Help with hard drive

[tom4bren]

The drive lights, spins & chunks. Haven't talked to the Tech again. My original assumption is that I got hit by a virus. I haven't checked the internal drive (I saved it since it was only a year old), it may still work but I only used it for programs & not data. I just want my pix back. The drive is a write off as far as I'm concerned - I'd never trust it again.

[nfpgasmask]

The drive lights, spins & chunks. Haven't talked to the Tech again. My original assumption is that I got hit by a virus. I haven't checked the internal drive (I saved it since it was only a year old), it may still work but I only used it for programs & not data. I just want my pix back. The drive is a write off as far as I'm concerned - I'd never trust it again.

You know, I have seen viruses do a lot of things, but to this day, with 14+ years of IT experience behind me, I have never encountered a virus capable of damaging hardware.

Bart

[tom4bren]

"I have never encountered a virus capable of damaging hardware."

I know (despite all the urban legends). Virus was just my first thought when the PC crashed. I pretty much ruled that out as soon as I found out that the Maxtor was Tango Uniform. Even if the internal drive is OK, it's still wierd that the PC crashed simultaneous with the Maxtor crash. Just lucky I guess.

[tom4bren]

Well, the IT guys gave up with no success. They think the read head is bad & my only option is a recovery service that can actually remove the disk & read it with another device. Any further advice?

[kodiak]

That sucks man. You can tell when a head goes by running defrag. You can see a band of blocks missing. Was he able to see the drive at all? If he wasn’t there’s a possibility that it’s a corrupted fat table. If that’s the case then a recovery service might be able to fix it with out to much trouble.

[tom4bren]

'Puter won't even recognize the drive. It's an external Maxtor but they removed it from the housing & tried to run it as an internal.

[nfpgasmask]

Yeah, that sucks man. You might have to send it in to a place like OnTrack (http://www.ontrackdatarecovery.com/). It all depends on how much this data is really worth to you now. I am pretty sure a data recovery house will be pricey.

Bart