Tips on repairing a dead hd?

[fowler.]

My gf's powerbook hd died. She didn't back it up, so I've been trying to repair it to grab her stuff before Apple replaces it.

So far, this is what I've used.

- DiskWarrior. It pretty much freezes on step 1.
- Disk Utility. Verification and Repair fail.
- Data Resuce II - all the files it pulls off are useless because it needs to be repaired.
- Target Disk mode - hardly shows up in disk utility or on the desktop.

I've pretty much exhausted all the ways I know of to salvage the data. Save for paying someone to do the same thing I did, what else can I try?

 

[CanadaRAM]

You can try rmoving the drive and putting it in a 2.5" Firewire enclosure, and see if you can get it to mount on another Mac.

Of not, it does sound like a hardware failure, your only choice may be a data recovery service. Budget between $500 and $3000

 

[yippy]

Pay someone. At that point software won't be able to save it, the hardware failure is to bad. Probably the only way to get it is to open up the hd, remove the platters, and then read the raw data, and this can only be done by specialized labs.

 

[MacMarvin]

It will sound a bit odd but a few people have had success by putting their drive in a sealed freezer bag and then putting it in the freezer for say an hour or so. Then try to get data back immediately after removing it from the freezer before it cools.