Another HDD failure

[DiP]

I've not had very much luck with hard drives

On my birthday my 1TB disk died, with all my games. It's a Maxtor DiamondMax 22. On GParted using a Magic Bridge its showing as a 30mb disk. I don't really mind if I can't use it again, but it's got all my custom content(Shameless Ad) and I'd like to get some of the data back.

I just woke up today, it was like sabotage. My BIOS had a checksum error, and kept booting using the backup BIOS. After some resetting, I got past the BIOS and got another error. Disk Read Error, balls. I remove everything except the OS partition, and the disk had lost its boot flag, so I added it in again. Then I had to reinstall the Boot Manager. Windows works now, all my data is still there except all the stuff on the 1TB disk, which is lots of games and maps.

I don't really know where to begin, Google Searches have shown its a "known" error. Clinics can repair it, but for FAR too much cash. Is that really the only option I have available?

It was the only drive without redundancy

[Bandit]

Isn't it that Seagate's firmware issue?

http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=207931&Hilite=

[Moses2k]

http://ask.slashdot.org/story/09/06/02/1332222/What-Data-Recovery-Tools-Do-the-Pros-Use

You could try buying the same model drive and use its circuit board.

You might consider making an image of the drive before messing with partition tables and such, assuming you can.

Also, you should really backup anything that it would be painful to lose...in advance.

Also, consider an OS reinstall in case you're 'russed, and consider a battery backup with AVR in case it's dirty power that caused it?

[Chainsaws]

He lives on an island, it's probably a safe bet that a UPS would clean out a lot of crap from his power source. Since you're not using it for the actual battery backup you can get a pretty cheap one and it should still clean out the power adequately.

[DiP]

Thanks Guys, once again saved

It was the firmware, thanks a bunch Bandit. Everything is still there and working a charm. That's pure magic by the way.

Our power source is quite clean, apart from breezy days sometimes lights start flickering. My PSU is however a reasonably high quality one and survives well. A UPS would be handy, but I never really thought it necessary. I'd consider getting one if it was going to be helpful, shall I for the future?

I've just never...done backups. I've never had one HDD failure(apart from a broken chassis) in years of usage. I'll be more careful now though

[Chainsaws]

As I understand it the capacitor in the PSU holds enough charge for a fraction of a second so if a power fluctuation lasts longer than that it transfers through to the system, they're designed to take some fluctuations but the fewer the better for perfect operation. The capacitor in a UPS holds enough charge to keep you going for several minutes and should compensate for any over/under current by using the much larger capacitor/battery it has. If you have the cash spare and spot a cheap enough one (you only need a single output for the PC if you don't want to pay out for actual battery backup) then it's worth it if you do get lockups or strange errors/issues with your system. If it runs great apart from this HDD failure then you'd probably be wasting your money.

There may also be devices that purely clean your power supply rather than also offer battery backup but I have no idea how much they would cost; surge protection only protects you from massive bursts (and usually once only) but does nothing for normal fluctuations so is useless here - although you should probably have one anyway since nearly every socket extension has them now.

[Thebos]

...There may also be devices that purely clean your power supply rather than also offer battery backup ....

I believe you are referring to power conditioners such as this. They get fancier, but would think this does the trick fro cleaning excess noise form the power signal. Would not hurt to still have another surge suppressor in line with it.

[Chainsaws]

Yes, knew such a thing would exist but didn't know the actual name for them.

[Moses2k]

I like that he thinks he can tell how dirty his electrics are by how often he recalls the lights having flickered.