Huge Mistake
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@Jimmy9008 said in Huge Mistake:
@pmoncho said in Huge Mistake:
@WrCombs said in Huge Mistake:
There's apparently a theory that you can "freeze a hard drive, and get it to read again"
Anyone ever hear of this?Yep. Spinners only. I've been successful 3 out of 12 times. It only works when the drive heads or a platter is "stuck"
Wrap in saran wrap and Freeze for 2-3 hours, give a decent love tap along the side of the drive on the floor and plug it in to see if it will start.
Yep, I did this too. Problem is as it heats up the drive fails pretty quickly. So, if you have lots of data to get off the drive, with little time... good luck with that!
Good point.
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@pmoncho said in Huge Mistake:
Yep. Spinners only. I've been successful 3 out of 12 times
Thought I was the only one that ever used that trick.
I've a had similar success rate. Just make sure when you power it up, you get what you need, because it may not happen a 2nd time!
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@JasGot said in Huge Mistake:
@pmoncho said in Huge Mistake:
Yep. Spinners only. I've been successful 3 out of 12 times
Thought I was the only one that ever used that trick.
I've a had similar success rate. Just make sure when you power it up, you get what you need, because it may not happen a 2nd time!
I got away with it once. I stood it on it's side and blew a window fan on it once it started to heat up.
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@WrCombs said in Huge Mistake:
There's apparently a theory that you can "freeze a hard drive, and get it to read again"
Anyone ever hear of this?Yup. Many a time.
Freezer bag, remove as much air as possible using a straw, deep freeze for 24 hours.
Use same techniques as liquid nitrogen cooling (overclocking) to keep the drive from perspiring, and go.
Depending on how bad things are, we can get 5 minutes to 30 minutes before it outright dies.
We get a mandatory recovery list from the client so that we can head straight to the important stuff to grab.
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Update: Got the Drive recovered after many failed attempts. It's at 75% right now. only cost $50 for a month subscription. Looks like we are back in business.
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@PhlipElder said in Huge Mistake:
@WrCombs said in Huge Mistake:
There's apparently a theory that you can "freeze a hard drive, and get it to read again"
Anyone ever hear of this?Yup. Many a time.
Freezer bag, remove as much air as possible using a straw, deep freeze for 24 hours.
Use same techniques as liquid nitrogen cooling (overclocking) to keep the drive from perspiring, and go.
Depending on how bad things are, we can get 5 minutes to 30 minutes before it outright dies.
We get a mandatory recovery list from the client so that we can head straight to the important stuff to grab.
That's not a bad Idea,
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@WrCombs said in Huge Mistake:
Update: Got the Drive recovered after many failed attempts. It's at 75% right now. only cost $50 for a month subscription. Looks like we are back in business.
Excellent! You're a better man because of this!
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Update to my Update:
None of the files that I recovered are correct. I'm missing Huge portions of all files recovered. -
@WrCombs said in Huge Mistake:
Update to my Update:
None of the files that I recovered are correct. I'm missing Huge portions of all files recovered.Why not restore from the backup?
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@Obsolesce said in Huge Mistake:
@WrCombs said in Huge Mistake:
Update to my Update:
None of the files that I recovered are correct. I'm missing Huge portions of all files recovered.Why not restore from the backup?
What backup ?
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@WrCombs said in Huge Mistake:
@Obsolesce said in Huge Mistake:
@WrCombs said in Huge Mistake:
Update to my Update:
None of the files that I recovered are correct. I'm missing Huge portions of all files recovered.Why not restore from the backup?
What backup ?
Then obviously it being just a PC with no backup, what could be so important? Are you saying they have LoB data on a PC and no backup? If it's a LoB data-containing device, why was no backup done prior to any technical work?
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@Obsolesce said in Huge Mistake:
@WrCombs said in Huge Mistake:
@Obsolesce said in Huge Mistake:
@WrCombs said in Huge Mistake:
Update to my Update:
None of the files that I recovered are correct. I'm missing Huge portions of all files recovered.Why not restore from the backup?
What backup ?
Then obviously it being just a PC with no backup, what could be so important? Are you saying they have LoB data on a PC and no backup? If it's a LoB data-containing device, why was no backup done prior to any technical work?
Cause I'm an Idiot - What else do you want to hear?
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@Obsolesce said in Huge Mistake:
@WrCombs said in Huge Mistake:
@Obsolesce said in Huge Mistake:
@WrCombs said in Huge Mistake:
Update to my Update:
None of the files that I recovered are correct. I'm missing Huge portions of all files recovered.Why not restore from the backup?
What backup ?
Then obviously it being just a PC with no backup, what could be so important? Are you saying they have LoB data on a PC and no backup? If it's a LoB data-containing device, why was no backup done prior to any technical work?
Had I have taken a backup I wouldn't have had such a hard time dealing with this entire situation.
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Just said to my boss "I should have made a back up and did things a little different. "
and he legit looked at me and said
" Nah, making a backup is just a waste of time, You dont need 2 copies of it, Just do it on a completely different PC before you touch the customer PC." -
Ouch, sorry to hear all this. In future, even something as simple as Robocopy can save your rear and its free. I would also make a list of things to do to help yourself.One of them should be take backups of anything important. Figure out or ask for ideas on solutions as there are tons of options.
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I use Todoist which is browser based and free to keep organized. I have lists of things in there for home and work I want to remember. I set it to open in my browser every time it opens so I always see it. Just an idea.
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@WrCombs said in Huge Mistake:
Just said to my boss "I should have made a back up and did things a little different. "
and he legit looked at me and said
" Nah, making a backup is just a waste of time, You dont need 2 copies of it, Just do it on a completely different PC before you touch the customer PC."He's not wrong. But it's having some procedures in place that will minimize problems.
First one would be to know if the company is responsible for the customers data or not. If you're not, well then backup is probably not needed.
Second thing would be to have rules on what kind of work you do on what kind of computers. For example not doing upgrades on machines that are old and out-of-warranty. I know places that don't do upgrades at all. If you need something better, more storage etc - you're buying a new machine.
It's all about cost versus benefit. Should the customer be paying $400 in work for upgrading an old PC when a new one is $600? Should you mess around spending hours trying to take a copy of important files or should your policy be to have the customer make a copy of what they intend to save and you just reimage everything instead?
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@Jimmy9008 said in Huge Mistake:
@pmoncho said in Huge Mistake:
@WrCombs said in Huge Mistake:
There's apparently a theory that you can "freeze a hard drive, and get it to read again"
Anyone ever hear of this?Yep. Spinners only. I've been successful 3 out of 12 times. It only works when the drive heads or a platter is "stuck"
Wrap in saran wrap and Freeze for 2-3 hours, give a decent love tap along the side of the drive on the floor and plug it in to see if it will start.
Yep, I did this too. Problem is as it heats up the drive fails pretty quickly. So, if you have lots of data to get off the drive, with little time... good luck with that!
For that method to work, you really need to be able to hook it up in the freezer. I've seen someone with a mini fridge on a workbench before just for this.
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Everyone makes mistakes. But the past experience, if not forgotten, is a guide for the future.
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@WrCombs said in Huge Mistake:
The software I installed was a free Trial
it wont let me actually recover anything until I pay for it...:man_facepalming_light_skin_tone:
- Wanting to use only Free fully functional recovery software means your data is not valuable to you.
I have recently tried the following data recovery tools:
Piriform Recuva
Cgsecurity TestdiskOn a formatted partition with good results. But some files were corrupted or lost.
- There are many more free programs most are a cut down version of a commercial package.
A few recover a limited number of files for free or show you what could be recovered if you Pay for a license.
Based on my experience, though those tools are paid, they are more professional and find more good results than free ones.
I would recommend to you:
iBoysoft Data Recovery
EaseUS
Disk DrillPlease note that If you look for an unformat option if you have not written to the formatted partition since it happened (although windows will write to the drive anyway ). Because how successful they will depend on how much has been written to the drive since formatting. Therefore, you'd better use another hard disk eg USB, SATA, or over a network to a hard drive to recover the data.
This post will be helpful: https://iboysoft.com/data-recovery/recover-data-from-formatted-hard-drive.html
Moreover, depending on the value of data ask for professional help or carry on recovery yourself.
