Posted: 8/5/2006 1:30:57 AM EDT
My PC's power source fried like sardines in a pan and I could even see the flames in it. I quickly pulled the power cord out but damage was already done.  Anyways... today, after getting a new power source and assessing the damage I found three of the five hard drives dead. Of course (Murphy never fails), the two most important (larger) were among the dead ones.  I wonder if by replacing the controller board they could come to life again. Two are IDE and one SCSI. Anyone knows a good place that either repairs HDDs or pulls the data from them? I have tons of data (photos, documents, etc.) that were not backed-up. OK... you can flame (put intended) me for that. Backups should be safer, but the two largerst HDDs died at the same time. Computer is operational again, running Win 98SE, since the HDD with the XP died. Thanks in advance. |
You could always attempt the data recovery yourself. There are some forensic toolkits disk images you can boot from that might work. www.porcupine.org/forensics/tct.html http://www.phenix.bnl.gov/%7Epurschke/RescueCD/bootcd_1.3_forensics.iso.gz Good bootable os you might be able to mount the other file systems and extract data with: www.ubuntu.com/ If your hardware controller card and bios can recognize the drives, you will probobly have no problem mounting the file system in ubuntu and extracting the data. |
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Thanks for the ideas! That's the scary part. The disks are not even being recognized. I think the power source's burn created a surge that also fried the HDD controllers. I can boot from the other remaining disk but since the BIOS does not see the dead ones the OS also does not see them. Today I'm trying mounting them in an external USB adapter I have laying around here. First lesson learned is the backup disk cannot be in the same PC as the working one... If that does not work I'll have to go after a data recovery service and check how much they charge... It could be as simple as plugging a new controller and pulling everything out... but they may want a hefty $$$ for that... |
BACK UP TO AN EXTERNAL SORCE. Now that the rant is over, agreed data recovery is exspensive. I used Computer sonics in Tukwila for my only need. It cost me around 125.00. This makes an external hard drive reasonable. 250 gigs can be the best option. I would like to ask why in the heck did you have five drives in one computer? 
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PCs is one of my "hobbies". I used that PC to boot different OSs and work as a file server for me and my wife. I have (had) two SCSI and three IDE drives there. The SCSI are more a legacy. I was using them in a previous PC and when I assembled this one years ago (2000) I decided to keep them running. One IDE was running Win XP, the other Win 98SE and I was starting to prepare the third to instal Linux. A couple years ago I bought a device (Trios II) that let me choose which HDD to boot from and configure master-slave setups between the IDEs. The SCSI were more for backups. The power source seemed adequate (350W) and The HDD I was preparing for Linux was also the backup of the other two IDEs. Since I have been using the one loaded with XP more often than the 98SE it had more updated info. Then of course, Murphy striked again and wiped the two HDDs containing the most important data. The one with XP and the backup one. |
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It might be the motherboard thats bad... Gotta check all angles on this. Do the hard drives power up at all? Try using different molex power cables on the hard drives... If they power up, set the IDE/SATA drive to master and attach it to the computer alone to see if it gets recognized. Another option is to get an external USB HD enclosure and see if it gets recognized. Win98/win98SE WILL need a driver install. win2K / winXP will not. Also, you might try flashing your BIOS with the same binary or an update if they have one then see if the drives are found |
| I found them very helpfull, but I have been using them for upgrades and whatnot for about 10 years and they know me by name. They are sometimes sloooooower than I like but there is nothing worse than having a sick computer. Call them Mon thru Sat. (they are open on sunday but no tech support). |
Yep... tried all that. The PC is powering up again with the new power source and booting up normally with the survivor HDD. All peripherals (sound card, network card, etc.) seem to be fine. It simply does not recognize the failed HDDs. I also tried to put them in the external USB adapter to no avail (even hooked the external USB adapter in a different PC). I noticed, however, that the disks are still spinning. Therefore, if definitely appears to be a HDD controller problem. Interestingly enough, the survivor HDD is the one containing the least important data. I wrote to Western Digital to see if they sell only the controllers. Let's see what they say/advise. |
Thanks! I'll give them a call or stop by on Monday. The Lynnwood store is very close by. |