hard drive failure of sorts

[jelloshotsrule]

so i have an external firewire drive, with 2 partitions on it. the other day i plugged my isight into the drive (having no fiwi ports left on my machine) and it worked fine (i'd done it before)... after a little while, the drive started making funny noises for a bit, and then a bit later (probably just the first time i tried to access it), the drive disconnected itself and i got the firewire error message.

so, i turned it off and on, plugged it back in... only one of the partitions mount. i've restarted, unplugged and replugged many times, no luck.

so, i went into disk utility, and it is there, but greyed out (unmounted)... i click mount and it does nothing. when i try to repair the unmounted disk, it gives me an error... i'd guess because it can't mount it or whatever.

i've since tried techtool pro 4 and tried the data recovery... "resurrect protected volume-scavenge volumes for data"... "nothing found"...

so, the question is, how likely is it that the data is still there? it's some pretty important stuff that i haven't gotten to back up yet (been busy moving and new job lately)... how much would it cost roughly to have a place recover the data for me (or at least try)?

any other help would be great... thanks!

 

[Celeron]

The data is most likely there, you just can't access it any more. The drive most likely has either 1. Competely failed mechanically at which point you won't be able to get the data off in a regular manner, or 2. The partition table got blown away, in which case the data is still there and a better data recovery program might be able to help you. Being relatively new to the Mac I don't recall the name of such a program, maybe someone else around here would.

Also, bringing the drive to a professional data recovery firm is ultra expensive, much more than a new drive itself, and most likely more expensive than the data is worth.

 

[superfunkomatic]

try alsoft's diskwarrior,
it may seem like a lot of money ( i think it's around $100 CAD), but it's saved my files (and bacon) a few times. it will often fix damaged partition data and mount drives other programs will not.

 

[jelloshotsrule]

i'll see if i know anyone with diskwarrior.... sounds like it's worth a shot


as for the data not being valuable... it's work i've done in the past that i need for my show reel... so it's somewhat invaluable really....


any idea of a ball park figure of what it would cost to have a pro recover the data?

thanks all

 

[Celeron]

Thousands, easily.

 

[jelloshotsrule]

thought i'd give an update...

i bought diskwarrior (100 bucks) and it fixed the drive with a rebuilding of the directory

but i've learned my lesson (finally!!) and am getting a second internal drive to set up a mirror....

thanks for the diskwarrior tip!

 

[superfunkomatic]

glad to hear it. it's really a super program.
pass on the favour to someone else with a tech question when you can.

 

[jelloshotsrule]

glad to hear it. it's really a super program.
pass on the favour to someone else with a tech question when you can.

i already did, to someone who posted a similar problem in the last day or two! thanks again

 

[zanuzan]

Man I am really kicking myself. I had a hard drive where only one partition was showing up, so I bought techtool and started doing tests on it. It had many bad blocks and as I read the manual it said I will have to reformat.

So I hear about Disk Warrior and go buy it. I reboot off the cd and it says it cannot mount that drive or partition. Now when I reboot the entire hard drive does not mount, so I have lost access to all files.

So I am out $220 and I cannot get to my files. I should just have started saving what I could and reformated without burning a hole in my wallet!

It says nothing on the package about Disk Warrior's limitations! Caveat Emptor!

 

[hob]

Man I am really kicking myself. I had a hard drive where only one partition was showing up, so I bought techtool and started doing tests on it. It had many bad blocks and as I read the manual it said I will have to reformat.

So I hear about Disk Warrior and go buy it. I reboot off the cd and it says it cannot mount that drive or partition. Now when I reboot the entire hard drive does not mount, so I have lost access to all files.

So I am out $220 and I cannot get to my files. I should just have started saving what I could and reformated without burning a hole in my wallet!

It says nothing on the package about Disk Warrior's limitations! Caveat Emptor!

Hmmm, but if it works at least some of the time it's better than nothing!!

Hob

 

[superfunkomatic]

Man I am really kicking myself. I had a hard drive where only one partition was showing up, so I bought techtool and started doing tests on it. It had many bad blocks and as I read the manual it said I will have to reformat.

So I hear about Disk Warrior and go buy it. I reboot off the cd and it says it cannot mount that drive or partition. Now when I reboot the entire hard drive does not mount, so I have lost access to all files.

So I am out $220 and I cannot get to my files. I should just have started saving what I could and reformated without burning a hole in my wallet!

It says nothing on the package about Disk Warrior's limitations! Caveat Emptor!

i've seen people use tech tool and then absolutely nothing is recoverable. frankly, IMHO, tech tool is crappola - i've seen it crate more drives than fix them. i've even done it once myself, early on it's a pisser. good luck with your recovery

 

[pncc]

i've seen people use tech tool and then absolutely nothing is recoverable. frankly, IMHO, tech tool is crappola - i've seen it crate more drives than fix them. i've even done it once myself, early on it's a pisser. good luck with your recovery

I agree TechTool blows.

Disk warrior is invaluable for Directory damage as it creates a NEW directory from the data on your drive instead of trying to fix the broken one-what tech tool and Norton do. It keeps this directory in RAM and allows you to look at the result before you commit to the repair. That way there is NO change to the damaged drive.

ProSoft's Data Rescue is also a life saver when Disk warrior fails. It scavanges corrupt drives for data.

I am a Drivesavers (Drivesavers.com) reseller and have been told by them many times that the more you fuss with a corrupted drive the worse off you are. If you hear scratching grinding noises turn off the drive immediately!!!

That scratching noise is the drive head hitting the surface of the platters and literally scraping your data off the surface of the drive platters.

If you want to see your data again in this situation, send it to a professional. They will disassemble your drive and put the data containing platters in a functioning drive mechanism. This is expensive (?$1000/GB) but they WILL recover the data. Every client I have sent to them has retrieved their data.