial Ballistix Sport 32GB Kit 4 x 8GB DDR4-2400 Quad Channel Desktop Memory

WH14NS40 16x Internal Blu-Ray Rewriter

MSI NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 GAMING 100 Million Edition OC 4GB GDDR5

[YukesVonFaust]

Played ZetaWeapons the other day, then today i played The World is Not Enough.
The first 3 missions were so fantastic.

I wonder if someone can rip the weapons from TWINE, frame-by-frame...

[Captain J]

pic of treez

those tentacle trees are surreal, i thought they were coming to me.

[Kostov]

Built a new computer.

You have so many overkill components, why didn't you go for a 980 Ti or something?

And for the love of anything, why did you not get a solid state drive?

[BouncyTEM]

Reason 1: Because I already had the 970 on hand from way earlier in the year, when my computer budget was significantly smaller and I was trying to keep my old computer relevant. I figured it made more sense to just keep that and refocus the budget on the other components than to buy another graphics card in 2015. I probably wouldn't have been able to do a whole bunch of those components at all if I went with a 980 TI at the same time.

Reason 2: Honestly? SSDs just don't appeal to me much? Yeah, I know the benefit, but they have the same problem as flash drives, last I checked; do enough write cycles to them and they just go poof. That and with their relatively limited spaces I didn't really want to do a constant fuss on where I was installing things. Agree or disagree with me if you will, but ultimately I just didn't feel the need for one.