Slashdot Mirror
Reviving A Dead Hard Drive The Hard Way
An anonymous reader writes "This guy went to the trouble of swapping logic boards on a dead hard drive to get his NeverWinter Nights save games back and took photos." I would have just used a character editor to get my stuff back, but clearly, I lack the dedication this gentleman has. Regardless of reason, nice work!
RPGs: They kill. They ruin lives. Just say no.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
I was doing this stuff in the early 80's.
I even replaced platters on 10 gig drives..
Blindfolded. As did any respectable man back then. And we liked it.
Uphill, both ways, at 30 degrees below zero with 3 inches of visibility.
And we liked it.
Robots are everywhere, and they eat old people's medicine for fuel.
That's not even close to "the hard way". Every bench tech worth their minimum wage has done this same thing more times than they can count. Execpt they usually know that you need the same firmware before they start.
I'll be impressed when someone gets fed up enough to build a clean room in their guest bathroom and recovers a drive with crashed heads.
Do not fold, spindle or mutilate.
I was doing this stuff in the early 80's.
I even replaced platters on 10 gig drives..
Blindfolded. As did any respectable man back then. And we liked it.
--When I was your age, had to walk 40 miles through the freezing rain to get an operating system, with no shoes. And system calls?! Forget about it...
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
Who on earth would spend that type of effort just to recover a drive with XP on it...
Got Code?
I've usuall hear that quote with another line added. Real med don't do backups. But they cry often.
Honesty is the best policy, but insanity is a better defense.
You could walk? Lucky bastard!
You probably had what we in the industry call "Data Pressure Buildup". This occurs when bits fall off your hard disk into the casing. The controller then writes new data into the spot where the old bit fell off. However, now you've got extra bits floating around in your platter compartment.
Eventually, the miscreant data starts clogging up the pressure equalization valve and the pressure in the drive increases to a point where the heads cannot read or write anymore information and are actually repelled by the media surface -- thus the clicking sound.
A quick solution is to slightly open the hard drive so the bits can escape. Just make sure you are not near any sort of data network, because the leaking bits can escape onto the Internet and cause further damage. This further illustrates the need for good internal firewall rules.
thought you were going to say backing up is like voting - because nobody does it
bite my glorious golden ass.
It's lazy kids like you that have ruined this industry. Back in my day, we didn't have operating systems.
Hell, I had to write a WYSIWYG word processor on an abacus.
And it made me a better person, I can tell you!